Writing is great.

Most of the time.

It’s my job. It’s actually the only job I’ve ever had. But, there are some aspects to being a writer that you probably don’t like doing.

Like marketing. It can be hard to market yourself or your writing. You have to walk the line between getting your writing out there and looking like a carnival barker begging people to read your stuff.

But, here’s the thing, you spent hours, maybe days on your article or story. It would be a shame if no one reads it. So you need to self promote as hard as it is.

Now, everyone knows the basics. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram are all the standard. Nearly everyone that writes uses them.

But there is a way to market your writing that you might be overlooking.

Reddit.

Now, Reddit is not like the other social media sites and you can’t use it like you do the other ones. If you use Twitter and Facebook solely to market your work, and don’t engage with followers, then it might work. You’d get better results if you put some effort into it, but suffice to say, the bare minimum is an option for these avenues.

On Reddit however, it is not the case. In fact, if you only self promote you’ll likely be banned from Reddit.

It’s an entirely different animal.

A short primer on how Reddit works.

Reddit is broken into groups based around a common interest. These are called subreddits. There is nearly a subreddit for every interest imaginable. This is how I found Reddit in the beginning. I’m a massive geek and spent far too much time on r/asoiaf the subreddit for the Game of Thrones books.

Reddit also looks different than you other places on the Internet. It doesn’t have the slick interfaces of other sites and instead looks like an old school message board.

Now, you might think it’s simple. You just find the subreddit you want and post a link to your article and watch the views roll in. But it couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, you’re just starting.

You cannot, I repeat, you cannot just post links to reddit. If the mods don’t remove it right away you’ll be down voted into the ground and either way no one sees your work.

The moderators and communities are fiercely protective of their little corners of the Internet and any attempt to just market and run will most likely get you removed from the subreddit. Permanently.

So, at this point you’re probably wondering why I even wrote the article if you can’t promote there. That’s the trick with Reddit. You can promote. You cannot, however, only promote your work.

Now I will show you what to do. Warning, this takes work. There are no shortcuts.

First, find the subreddit that fits the article or story. If you write about movies then you want the movies subbreddit r/Movies. Now you need to make a reddit account and start posting in the subreddit.

This is where the patience come in. Do not even think about posting your articles for at least a week. Many subreddits have bots that will remove posts from new accounts. You need to build up points, called karma on reddit. You get karma from replying to people’s post and posting links to things the subreddit will like (links to things that aren’t yours.)

Now I in no way want to sound like I’m telling you to game the system. Because I’m not. Too be honest, there’s no way around it. You need to put the work in. Also, if it is something your are writing about then it’s probably something you’re passionate about. In that case you should like most of what you see in the subreddit. Post frequently and try to become a member of the community. Then, when you’ve built up some karma then you can occasionally post your work.

It must be infrequent. Most subreddits have either designated self promotion days or strict rules. Most encourage a 10 percent policy in that only one post out of ten can be self promotion.

But, when you put the work in, the results can be staggering. Some of the subreddits are huge with millions of followers and tens of thousands of users on each the subreddit at any given time.

Or you can target smaller subreddits that have more loyal, more fervent fans. They will also flock to something they like.

If you do it the right way, and take your time and don’t over promote then the results are spectacular. It can means thousands of views to your article, your book, your website, whatever you are trying to promote.