User blog comment:Umbrello/Self Promotion Makes Me Feel Weird/@comment-25941663-20150722102134

Personally, I don't really care whether or not my pastas get read or not. I write them because I like writing. As a matter of fact, I don't even like most of my work. Out of my six stories on the wiki, there are only two I find good/clever.

But anyway.

I see someone mentioned Humboldt and his shameless promotion antics. Seriously though, the way he promotes himself is pretty clever. Instead of writing blogs and what-not, he messages directly the readers. If you read and like one of his stories, I'm pretty sure he will message you to read his other stories too. And that is genius. Humboldt will gain a new fan, and the reader will read more great stories. Everyone wins.

Also, because I'm totally-not-obsessed with Humboldt, I've noticed that he has another promotion technique too. Sometimes he finds other authors and reads/reviews their stories. Once he does that, there are two possibilities.

1) The other author will go and review Humboldt's stories, to return the favor (sort of).

2) The other author won't review Humboldt's stories, so Humboldt will message him about it.

The first method worked for me, and that's how I found about his work. And I never regretted it (despite reading a surprising amount of twisted NSFW content).

Also, when he first started, he was using the first method more than the second.

I'm not writing this to highlight Humboldt or whatever, I believe these are techniques that would help anyone promote their work without feeling bad about it.

Basically, every author who wants to promote himself/herself should go out there and copy Humboldt.