Ev Bogue"Do You Need to Promote Your Writing?"
T. asked this question in a recent blog post at The Micropublisher. "How do I push words?" is a question that I've asked myself recently.
I've tried a number of experiments over the last year.
For a number of months, earlier this year, I retreated from the public. I went to a metaphorical cabin in the woods and only wrote what I truly thought mattered. Then I put my work up, and hoped that it would find its way to the people that it would touch.
I found that I wasn't reaching enough people this way. My audience kind of plateaued during this reclusive phase. Being a recluse was beneficial, because it allowed me to turn internal, and focus on the work and the edit. I cleaned up my writing, learned to tell from experience, and rediscovered alignment in myself and my work.
By August, I realized that it was time to bring more people into my work. So, I began reaching out, marketing to the world again. As T. referred to it: promoting.
Marketing isn't easy. I used to believe that the way to market my work was to bomb social media with my blog posts. Over time, I realized that this didn't work as well as I thought it did. So, I stopped do this.
Instead of pushing, I listen. Instead of promoting, I linchpin discussions around the work.
As in many things, I see this work as an experiment in using strategies. If a strategy doesn't work, I untether from it.