There are many articles on Triond and elsewhere telling everyone how to market their articles but most of these are written by people who have not successfully marketed their own work.
These methods work. I use them and earn a good monthly paycheck for my efforts.
Learning To Market Your Articles
Many people think that if you write for a content publisher like Triond, Factoidz, Associated Content, or similar, making friends on the site is all you have to do to make money. Yes, that will earn you a few cents and every time you publish something you might get a few hundred reads from community members if you are lucky. The reality is that you will probably get far fewer. If you want to earn real money you need to work at marketing.
So, how do some writers get hundred, or even thousands of readers to their articles?
Using Stumble Upon and Digg.
It isn’t down to having friends, although that helps. On sites like Stumble Upon and Digg, if you have friends they might read your articles and pass them on to their friends. If you write well these friends, pass them on, and so forth.
This can get you thousands of reads and is what happened to me with 10 Surprising Uses of Aspirin which hit Digg’s front page and now has 177,847 reads and the figure is still rising.
The trouble is that if you always have the same friends thumbing up and Digging your articles, they don’t count in the same way. If you ‘discover’ your own articles you may also be penalised for it.
You might also find yourself barred for self promotion.
Using Social Networking sites.
If you join up to social networking sites like Delicious, Vox, Plurk, Britekite, Facebook, Twitter, Propellor, and lots of others you can bookmark , or post your article title on these sites.
I use ping.fm to automate the process. It has to be set up with your user names and passwords for networking sites but once that is done a click of a button will send your article title to all the sites at once.
Using forums.
I sometimes use forums where they are appropriate to the article I have written. For instance an article about dogs might do well if you posted it on a pets forum. There are lots of different forums and you need to do some research to find the right ones. Don’t spam forums with your articles because you will get barred.
Using Search Engines To List Your Articles.
You can do this by hand by going to the ‘add url’ tab on search engine web pages, or use a system that automates it for you. I use Submit Express which is free to use and adds your article link to more than 40 search engines. This is very important because it lets web searchers find your articles by searching for them in directories and search engines. You actually have to do this for yourself and if you just ignore it and hope for the best you will lose out on lots of reads.
Using Blogs And Websites For Publicising Your Articles
Set up your own blog and link to your articles. Write blog posts about similar subjects and include links to your own work. Swap links with other website and blog owners.
There are many other ways to get readers but these will start you off and help you to earn a better monthly pay cheque from your writing.
December 17th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
It is encouraging to hear from someone that is doing great at marketing her work. This will definitely help many writers.
December 17th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Very useful…..thanks!
December 17th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Good advice from someone who know her stuff!
December 17th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Once again you have passed the candle on well. Friend, fan, smile
December 17th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Happy that you are able to mint money with these methods and thank you for sharing it with us. I’ve bookmarked your article. I use few of these tips, but not all. Let me try them.
December 18th, 2009 at 1:20 am
Thanks for the tips.
December 18th, 2009 at 1:36 am
This is really wonderful! I’m bookmarking this article for sure.
Blessings.
Sincerely,
-Liane Schmidt.
December 18th, 2009 at 5:31 am
I agree Jan
It is hard work expecting friends to read your work sometimes, you only have to look at my record. I am changing my marketing strategy to the same on Add This for instance. I also hope these e-books take off in some way although there is nothing like a good book to read.
Good constructive article and thanks.
Kind Regards
Tim
December 18th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Good advice
December 18th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Very helpful information.
December 18th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Very informative for newcomers like me.
December 18th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
This is wonderful advice that everyone should use. That is wonderful that your articles get so many views. You really do deserve it with all of the hard work you do.
December 18th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Great tips and very helpful! I try submitting mine to social bookmarking sites.
December 22nd, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Great ideas! I think i’ll try a couple of them!
December 25th, 2009 at 1:49 am
u gave me a great tip with ping.fm
December 31st, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Ping and Submit is where I am going from here! Thanks for the tips.