by Paul Rance

Created on: May 19, 2010

Okay, you've created a fine collection of poetry, but will anyone buy it? Not if you don't promote it!

There are many ways of promoting your work, and the internet has really helped open up countless avenues for anyone looking to promote themselves. But that means there is more competition.

It is sensible to use a variety of ways to promote yourself, and local newspapers are the best place to start. A local newspaper will often be receptive to a poet publishing their work because it's in their interests, too. They would look rather foolish if they ignored you, and you 'made it' regardless. Local radio and local television stations may be interested in your poetry collection, too - especially if a local newspaper has already featured you.

There is the situation of how you time your approach to the local media. If you approach them without yet having a store stocking your collection, or your collection is not available for sale online, then you miss out on initial sales. Arranging for somewhere to sell your book, booklet, or e-book through the web is not too difficult. It can be as basic as a web page with an image of the cover of the collection, a brief description, and the address from where the book can be bought from through the post. If you're more confident, you could get a sales page accepting credit cards and PayPal, for instance, and, if you have an e-book, make it available to download. A bookstore, of course, may not be interested in stocking your collection until you have had some publicity.

The ways that you can promote your collection on the internet can include social networking sites like facebook and MySpace, but, best of all, is Twitter. If you have a large following of people who are interested in poetry, and even a dozen people pass on news of your collection, then that could mean, effectively, a little advertisement to dozens of people at least. YouTube and MySpace are also good sites for promoting your poetry via videos (or just audio on MySpace) - if you're confident about reading your work. You could, indeed, make a collection available on CD or DVD, and make it a complete multimedia experience.

If you are confident about reading your poetry to a live audience, then this is probably the best way of all of selling your work. But get a friend or friends to help sell your books/booklets, and just focus on putting your poetry across to people.

You will need to hustle to sell your work, and have the self-confidence to promote it. It's obviously essential to be a good poet in the first place - don't forget to work to achieve that before anything else. To begin your promotion, you should get your own website, and then you are in control of promoting yourself and your work.

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