A Practical Guide To Promotion

This column is the work of the author Methods, statements and opinions expressed are not to be construed as the official policy of or of any person appointed in a position of authority at AP. All actions are at the reader’s risk. All names shown in images are imaginary and bear no intentional resemblance (at the time of writing) to any AP name. 

How to Promote a Poem, Story, Column or Contest on

There may be a rare few members on who come here solely to read, but on the whole we write and post our efforts. We post them because we want others to read, appreciate and comment upon them.
One of the best ways to improve is to get feedback, both in the form of critiques and in the form of poetic input from others. In this way we widen our horizons, vocabulary and, hopefully our circle of friends.
A site that has many poets, all producing work, can be daunting and pieces can often go unnoticed in the press. The best way to draw attention to a piece of work is to Promote it.

This guide details the ways you can promote your work here on AP and suggests other routes to publicizing your work to the members of AP.

AP has a points system which ensures that the more you interact with others, the more benefit you get in the way of points. Points are gained by commenting. See A Practical Guide to Commenting and Gaining Points for more.
Points enable you to do several things, one of which is promotion or advertising of your piece of work.

There are two main methods of promoting your Work:  and 


Promoting Using

It costs points to promote.   is the cheapest of the two main ways to promote your work.

It costs 20 points to post a link into the    page. Links will stay on the page until 50 more have been posted AFTER it.

Emoticons may be used in the link. Once a link is placed it cannot be edited so great care must be taken when writing your ‘ad’. More on writing for  later.

How Do I Get To ?

There are three main ways of accessing

1 The  Main Menu Bar



2 The  'pls don't promote!' link



3 The  '(add/history)' link




The  Page



Note: Shameless links removed for clarity and anonymity

The  line is your chance to lure in the reader with a blurb. The box appears small but will accept more characters than appear in the window. This is the text that will appear along with your name in the  box and on the  page.

The  line is the link to the poem you have chosen to promote. The arrow on the right-hand side of the text window provides a drop-down box from which you can select the piece you have chosen. Note: The title of the piece you have chosen does not appear in the Shameless box nor on the Shameless page.

The  line is the final stage. Once you have ticked the box  and pressed  your selected piece is placed into the  page and box. Your points are now deducted from your personal total.

The  promotion will look like this:

screenshot by permission of APpoet jonmack1487

Notice that the final promotion is made up of three areas:
1 The poet's AP name 
2 The 'What will you say?' blurb that you wrote
and
3 the two lines from the poem's original page (example below).



The poem's title DOES NOT appear on the promotion.


Promoting Using

The cost of promoting in  is variable.

Promotion by item 

Each Poem, Column and Story Page has a bid box at the bottom. Open the page of the item you wish to promote and fill in the boxes at the bottom.



The  box is the total amount of points you wish to spend on your promotion campaign for the item. The  box is the amount you wish to pay per viewer. This should be a factor of the total you have bid. i.e. for 10 viewers at ten per click your total should be 100 points. When you have filled in the boxes press the  button to complete your bid. NB A bid that has a points surplus will stall when the remainder is smaller than the 'per click' total and the bid will have to be deleted to gain a refund of the points.

The progress of your bid can be seen on the  Page. This will be discussed later.

Promotion using the  Page

The  page is more useful when you wish to promote more than one item.


How Do I Get To The  Page?

The  page is accessed from the 'more>>' link at the bottom of the  box. (see below)



The  Page




The 'Add a bid' area



The 'Feature the poem' box has a drop down list of your poems, using the arrow on the right-hand side. Notice that the 'click' and 'spend' boxes are in reverse order from the bottom of the poem page method of promoting. Press the  to start your promotion campaign.

The campaign

The progress of your campaign can be followed from the
page.

The current bids will look something like this:



The progress looks like this:



The 'Item' is the title of the piece. 'Remaining' details the remaining points and the original bid total. At this stage the points can be retrieved by deleting the bid.

Remember!!! A comment is a posted piece of text OVER a hundred characters. If everyone comments UNDER that length, you still got a comment, but it just didn't register as a comment with Allpoetry because of its length! The '1 comments' here is thus accurate, but misleading.

Other ways to get your work noticed

1 Join a group. Like-minded people are more likely to read and comment on your work. The rules on promotion within group bounds are at the discretion of the group organisers so you may be able to publicise your work there.

2 Enter a contest. At the very least the judge ought to read your piece.
The conduct of a contest is the prerogative of the judge provided they stay within the bounds of the rules and policies of Allpoetry.

3 Hold a contest. Publicity works.

In short, participate. The more you join in, the more people will notice you and your works.

Good luck and happy writing