LOSE THE SHAME

“Do you … help poets to grow?”

“The world of poetry is beyond my sphere of knowledge,” said Linda from Substack, “but I would say the growth tactics that will work for you are probably the same set of best practices that work for any publisher: consistency, authenticity, and shameless self-promotion.”

⏰ Consistency: sending a newsletter at least once a week

🚫 Authenticity: no copy and paste from chatGPT 🤢

😎 Shameless self-promotion: if you love what you’re writing about, tell some people about it! Literally one person at a time.

Yes, hitting post to 50 or 100 or 1000 followers is always an option, but think about DM’ing or emailing or calling people in a non-gross, non-spammy way.

I mean, I’d feel shame if I just randomly selected people from my address book and just randomly hit up people I haven’t spoken to in years. That’s gross. Don’t do that.

But for me, this can look like, “hey friend, remember that thing we talked about a few months ago? It’s been rattling around in my head, and I finally wrote a post about it – I think you’ll appreciate it.”

Your style and vibe may vary, of course, but give it a shot.