Poetry

ILLUMINATION Poetry Club

An invitation to poets to collaborate for productive fun

Background

ILLUMINATION Integrated Publications are diverse and inclusive, supporting 18,000+ contributors. We support different levels of writers, from absolute beginners to most accomplished ones delighting our readers.

Fiction and poetry are closely related and do not seem to perform at desired levels by the writers and poets. Especially poets do not earn desired income on this platform.

I witnessed many concerns from fiction writers and poets who pointed out that they were not getting value from their fiction stories and poems on Medium.

In my previous post, I discussed the concerns about fiction and proposed a collaborative solution. The proposal was well-received hence we started the initiative.

Purpose of this post

In this post, I want to extend the same approach to poetry.

Poetry is of particular interest to me. For example, I read hundreds of poems at the weekend and created a list for our poetry readers upon their request. They loved this collection.

ILLUMINATION hosts thousands of poems contributed by hundreds of poets. Poetry shines on our publication. At least 30% of ILLUMINATION and ILLUMINATION-Curated contributors submit poetry pieces. This is a large number considering we have over 18,000 contributing writers.

There are contributing poets at all levels, from aspiring to the most accomplished ones. For example, some of our poets published poetry books, and some even won poetry awards.

My understanding from the poets, the main concern about the poetry performance is that since the content is short, the profiles of the poets show the whole content and system does not register the reading times. The common belief is that poetry does not bring expected income to the poets on Medium.

Finding a solution to this issue from a publication perspective is not feasible. I assume Medium will find a solution to this concern. We cannot do much about it now.

However, our publication can help with the second concern, which is about the visibility of poetry on Medium. Some writers mention that their poetry pieces are not getting the expected number of views. They say that this is a platform with thousands of members, but their stories are getting only a few views. The common belief is that poetry is not well received on Medium.

I asked a few questions to poets:

Is there a problem for visibility and readability of your poetry pieces on Medium?

Do you have difficulty in reaching out to your desired audience?

Are your stats for poetry pieces lower than your other stories?

The majority of answers to these questions appear to be a “yes”.

We have three value propositions.

1 — To address the visibility issues, we can create some extra promotional activities for poets.

2 — Some aspiring poets also want to collaborate with experienced and accomplished poets to improve their skills.

3 — Some published poets want to gain new readers and promote their books.

To achieve these goals, I propose a poetry club, similar to the fiction club.

In my opinion, the platform has potential capacity and capability. We need to tap into the audience in some smart ways.

For example, when I checked the poetry tag on Medium, I noticed that there were 413K followers of the topic. This number reflects a considerable audience base. Poets can utilize this audience.

We need to find ways to tap into this audience. The audience can’t find poets, but the poets can discover the audience.

We can explore and discover this audience with a focused approach using innovation and collaboration. We can change and even transform the current position of poets using our capabilities.

I propose to use the capabilities of our publication from the writer and reader's perspectives. ILLUMINATION is a leading publication bringing around 2000 poets into one place.

65,000+ readers now follow the publication. The writer and reader base depicts a substantial number and poses a significant capability.

As the publication owner, my role is to help and support the poets to use the capability of our publications.

I am not a poet but an avid reader of poetry. I read at least 80% of poems on our publication. I interact with poets frequently. I understand and can feel their pain. I know that crafting poetry is not an easy task. I tried and failed but I will try again. Marketing and selling poetry is a challenge for many poets.

Even though I cannot help you improve your poetry writing, I can help you enhance your capability to market your art on this platform in an effective way. I can assist you in using the platform more efficiently to create awareness for your poetry pieces.

Considering the current challenges of the platform and the situation that poets face, it is time to re-position poetry promotion on Medium.

Poets need to create synergy and fusion by combining efforts.

To bring poets under an umbrella, we are setting up a community of practice for poets contributing to our publications.

We call this community of practice “ILLUMINATION Poetry Club”.

How will the poetry club work?

The poetry club aims to bring interested poets in the same boat. The starting point is knowing each other. Many poets contributing to the same publication don’t even know each other, let alone collaborate and create synergy.

The starting point is meeting each other by sharing our backgrounds. The first action is to create a poet bio. You can create and submit your poet bio to our publications. Our editorial team will publish and promote them for you.

A poet bio is a story introducing your poetry work to your readers. This bio story can include your poetic background, lists, and links to your poems, photos, videos, information about your writing platforms, your newsletters, and other resources.

This poet bio story can be like a creative resume. Your goal is to show that you exist as a poet and are ready to interact with readers and other poets. In short, this bio story serves as an introduction to your fellow writers and potential readers.

Once you submit your poet bios, we will compile your bios and create awareness of your poetic work using promotional packs of our publications. You can get some ideas for creating bios from these published writers' bios.

For the poetry club to operate, we need a communication platform. The best communication platform for us is our Slack channel. It is secure and convenient to collaborate.

You need to register to our Slack channel and start conversations with other poets. If you are not a member yet, you can request an invitation from this link showing your interest in joining the Slack group.

The poetry club channel in our Slack group will allow you to initiate discussions, have private chats with your fellow writers, and share your fiction-related links.

In this particular channel, you can create visibility for your poems. You can include links to your poetry books and Medium poetry stories. You can include links to your poetry platforms.

If you are planning to publish poetry books, you need beta readers. You can request beta readers from the club members.

Poetry authors need endorsements for their books. You can ask for testimonials from the club members.

You can request reviewers to improve the quality of your poems on Medium or the poetry books that you draft.

To remind you again, writers and poets are the best readers of poetry. ILLUMINATION hosts 18,000+ contributing writers, and at least 30% of the writers write poetry. Interacting and collaborating with these writers can initiate serendipity.

You can ask for mentors from published and accomplished writers. We have already started a mentoring program and writer workshops.

You can share your newsletters on our Slack channel and increase followers on your mailing lists. We will find ways to enhance your network and promote your poetry work.

ILLUMINATION publication has a poetry amplifier by design. The first consideration is choosing one of the tags as “poetry” in your story submission. This tag allows showing your story under the poetry tab of the publication. It is a built-in feature.

Having a poetry tab in our publications also allows us to syndicate poetry stories using the RSS service of Medium. The RSS feeds for ILLUMINATION, and ILLUMINATION-Curated publication poetry are:

https://medium.com/feed/Illumination/tagged/poetry

https://medium.com/feed/Illumination-curated/tagged/poetry

You can use these feeds to create online magazines. We will help you with how to do that in other posts. We plan to syndicate our poetry pieces to multiple networks and platforms listed in our social media plan.

ILLUMINATION has paid a subscription for two primary digital automation tools. We are currently syndicating all our stories on multiple platforms. With this initiative, we will create additional fiction RSS to develop further visibility.

For example, I will create a new Flipboard magazine just for poetry stories. It will be similar to this sharable magazine.

We will also distribute poetry pieces regularly using our automated services. Besides, we will set up new blogs for poets on our publication websites.

We created a Quora Space for poets. Please feel free to submit your poetry stories and links to your poetry books. If you follow my Quora account, I can make you a moderator so that you can publish your links with no moderator intervention.

Once you join our Poetry Club, we will continue to have conversations and create new ideas whenever it becomes possible for you. With the help of several volunteering editors, we will facilitate the activities of the Poetry Club.

This initiative is an active beginning of the possibilities for poets.

We have the power to transform the current situation into a more favorable position for poets.

As an editorial team, we are here to help you and lead this initiative. It is up to you to join and engage. Poets can thrive with collaboration.

By the way, have you seen poetry on our YouTube channel?

Please provide your thoughts and suggestions on this initiative.

Thank you for reading my perspectives.

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