Thank you for this post and congratulations on your forthcoming book! Mine--on 1960s French cinema--will be published on June 4. I agree with your piece and appreciate your advice on the importance of promotion.
A strategy that’s been successful for me: I’m on the sciencey side of the social sciences, and my conferences have poster sessions. It’s very typical to have a signup sheet next to your poster for people to request a copy of the pdf. Voila, it’s a list of people who have opted in to hearing about your work! In addition to sending out the requested poster, I save the list and, when the paper comes out, email those colleagues again. “Hi! Last year, you were interested in our ConferenceName poster, Effects of Chocolate and Caffeine on Grading Productivity. I am writing to let you know that the final paper was just posted online at the Journal of Chocolate Studies. (Link.) We find that caffeine - but not chocolate - increase productivity, but chocolate reduces negative valence associated with the task. I’m happy to chat about these results if you would like to hear more. Hope you’re all well! Abby.”
I just discovered your newsletter and I really enjoy it. One problem I found in communities that are heavily centered on paper publications is that many authors seems to see publication as the end of the project, rather than the start so many time they defer to the journal or conference to do the work of letting the world know about their work. Within the subset of people who use social media many seems to have a short announcement of the kind “I am happy to announce my paper has been accepted to X.” I find that a better approach is to genuinely try to target who might benefit from your work and try to find the best format. This is why I really like your three points above regarding identifying who can benefit from the work.
Thank you for this post and congratulations on your forthcoming book! Mine--on 1960s French cinema--will be published on June 4. I agree with your piece and appreciate your advice on the importance of promotion.
A strategy that’s been successful for me: I’m on the sciencey side of the social sciences, and my conferences have poster sessions. It’s very typical to have a signup sheet next to your poster for people to request a copy of the pdf. Voila, it’s a list of people who have opted in to hearing about your work! In addition to sending out the requested poster, I save the list and, when the paper comes out, email those colleagues again. “Hi! Last year, you were interested in our ConferenceName poster, Effects of Chocolate and Caffeine on Grading Productivity. I am writing to let you know that the final paper was just posted online at the Journal of Chocolate Studies. (Link.) We find that caffeine - but not chocolate - increase productivity, but chocolate reduces negative valence associated with the task. I’m happy to chat about these results if you would like to hear more. Hope you’re all well! Abby.”
Excellent piece. Always shamelessly self-promote! I mean, if you don’t do it, who will?
I really like the GAME strategy/acronym for when engaging in media or promoting my work:
Goal - what is the purpose of the post/article/interview etc.
Audience - who is the audience and how can you best communicate with them
Message - what is the key message you want to share
Engagement - what can people do next to engage with you/your work? A social media account to follow, a book to read, a link to click on, etc.
I just discovered your newsletter and I really enjoy it. One problem I found in communities that are heavily centered on paper publications is that many authors seems to see publication as the end of the project, rather than the start so many time they defer to the journal or conference to do the work of letting the world know about their work. Within the subset of people who use social media many seems to have a short announcement of the kind “I am happy to announce my paper has been accepted to X.” I find that a better approach is to genuinely try to target who might benefit from your work and try to find the best format. This is why I really like your three points above regarding identifying who can benefit from the work.