Before I got into writing books and short stories, I was really big into poetry. I even have a poemhunter account (that I no longer use and haven’t used since I was a teen) filled with poetry.
Since my family knew I was writing, even read some of my work, my mom helped me self-publish a book of poems for my thirteenth birthday. A friend of hers bought it and gave it to me as a present, and I remember taking it to school and showing it off to everyone. Though my friend mostly did that. One of the teachers even announced it at a seventh grade assembly where the entire seventh grade student body found out about it. Kinda felt famous in the moment haha.
But for some reason, at the end of the school year when I went cleaning out my locker, it was nowhere to be seen. I kept it in the the entire time since then, but it somehow got lost.
The poetry collection was originally self-published on Lulu, and my friend and I later started publishing poetry books on there as well (just a few). But recently, I got a little sentimental and wanted to walk down memory lane. When I looked it up on Lulu, and then on Google (to see if it would show with my name), I found a link to Amazon. And then from there, found out that it had two selling options.
I find it so hilarious that it’s on there, but even more hilarious that it’s for sale for almost thirty dollars. Like who would buy it, especially at that price?! I mean, maybe if I were famous? Hahah
I honestly don’t care if it’s up there, I just wanted to share the crazy discovery.
Yeah. Truthfully, I don’t see it as frustrating because I don’t care about what happens to it. I don’t really think anyone would want to buy a 30+ dollar poetry book that was written by a twelve year old, so it’s not bad that it’s up. But it is awesome to have found it on Amazon for such a high price. Ridiculous, hilarious, and awesome haha.
So, it’s kind of in-between in awesome. I had to beat out a ton of others to get in there, and the books can be bought, but it’s not like a competition against adults where this child gets in.
I hope that if anyone ever does buy it, the proceeds go to you, not some third party that’s trying to profit off your childhood efforts?
I had one of my poems published in a collection loooooooong long time ago. Back then I never dared to even think of myself as a writer but I was on this poetry website and posted my poem for critique and saw that they were offering to print and publish a collection. I think it was sold only to the authors of those poems so it’s not like anyone made big money from it aside from the first on-demand printing. But what I find super cool about it is that my poem is the first in the collection so I’d like to think that whoever put this book together liked it. I was still an ESL student back then so I felt proud from that tiny little achievement… that I had to pay for.
I think the hardcover copy cost me about $30. I still have it. It was totally worth it.
Update: I tried looking for it and no luck. It’s somewhere in the house an I won’t rest until it’s found!
Haha perhaps. Then again, if I were to publish, it’d be under a different form of my name. The poetry book is under “Alicia Meyers” but I write under “A. M. Meyers.” And, like here, I’d probably be open about it and whatnot.
That’s so cool!
Haha, technically, but I don’t consider myself as one.
Truthfully, I don’t care for it nor would it matter at this point. I don’t have access to my Lulu account. It’s long gone. And, on top of that, I moved away so the mailing address is different and because I don’t have access to the account, I can’t change it. The Amazon account it’s affiliated with my personal account either, so most likely it’ll go to a third party account. But eh. I don’t mind. It’d be different if it was with something I made recently, but since I don’t have access to anything nor do I really care about the project itself, I’m fine to let it stay where it is and not cause much of a fuss over it.
I kinda fear that, but not as much with stuff that I don’t really care about. But I also know that plagiarism is inevitable anyway, no matter how you publish. There are also certain steps to get rid of stolen works depending on where it is.
My poem is # 1 of 224. However, I found this edition listed on Amazon and from reviews it looks like everyone that ordered the book had their poem on the first page. Hehe. It makes me feel a bit less special but at the same time, I appreciate it even more because it meant each copy was one of a kind. They printed and bound each copy individually! Wow.
Published in 2004 by International Library of Poetry (it was on poetry.com - no longer).
It doesn’t have an ISBN so I think it was never meant to be sold publicly (not sure how this works).
Cool thing is that it explicitly states that rights to individual poems reside with the artists so I can still claim my poem. Yay.
One of the teachers even announced it at a seventh grade assembly where the entire seventh grade student body found out about it. Kinda felt famous in the moment haha.
Like who would buy it, especially at that price?! 
Awh, that is so cool! Such a huge achievement!
