Promoting Poetry on Triond

I’m genuinely glad that I’m not a poet.  I write a lot here, and I do it for reasons that would make me a genuinely miserable poet.  I like a lot of people reading my stuff.  For me, the money I make here is a welcome supplement, but it’s all about seeing my name up in the pretty lights.  I like being on the hot content list, and watching the views grow exponentially.  I realize these are shallow attributes, but I’m OK with that.  It’s a hobby.

But not writing doesn’t mean that I haven’t experimented some.  I put together a couple of poetry anthologies a while back that were marginally successful (but enjoyable), and just recently decided to help a Triond buddy of mine promote some of his work.

It should be noted that when it comes to promoting my work, I’m as good as nearly anyone on the site.  I’ve had a number of articles collect  into six digits in views, and get thousands of views a day on my page.  So when I offered to help my friend (Bullwinkle Muse… an absolutely brilliant poet) I figured I would do fairly well by him.  I collected 5 of his best pieces, and published them as a small collection.  And threw my entire arsenal at it.  Every gun I had, I used.  All told, nearly 10 hours of actual time.  The end result?  400 views.  By way of comparison, I have an Oprah bashing piece that I’ve done only rudimentary promoting on that is already well into the thousands.

I knew the problem wasn’t with the promoting; as I said, I used every avenue at my disposal.  That’s when it occurred to me… conventional promotion doesn’t work on poetry, because poetry just isn’t conventional.  You can’t approach it as such. 

So I decided to hit it from a pure marketing point of view.  The goal is the same; get people to read the poems.  Several problems there; the laws of supply and demand are in full effect here.  The supply far outweighs the demand.  The internet is choked with the product, and to be blunt, most of it sucks.  Everyone in the world seems to think they’re a poet.  I think it’s a safe assumption to say that most Triond writers don’t have the time it takes to go out and dig for good poems to read. 

So how do we solve this?  For the most part, it seems that the method of choice is reciprocated comments and views.  I have noticed that a good percentage of her comments are generic, and based on their content, the posters don’t appear to have done anything more that skim it at best.  ‘nice poem’ is hardly constructive feedback.  But if that’s the only way to garner views… it’s a bit of a catch 22.

And as I discovered, spreading your work doesn’t work all that well, either.  There are some spots where you can post links to your poems, which I will list at the end.  But they don’t, in all honesty, do much. 

What I’ve come to realize is that, contrary to conventional article marketing, the key for poetry is networking here on Triond.  The answer, while this will no doubt scare a number of you, is (at least in part)  the Triond forum.  I know, I know.  Everyone thinks the place is swarming with trolls and degenerates.  Not much discussion of actual writing takes place there.  There are a large number of people who drop in, see something offensive, and leave.  But what they don’t realize is that it’s a young forum, and still evolving.  There are trolls, but they are, if dealt with properly, only a minor annoyance.

If the forum is to be a writers’ forum, them the writers need to take it over.  Through my digging, I have found over a thousand Trionders who deal mostly in poetry.  There are only a couple of dozen forum regulars, and most of them are writers who come to blow off steam.  And most are perfectly able and willing to co-exist.  The forum belongs to us all; we just need to use it. 

I would suggest a few guidelines:

• Don’t feed the trolls.  They’re like mosquitoes, and may annoy.  But if you ignore them completely, they do go away.
• Understand that networking is a two way street.  You reap what you sow.
• Give real feedback.  Help each other become better; don’t simply strike egos in the hopes of a returned generic stroke.
• Start threads.  Talk about subjects you want to discuss.  A forum is a place to exchange ideas… kind of hard to do that if no one throws them out there.
• Understand the nature of a thread.  Trionders cover the whole globe, and as such are on a different times.  If you want to start a thread “Does anyone know a good place to post romantic poems?”,  you may not get a response right away.  But through the course of the day, people will respond.  It’s more like email than chat.  If someone trolls it, ignore it.  Look for others’ posts.  talk to each other.
• Network!  one, tell others to come.  Two, don’t come just looking for views.  Get to know, at least in passing, your fellow writers.

The bottom line is that there are some stark realities here.  Spreading your work is amazingly time consuming, and mostly ineffective.  The secret here is that if you can’t get the work to consumers, you have to bring them here.  In order to do that, there has to be something to attract them.  Poetry pays nil here, so the only product to really offer is the viability as a poetry site.  A good forum will do that.  Writers are like moths;  drawn to the light.  But to build that, we all have to pitch in.

Just food for thought.

Poetry forums:

• MyPoetryForum!

• About.com Poetry Forum

• Poetry Forums

• everypoet.com

• WILD POETRY FORUM

• The Poet Sanctuary