Chapbook vs zine vs pamphlet

All three are small, cheap, stitched or folded booklets. A chapbook is literary, usually poems or prose; a zine is self-published and can be about anything; a pamphlet is defined by its argument, often political or informational. The overlap is real and the edges are blurry.

The chapbook is a physical tradition as much as a literary one: short, cheaply printed, and made to be handed around.

Telling them apart
	Chapbook	Zine	Pamphlet
Content	Poems, prose	Anything	Argument, information
Made by	Writer or small press	The maker, always	Anyone with a cause
Tradition	Literary	DIY / punk	Political / civic
Length	20 to 40pp	Any	Often very short

Where they meet

A self-published poetry chapbook made on a photocopier is, physically, a zine. A political pamphlet of poems is all three at once. The words describe intention and tradition more than object: the same stapled booklet can be any of them depending on who made it and why.

Which word to use

If it is literary and you sent it to a press, call it a chapbook. If you made every copy yourself and it is personal or eclectic, zine is honest. If it exists to persuade or inform, it is a pamphlet. For the literary form, see what a chapbook is.