World Class Poetry Blog

More Great Ways To Market Your Poetry Online
20 March 2008, the poet @ 7:48 pm

Two days ago I offered a few tips on how to market your poetry online. Generally speaking, most of the marketing tips have to do with after you get your poetry published, either in an off line poetry journal or an online journal. But a poet doesn’t necessarily need to be published in those journals. They can do a lot to increase one’s reputation as a poet and the credits are always nice, but many fine poets don’t seek publication in journals. Nevertheless, the marketing tactics I shared then can be used by poets who publish in journals and poets who do not.

Today, I’d like to share a few other ways you can promote your poetry online. There are more ways than simply what I mentioned in that blog post. Below are a few other ways to market your poetry online:

• Publish your own e-zine (also known as newsletter) - A newsletter doesn’t have to be real elaborate and it doesn’t have to have a large circulation. You can put a sign up box (or opt-in form) on your blog and take subscriptions. In your e-zine, you can list the places your poetry has been published, sell your chapbooks, list your latest blog posts (as I do), share poetry writing tips, and even promote and publish the poetry of others. There is a time commitment to doing this, of course, but you can pick up a few more chapbook sales with the right effort.
• Start a website - You have a blog, right? Why not a website? Again, it doesn’t have to be huge or elaborate (like mine). You can set up a five-page website that includes your poet bio, lists your books and chapbooks for sale, showcases a handful of your poems to whet people’s appetites, features a few audio recordings and videos of you reading your poems, and asks people to opt in to your e-zine. Real smart, real short, real promotional. You can do it for $10 per year (and the time it takes to learn how to use HTML and CSS to design your website).
• Really Simple Syndication - RSS is a newfangled technology that lets people subscribe to your content and read it in their e-mail box or in a feed reader like Google Reader. I have an RSS feed for this blog. Look on the left sidebar at the top, under where it says “Syndicate Me”, click the top button with the words “RSS Feed” on it and you’ll be taken to a page that allows you to choose your feed reader. It’s not as difficult to understand as you might think. Google Reader is free.
• BlogCatalog - BlogCatalog is a blog directory. It’s just one of several (believe me, there are a ton of these). List your blog for free and network with others. It’s real easy to promote yourself through BlogCatalog.
• Facebook and MySpace - Both social networking sites make it real easy to set up a page. They are free and you can network with other poets, add them as friends, interest them in your poetry and drive them to your blog. You probably already know how to find them. If not, google “Facebook” and “MySpace” separately. You’ll find them.
• MetaxuCafe - MetaxuCafe is a community of literary blogs. You can join the network. List your blog for free and attract new readers of your poetry blog.
• Blogsboro Poetry Club - Billy the Blogging Poet has some great ideas for marketing poetry. He even has a network of bloggers that share a blog and all you have to do is post a few lines of your poem then link your post back to your blog. You can’t post an entire poem at Blogsboro Poetry Club. You can only post a part of a poem, but that’s what it’s for. It is to pique the interest of readers so that they click the link and go to your blog. Good tool.
• Write Reviews - By reviewing poetry and publishing your reviews in journals and other online publications, you can attract a whole new audience to your website and blog. There are many places, both online and off line that accept reviews. Rattle, a place where I recently published a review, is a poetry journal and they accept reviews. You can also submit a review to World Class Poetry.
• World Class Poetry Toolbar - You can have your blog listed in the World Class Poetry Toolbar. Totally free. No obligation. Just fill out the contact form on my website and let me know that you’d like to be included in the toolbar. I’ll check out your blog (blogs only, no websites) and add it to the toolbar so toolbar users can access your blog. Of course, you can download the toolbar yourself and access other poetry blogs.

So there you have it, 9 more ways to market your poetry online. And that’s just a start. But isn’t it nice to know that you have so many ways to market your poetry online?

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