avatarKevin Buddaeus

Summary

The author of the website has decided to shift from self-promotion to promoting other writers' works in an effort to support the writing community and encourage exposure for fellow authors.

Abstract

The author has announced a new approach to content promotion on their platform. Instead of featuring their own articles at the end of each post, they will now highlight three articles from other writers that have resonated with them. This change is part of an experiment to foster a more supportive environment within the writing community. The author believes that by not disclosing the names of the writers whose work they share, it will prevent bias and encourage readers to engage with content based on its merit rather than the reputation of the author. The author acknowledges that their past promotional efforts have been self-centered and now seeks to balance this by providing a platform for other voices. This initiative will extend across all publications the author contributes to, including ILLUMINATION and Polyglot Poetry. The author expresses hope that this new strategy will help other writers gain visibility and reaffirm the community's ethos of openness and mutual support.

Opinions

  • The author admits that their previous method of promoting their own content was selfish and is taking a conscious step away from self-promotion.
  • By not tagging the authors of the articles they feature, the author aims to avoid influencing readers' decisions based on personal biases or relationships.
  • The author believes that readers interested in their work can easily find it on their profile, negating the need for self-promotion at the end of articles.
  • The author feels that they have not been supportive enough in the past week, particularly since they stopped writing public responses in favor of private notes.
  • The author has automated their Twitter to post their published articles and wishes to avoid flooding their feed with notifications of responses to other articles.
  • The author expresses a commitment to making a difference in the writing community by acting as a bridge to connect readers with a diverse range of writers.
  • The author is optimistic about the potential impact of their new approach and encourages readers to engage with the first set of featured articles.

Announcement | Social Experiment | Writing

Peer Promotion — An Experiment

An announcement: Taking a step towards helping others

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

Today I made an interesting decision. Usually, I put up to three of my older entries under each of my articles, poems and Haiku, sort of like a CTA (Call To Action) in hopes that people will take an interest in my other published articles as well.

But starting with this article, I will divert from that behavior, which is selfish to be honest. I will run an experimental change of that behavior towards helping other writers. With each article I publish, starting with this one, I will no longer promote my own articles at the bottom, but instead, pick three articles from other writers I read that touched me.

I will not put their names in, for two reasons:

  • I don’t want to tag them, they should not come to my article just because I share theirs.
  • I don’t want potential readers to decide whether they click on it based on the name they see. Plenty of people have a bias, only trying to promote close friends or people they like more than others.

If someone is really interested in reading my own stuff, they can simply visit my profile from any of my articles anyways. So I’ll use the bottom of my article strictly and exclusively to promote three random articles from other writers.

I will keep this behavior not only for ILLUMINATION but for all publications I publish my works in.

Note that a Haiku I published a little earlier, “Photosynthesis”, is not yet part of that plan and still contains my own links.

Time will tell how it works out. I really hope that it will help all writers getting more exposure. I hope I can achieve my goal of being a bridge through this once more and make a difference. I have done more than plenty of self-promotion in the past and want to take a step back. After all, we praise ourselves with being an open and supportive community.

I don’t feel like I’ve been much supportive in the past week. Especially since I no longer write public responses, but only private notes. Because I automated my Twitter to automatically post my published articles and Medium treats responses to articles the same. I don’t want my Twitter being flooded with “I published another response to someone”.

So let’s hope I can gain some traction here and in other publications, and help readers discover some of our other great writers.

You’ll find the first three random articles below. Please give them a read.

Kevin is an editor and writer for the ILLUMINATION and Polyglot Poetry publications. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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