But it has to be done.
When I was a child, I was taught that talking about yourself was considered bragging and thus discouraged. I always felt guilty talking about my accomplishments, and I still do today.
Because of my upbringing, I had a difficult time promoting the blogs I created after retiring. I thought once I wrote and published a post, that was it. It didn’t take long to realize no one was reading my posts or even aware I had a blog. I was even too shy to tell family and friends.
I soon discovered that writing a blog wasn’t hard; it was promoting it that was. That’s probably why I never earned any money. Then, I started writing on Medium in addition to my blog.
For the past couple of months, I have been wracking my brain for ways to promote myself and my articles. I then read a story by Adrian CDTPPW, in which he describes the stress he encountered in his efforts at self-promotion. His story is worth a read for all of us:
I have been going through similar experiences to promote my work. I have tried sharing on X, only to have one or two people read the articles I shared. Now that X is going down the tubes, I will no longer share on that platform.
I have had a little better luck with Facebook, where I have switched to the Facebook professional mode. After sharing my articles, I am getting a few reads. It’s not great, but every little bit helps.
I also started a newsletter, separate from Medium’s newsletter, where I share my previously published Medium stories with people who have subscribed to it. My newsletter is sent out once a week, unlike Medium’s subscriber notifications, which are sent out as soon as an article is published. So far, the results have been rather disappointing.
I have recently started promoting my articles and newsletter on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Patreon, even though I am not too optimistic about getting good results. I’m sure there are other avenues for promotion that I haven’t discovered yet, and I’m sure I will give them a try, too, sometime in the future.
Adrian was right about self-promotion being stressful. But unlike writing a blog on WordPress or Blogger, writing on the Medium platform makes promoting our work somewhat easier. Don’t get me wrong; you still have to promote yourself if you expect to be successful. I compare promoting articles to trying to sell ice to Eskimos—not easy!
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