A poet has sold more than 500,000 copies of a book of poetry that she first self-published in 2014. Toronto-based Rupi Kaur, who posts much of her poetry on Instagram, is top of Amazon US’s poetry books charts, ahead of last year’s Forward prize winner Claudia Rankine, with her collection Milk and Honey. Her poetry features violence, abuse and femininity, and was first self-published almost two years ago, before being bought by Andrews McMeel Publishing. It is now in its 16th printing.

In an interview with the Guardian, Kaur – one of a number of poets who have been dubbed Instapoets because of their online postings - said she self-published her book because submitting her work to anthologies, magazines and journals had met with little success. “There was no market for poetry about trauma, abuse, loss, love and healing through the lens of a Punjabi-Sikh immigrant woman,” she said.