In my first year being on Tapas, it took me about 8 months to realize there was a forum and people were promoting their work on said forum.
Now I'm a novel writer. An artist making a novel because I love writing. Now I noticed a few things while promoting my work; it only gave me subs. Not readers engaging with my work.
Before the forums, I promote my work on my social media (still do) and THAT is how I got readers engaged in my work. I sure as hell didn't get it through these forums that only sub for sub.
I've had novelists message me out of my blue, asking to promote eachother's novel while neither of us were even interested in reading eachother's work. Nothing was funnier than the guy messaging me saying how we both had the same audience and therefore it was the perfect way to 'promote' eachother's novel. Not how it works in my book. Yet these people are quite the scourge if you will.
I'm so used to promoting my work (also thanks to my art) on other places, that a lot of my audience isn't even from Tapas. I love the few folks I met on here that enjoy my work (and me reading theirs as well), but uh...most of them...ain't from here.
Although I try my luck in these promoting threads hoping to find new works and mostly new readers...I kind of wonder what the best way to do this might be.