dipity tips - Over 15 Ways: Marketing Poetry Collections & Art in the 21st Century: A Poet's Jumbo FREE Outline Guide to the Writalaxy : Brain Dump 101

where to sell + share your work further or what has epically failed and kinda worked for vforrow and read rando tidbit shares about her along the way plus what things she has not tried yet

---

1. ONLINE VS PRINT-BASED ADS

When I started trying to market my predominantly rhyme-based eBook series The Jazzy Hummingbird Project, I tried advertisement placements through Poets & Writers (see Exhibit A below) and Carve Magazine half-page ads. I didn’t see any eBook sales increase whatsoever from this and took a loss, but still, it was a cool learning experience because it was the first self-made ad I designed with my titles on a bookshelf for one in Carve and the other was a cover as shown below. Print ads can cost hundreds of dollars even for a super small square, but Carve Magazine was fairly reasonable if I recall. Looking back I would’ve invested in a few more online-only based ad squares, banners, or spaces instead, but websites like Poets.org, Poetry Foundation, CLMP newsletters, or massive traffic spaces of course have a higher placement fee.

[Galactic Bird Brain’s eBook book cover print ad in P&W.org Jan/Feb 2022 issue]

There are quite a few literary journals and magazines that are significantly lower in cost when comes down to renting an ad placement whether it be in print or via an online banner. You can find more via Google Search using the “advertise with us” keywords alongside “lit magazine”, “poetry magazine” etc. Here are examples of others I haven’t visited in a bit so not sure if anything changed — not all are quite cost friendly but just sharing the following that come to mind:

• https://solsticelitmag.org/advertise/

• https://therumpus.net/advertise/

• https://www.carvezine.com/advertise

So would I recommend advertising through online or newsletters instead of print? Well no, because I have yet to try an online banner or newsletter-based ads performance myself so can’t give input fully there. I know poets who had their book in dipity’s free book recommendation print section did see an uptick in purchases and a few acquaintances saw online ads did certainly help a bit though. I think everyone’s experience is and will be different and of course, ad design to the catch the eye and word choice is another factor in the ad. You should def stick to a strict budget and I think $200-500 for a small square is far too high and some full-page full-color ads range even $1,000-2,000. There are several sites where you can reserve an online ad space for a fraction of the in-print magazine ads or even Facebook and Google Ads could be budgeted way below those colossal price points. I’ve briefly tried setting up Facebook (Meta) business ads in the past, but ended up deleting it early.

2. INDEPENDENT AUTHOR GROUPS & NETWORKS

I can’t recall how much it was but a few years ago I joined The Independent Author Network’s (IAN’s) basic support membership directory plan and they’ve been around while — I believe the Bronze plan but I could be wrong — haven’t requested any updates to that directory page in a while. They create a page on their site with links to where others can purchase each book and would retweet for a while your work. Their Silver, Gold, and Platinum plans I think include Instagram and a few other benefits such as how many book titles you can list. Other groups and networks exist like this for self-published authors, but I did not see an increase in traffic or book sales at the time. Still, it was another great learning experience and it’s a lifetime membership and can aid in search results for your work in Google etc. I discontinued my pen name and Tiny Koala Doodle Co. website also to focus on Dipity Literary Magzine, but did reserve my domain name though.

3. SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING

Now, I’ve definitely tried Instagram and Twitter (X) ads for different spans of time, days, etc. I did see increased engagement on some, but stopped using it around 2022 due to cost. The boost and ad fees can add up quickly. I never saw a huge conversion rate in engagement, but it can from time to time help expand reach. I know quite a few musicians use it, artists and poets still. We’re all aware of the mind-boggling IG algorithm being pretty messed up, but that doesn’t mean you should stop sharing your work because it’s only getting X amount of likes or followers. We should create and write because we enjoy it and it helps us and others. Years back I was too numbers-focused myself and just stopped caring about it.

In regards to conquering the cray notorious IG algorithm, I have no intention of doing so anytime soon and time can be spent elsewhere. There are so many so-called hacks and “do this and do that reels” — tough ya to decide what to change or do and adapt to changes, but I think you should just continue to do on your preferred platforms what you’re doing and pretend the numbers aren’t there.

I will say I’ve certainly seen more reading engagement via e-mail through this Substack than Twitter (X), Threads, and Instagram combined which is why I pivoted to using it more to share dipity updates. I am also seeing a bit more engagement on YouTube nowadays too. While I try not to focus on numbers, you sort of have to when running any publication environment in order to stay afloat without any significant funding and to try to gauge how effectively you’re able to help promote the work of others. Nearly everyone has an e-mail address nowadays and quite a few who submitted to dipity to the online section aren’t social media users either.

It absolutely takes time to develop or grow an audience no matter which platform(s) you choose and consistent posting or releases, but stick to just one primary and have a secondary space or backup space for reaching and sharing in case one vanishes or changes drastically. I haven’t been good about sticking to schedules but just try to do things as soon as I can and as much as possible.

4. SHARE THROUGH PODCASTS

As those of you know I started the Hummingbird Blink: Nectar Poetry podcast through Anchor (now called Spotify Podcasts) which then led up to the creation of Dipity Literary Magazine. While running a podcast can be a lot of fun, it’s tough to maintain long-term. You’ll lose listeners again if you’re not consistent. I never had a schedule for the Hummingbird Blink podcasts either and never enabled the subscription fees, last year we had 19 listener countries and a total of 2.5K listens in 2023 which is pretty cool. I know some unfollowed the podcasts since I haven’t released any new episodes since Oct. 2023 and a bit further back on the sister podcast Moon Milk because I would like poets instead to submit their voices or even video to the podcasts instead primarily aside from reading the Symphonic Challenge announcements and interviews. We won’t add music to those as then they’ll extend beyond just Spotify, such as Apple through the linked RSS Feed.

Now, how do you get on a podcast? Quite a few podcasts are 100% free to listen and partake in. You just have to take a chance via e-mail or DM and reach out. On Instagram, you’ll come across a lot of poetry or community-focused podcasts. If your work covers a certain topic or theme e.g. health, look for podcasts that highlight that too. Find them on Spotify etc and look them up and send a message as others had done so when Hummingbird Blink initially started. We have since then transitioned to a Submittable bucket to collect spoken word going forward. Remember you can read previously published poetry or share through just the podcasts, community bonus sections, and interviews. Some other lit mag. presses and journals do have podcasts too out on YouTube so leave a comment to try and establish contact as well to be a guest.

If you want to start your own podcast on YouTube or through Spotify podcasts, totally go for it! There are a few other free or inexpensive podcast platforms. Through Spotify podcasts (formerly Anchor) it was 100% free to set up though.

5. LINKAGE THOUGHTS

I’ve seen quite a bit of traffic through the link bios on Instagram. I began using Linktree but later migrated to Koji because I loved the integration of video and sharing spoken word or even a Spotify song at the bottom. At the moment you can no longer make new Koji accounts since Linktree just acquired them I believe last year and changes are happening due to this, but I definitely loved Koji. However, I know some authors just drop a direct individual link to their Amazon author page or B&N or to their own website which works too.

I recently just switched over to Hopp bio links for dipity as a trial basis basically. So far it’s ok, but of course, to add more link shortcuts and display the feed of recent publications there’s an additional fee — so using the free basic version for now. Instagram has a feature to input multiple links without a link in the bio platform, but I prefer the organization of link systems like Hopp, but definitely if you want to drive traffic to one shop of yours or book release keep it simple with one link and you can always edit and swap a link or add up to 5 individual ones I think. If you have multiple, reorder them appropriately to what you want others to be directed to first. I liked seeing the country metrics on Koji and the backend stats. Another alternative would be to create a landing site page with links through your current website with more buttons and it could be a hidden site view page only accessible via direct URL.

Some link in bios have cool drop-down video features so hypothetically you could for instance via Hopp have a drop-down video of you reading from your poetry book on your own YouTube channel.

Here’s what dipity’s Hopp link bio looks like for now:

https://www.hopp.bio/dipitylitmag

So the link in bio landing setup you have in social media bios can be another marketing tool.

6. COLLABS

Collabs are tough too and not for everyone perhaps. But collaborating with a poet on a poem post on for instance IG no matter how many followers they have can lead to potential growth or reaching others when you join forces over time. I’ve seen poets do spoken word collabs, calligraphy-styled collabs, and tag team poems from start to finish. I myself have done under 10ish poem collabs in the past few years. I wouldn’t pay at all to collab with anyone and the amount of scams has astronomically increased in society overall. I’ve seen some instances where poets collaborated on a poetry collection together too which can be both fun and challenging to intertwine writing and art styles.

7. WORD OF MOUTH & NETWORKING

This is what I believe still works in today’s world — traditional word-of-mouth marketing. One person hears about something then the next person shares it and so forth — a chain begins. A lot of writers and artists hope to go viral or obtain overnight success, but in reality, most of us must take our own pace and stick to our style and it may take months to expand your reach or audience for your work or several years even. I won’t repeat known names but countless authors and creators had their work rejected at different points of their life. I myself have been rejected by a few book publishers and decided to just self-publish every scrap of writing I have. Networking with others in the poetry community helps and you can establish meaningful friendships along the way — working side by side with others who are just as passionate about art and writing as you are is awesome.

8. MOBILE APP CREATION

If I could afford to, I would love to build my own poetry book, poem photography prompt database mobile app, or poetry social media app from scratch. I had thought of initially going into Packaging Engineering Design at UW Stout where I was accepted, though the actual first major I ever went to school briefly for was Mobile App Development & Programming. but I ended up pivoting to Technical Management and then Adult Learning Design Theory Fundamentals aka “Instructional Design” & Technology via BGSU. Anyways some poets totally have full-fledged poem database apps for their poetry books or collections. An example app is by GLOWWAVE LLC of Courtney Peppernell’s poetry and prose book Pillow Thoughts.

I have tried just for fun some pre-built app creators since my code and script knowledge is quite limited and rusty. You don’t need extensive programming knowledge to deploy a mobile app nowadays there are a lot of drag-and-drop options out there. The downside of most of these pre-built templates is there are additional service fees and you’re working with a template quite a few others are using already and most ones I came across were shortcut orientated.

I did test an app launch of some kind a few years back but the developer fees to keep an iOS app in the Apple Store are insane, whereas Android is reasonably cheaper.

If you ever did want to create a mobile app of some kind for your work, then to eliminate the development headaches my advice would be to hire a company that specializes in this. If you look closely at the developer or company creator names on apps, you’ll be able to discover from there who helped publish or design the mobile app, but again app development and maintenance can burn a hole in your pocket even if your app is free for others to download.

9. WEAR YOUR POETRY

With tons of wicked cool print-on-demand options out there, you could wear your poetry on a hoodie or T-Shirts. If you’re an artist consider to begin wearing prints of your work. Your book covers can easily be scaled up or down to be printed on T-Shirts, mugs, and tote bags nowadays. I haven’t tried every PoD provider in existence, but the ones I have utilized from in the past are Amazon Merch, Sellfy, RedBubble, Printify, Printful, and Social Print Studio. I’ve looked at a few others too not listed. I wasn’t a fan of Printful or Printify because if you don’t price things appropriately, then you’ll lose money and some PoD’s charge you upfront a card first to fulfill the order plus their calculators are not 100% accurate. When dipity started we had briefly used Sellfy but they had sadly a monthly shop fee I believe $20. More recently we have a Fourthwall shop open for dipity and will open a second linked online shop for the chapbook to a new distributor for printing and TBD potential Amazon listing creation. If I had to choose a backend storefront and didn’t have to worry about costs, then I’d prob go with Shopify, but have been a longtime user of Wix and their other store apps.

RedBubble has always had really good-quality stickers and is reliable, but most PoD providers take a huge chunk out of the profit margin. I’m still a fan of Social Print Studio too and have done wood prints and button prints in the past of my art through them. The sunflower print is an example (an inverted drawing of mine is from 2017) and I got it printed a year or two after. Social Print Studio has a mobile app and some other really cool print products that make great gifts for fam and friends btw. Another one I wanted to try was called Jukebox Print based out of Canada. It’s nice to offer prints and stickers to accompany plus highlight elements of your poetry collections such as the cover design or certain micro poems, themes etc.

[Social Print Studio Screenshot]

[Jukebox Print Screenshot]

With stickers, it may make sense to just print your own via a small printer or to order in batches to get discounts sometimes. I used to own a small portable sticker maker rolling machine a few years back too, otherwise, if you set up an Etsy shop integration with Printful or Printify you’re looking at some insane sticker prices no matter the size 3x3, 5x5 and so forth. It is typically better and less costly if you learn to make and produce items yourself, but you still have to budget appropriately.

Etsy is still a wonderful platform to sell signed copies of your work if you don’t have a website yet. The downside of spaces such as Etsy is that akin to IG accounts sometimes are closed for obscure reasons as some reports exist online and you don’t own that space yourself per se. I don’t know anyone who has had major issues with Etsy but there’s a technical learning curve to whatever platform you choose to sell and promote your work whether that be WordPress, or elsewhere.

Here are some examples of Etsy set ups:

I know poets such as Ally Loyns (@ ally_author) on Instagram author of A Generation of Sunflowers and Bloom who was in issue no. 1 of Dipity Literary Magazine and poet Cary Gary ( @ creating.cary) in issue no. 2 and on episode no. 111 of Hummingbird Blink leverage Etsy for example. Also, please check out their work!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/genOFsunflowers

https://www.etsy.com/shop/CreatingCary

I really love handmade pieces and things created from scratch, but printing and shipping everything yourself is quite difficult in the long run especially if it’s non-local so you may consider setting up at least one merch or swag gift shop for your work or reach out to local printing companies where you live. You’ve just got to try and see what works best for you gradually. Again if it were possible I would prefer to have an in-house printing setup for all dipity publications, magazines, handmade chapbooks, etc. but we’re leaning on two external PoD systems more so as it’s just more efficient at this time when getting physical paperback and hardcover copies shipped outside of the U.S. too.

10. BOOK BUNDLES & GIVEAWAYS

Now I have yet to host a giveaway myself, but have luckily won a few through entering via IG comments and blog/site comments. Giveaways are a phenomenal way to get your poetry book into the hands of others. I have seen a few poets in the community on Instagram tag team them or do a group giveaway basket of their most recent poetry book releases together collecively. I’ve only tried Rafflecopter, but have seen via search Gleam and Troppe for giveaway systems. I recently discovered Fourthwall has a giveaway feature too so may try it one day. Tons of other giveaway tools exist so yeah it’s a fun way to share your work once in a blue moon. I never had much luck with Patreon, but I know quite a few writers and artists who have accounts set up.

Consider doing a book bundle of your collections if you have more than one work, a series or adding some bonus fun items to the giveaway such as a shirt or limited edition sheet of stickers you’ve designed that tie into your poetry. I came across a few poets in the past who would print their poetry or book covers on postcards or do handmade poem card designs as well.

11. IN-PERSON POP-UP EVENTS

Besides online meetups and social media, there are a lot of cool poetry club reading events that you can start to search for, attend both locally and outside of where you are. Often there’s a fee to set up a table with your books, prints, etc. at an art fair etc. As mentioned on the Hummingbird Blink podcast, I have come cross quite a few poets who set up their typewriters on a small desk in public spaces or get permission near businesses, cafes etc. and start typing poetry on the spot which is very cool too and another way to essentially market your work and help others by gifting custom poems outside of your poetry books. On social media in different parts of the world, I’ve seen poets leave one copy of their book in public spaces too or even poetry on cards, posters and inside small envelopes in parks with their Instagram handles. To discover events you definitely have to invest some time into some online digging, research or even ask others in the community to attend some with you. There are several local radio stations too where you could inquire how to be a guest to share a recent book release or even your spoken word poetry on it.

12. FORMATS, DIGITIZATION & AUDIO

Additionally, I would highly recommend that you offer your book in multiple formats, audio, eBook, and paperback or hardcover. The first place I ever published my work was through Lulu.com. I think they’re all out there Salty Cartoons, iDraw, except for Oritri Island (lol I had some interesting names for things back then). In 2014 I published a collection called Rattled Poetry and then took it off Smashwords, shortly after that published a random collection of poetry most from my high school days. which most of what you’ll find in Chirp on Wood.

I have an old Kindle Fire Reader, but have used the mobile and desktop versions of the it in recent years. However, based on the last 2-3 years I would say most still prefer physical print copies of books overall — still though I know quite a few have resorted to eBooks to save bookshelf space, etc., or to read on the go.

I had considered going through a platform called Findaway Voices to get an audio version created of one of my books which I discovered through Smashwords. If I recall you have the ability to pick a voice artist or reader voice for your book. Although I have yet to invest in an audiobook service, you could go through Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), or even a few music streaming publication platforms that let you publish audiobook or spoken word piece soundtrack albums — just ensure it’s NOT a platform that requires a monthly or yearly fee where if you stop paying the fees they take your spoken word or audiobook down. Often times you can find the names of platforms various artists use to publish spoken word by visiting their YouTube TOPIC artist channel description section underneath. You could also sell your own audio voice files out on Etsy I believe, and a few other shop platforms I’ve mentioned in this article or through some site shop apps. I have yet to use ACX but have a narrator voice account not author account as I was curious how narrators and voices are selected or submit their voices to books on the backend.

Again you could leverage your own podcast named after a book of yours and create an audiobook series that way too. Spoken word reels and posts on IG, TikTok, etc. aside from podcasts are a great way to practice or to begin becoming comfortable with reading your poems with your voice before creating an audiobook version of it. Some poets have put a few spoken word pieces on SoundCloud, but there’s a free storage limitation.

13. JOIN MORE ONLINE COMMUNITIES

When I started writing online around middle school days, there was this super rad community called Figment and it helped me get a bit more comfortable with sharing my writing publicly aside from one of my childhood pen pals where we used to swap fiction stories and our writing idea projects and give each other feedback. I recently was looking back at old emails and it was around 2012 when I had attempted publishing an eBook poetry collection through Smashwords, but ended up taking it down and then republishing in 2014 then came back in 2019 to poetry. Figment was an awesome writing community and loved the comment feedback features. I spent quite a bit of time back then creating covers for others, picking fonts through community contests, and editing public domain stock photos. I also tried Teen Ink back then too.

While Figment no longer exists, there are tons of other writing communities, some free or fee-based virtual workshops or even poetry Live Story reading events you can partake in to exchange knowledge to gather feedback or read poems from your poetry collections further.

[ Wattpad Screenshot ]

I was also a long-time writing / art community member of DeviantArt, but ended up deleting my account a few years back and recreated one fairly recently just to see if it was still the same. Plently of online poetry platforms and a few mobile app poetry clubs exist. I no longer use WattPad, Poem Hunter, AllPoetry.com or Poetizer, and a few other ones, but from time to time read online poems for fun. Keep in mind if you ever share a snippet of your work through online communities such as Wattpad I wouldn’t advise sharing the entire work or collection, but a preview here and there to get feedback on it gradually.

Most of you are aware of Chill Subs and they have a cool directory of not only submission opportunities but poets, writers, artists from around the globe. You can add your publications, show the book covers, links, chapbooks, etc. for others to view. I would recommend creating a profile on Chill Subs and taking the time to fill or add what you can — some may totally discover your work on there — bookmark ya and published examples get linked back to lit mags, journals etc.

Of course, when you submit to lit mags such as Dipity etc. and in the event your work gets accepted, others are bound to read your bio section where you list you’re able to list book publications too — your work may receive a drastic increase in exposure dependent upon print run numbers, site traffic, how many ways they can read or access the lit mag = digital, print, both, etc. etc. and whether they share and promote out on their social media channels.

14. HIRE SOMEONE

Depending upon how you go about publishing your next book, an option always of course is to hire someone to help with establishing the foundation of your marketing plan + printing materials.

I prefer to do the work myself because it is fun for me to learn on the go, but also has no extremely massive out pocket costs unless I make a massive mistake — if you’re looking for platforms to tackle your design work and need an artist, marketer or designer database there are sites out there like Reedsy, 99 Designs, Fiverr, UpWork and DesignCrowd. In the past, I’ve applied myself as a designer and have been on some of those sites entering the design contest challenges.

I haven’t heavily used Reedsy myself yet, I was introduced to it by poet Yves Hartleigh

Yves

Came First on Substack author of February Blues and the Magic Fast Guitar Man and Don’t Wake the Poets. I think the Reedsy discovery features such as reviews, upvotes etc. are pretty neat.

15. MAKE A DIGITAL BILLBOARD AD

Yes, I have totally reserved and tried digital billboards for advertising what I used to call Forrow Ink. There’s a campaign platform out there called Blip Billboards in the U.S.. I think for a few days to run and reserve a digital billboard in a few different states it was under $100 or $75 total a few years ago and that was reserved in advance a few weeks before Christmas. If you use Blip it is ideal to have a website established for your poetry or a business-focused one, because they didn’t allow personal ads and I think it’s still that way. To design your digital ad you can import a design of yours from i.e. Canva following their size or dimension requirements. Otherwise, they have a team that can help create your billboard ad for a fee. To save money I ended up creating my own advertisement in the size they had listed. Some cities or heavily concentrated areas such as NY or NV with more billboards are higher so I did a test run not locally at first. I would say the campaign failed because I didn’t invest in enough days and my design could’ve been improved back (nor my face just a blue hummingbird) then to highlight the words further and on top of this didn’ get to see it due to some life events, but it was still an awesome learning experience. The best part of Blip is that you can set a fixed budget.

16. SUBSCRIPTIONS & NEWSLETTERS

It’s valuable to concentrate on establishing an e-mail list of readers and supporters of your work to send reminders out on releases especially if you’re doing a poetry book series and to market where others can purchase it. Share about your newsletter or blog through reels, posts etc., start a Substack (add links to the bottom or mention where others can purchse your book) just keep trying to market it, do interviews, share your publication experiences. The impact you want to create with your work is all that should matter — don’t define success by X amount of followers, likes, views, and don’t compare yourself to others’ paths.

Oops! I think I’ve nearly hit the Substack recommended e-mail viewing length cap (got a banner message) and wanted to cover other experiences further so will leave it quick with a quite dark side movie rec and if you don’t like horror flicks sorry. And this ended up being super long sorry again, but hope you got something from it.

MOVIE I WATCHED RECENTLY

Evil Dead Rise (2023) on Amazon Prime: My VFORROW Rating 4.5 out of 5 and I have watched this more than once.

Yes, I do watch a lot of horror and sci-fi flicks it’s a known fact and prefer classics. My faves in horror are prob Cube (1997), An American Werewolf in Paris (1997), and a few vampire, crocodile, shark, and Paranormal Activity ones — may share more later. Anyways take care guys. I didn’t go over everything of course step by step. If you want me to clarify something or would like something else covered in a bonus VFORROW dipity tips article, leave a comment, and will try to answer.

Thanks so much for reading! Remember to support Dipity Literary Magazine further you can restack this, visit the bottom of our website, our gift shoppe, or pledge support to this Substack.

— VFORROW