Today, I received the following e-mail. At the sender’s request, I have removed any personal details:
I was wondering if you had any advice for me about how to perform some marketing/pr for my Linux [project]. I’ve started doing interviews with developers and I have created a community news site.
But is there anyway I could possibly get [my project] mentioned in a
magazine like Linux Journal? Is there any free advertising I could take advantage of on certain web sites? I thought you may have some ideas for me because you have experience with this kind of thing. Any help you
could provide me would be appreciated.
I generally receive about 3-4 requests of this sort a year, so I decided to post my reply here, so I can refer others to it:
You’re not likely to find free advertising on sites that will do you any good, so your best bet is to try to get on the various sites as a contributor. Linux.com only takes original material for its main features, but it does have the NewsVac items, the three or four line link summaries on the right of the page that are very popular. And, of course, sites like Slashdot, Digg, and Linux Today are all about links to already published material.
If you have a solid piece of news — which for a piece of free software usually means new releases and unique features — at Linux.com you can pitch a story and write it yourself. However, you’ll be asked to include a disclaimer
that explains your connection with your subject matter, and the article will be rejected if you are being a fanboy. That means you can’t review your own distro, but you might be able to do a tutorial on a distribution’s packaging system, for instance.
Alternatively, you can send news releases in the hopes of convincing either an editor or a writer to cover your news. However, don’t be pushy. Submitting a news release once is enough, and popping back several times to ask if it was received or whether anyone is interested will probably only guarantee that you’ll annoy people so that they won’t cover your news no matter how big it is.
The ideal is to build up an ongoing relation with a few writers, in which you give them stories to write about — we’re always looking — and they give you the coverage you want when you have news that readers might want to hear.
Of course, you open yourself up to negative comments if the software deserves them, but that’s the chance you have to take. However, for the most part, both commercial companies and large community projects find the
risk well worth taking. It’s not as though any of the regular writers deliberately sit down to review with a determination to be negative (although, conversely, they don’t set out to praise, either: We’re not just fans, either).
This process doesn’t happen overnight, so be patient. But, in the long run, you should get some of the publicity you seek.
I don’t know whether this information is useful to others. To me, it seems that I’m saying the obvious, but part of that reaction is undoubtedly due to the fact that I deal with these things daily. Perhaps to others, these thoughts aren’t obvious, so I’m hoping that someone will find them useful
I don’t know if I just stumbled into it or if the site BlueGNU (http://blue-gnu.biz/) is still looking for new projects, but I was able to do an interview there even tho’ my project is still in Beta.
Don (the site maintainer) posted a blog similar to this one and then asked how projects do their advertising. As a follow-up, he asked several responders if they would like to interview, and several of us did. He gave a presentation at the Ohio LinuxFest on FOSS marketing, and there were some good ideas in his slides. He has also followed that up with some additional posts.
Then there is the ever-popular signature which advertises your project.
Later . . . Jim
RenaissanceCore IDS, check it out at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/renaissancecore
You could list your project with freshmeat or
sourceforge
also use RSS feeds. In the end if you write it or build it and its good they will come.
Cheers,
Tom
Hi Bruce,
You mention submitting news of your projects to Slashdot, Digg, and LinuxToday…
Don’t forget Free Software Daily. It’s a digg style site just for the free software community.
Our site is currently running pligg but very soon we will be using our own Drupal module that we’ve designed and built that will released under the GPL.
The “fsdaily effect” is not quite as big as the “digg effect” or “slashdot effect” yet. However, many blog sites have commented on the fsdaily effect already and we are only 4 months old. We are growing fast!
If you have a project to promote you can submit it to fsdaily… but please stick around too and help build an “fsdaily effect” the free software community can be proud of.
Cheers
Dave
The LinuxWorld Expo has a .ORG village which offers free exhibition space to open source projects. This year’s London show at Olympia 2 has been postponed until Spring ’08, but any .ORGs are still encouraged to apply for space. The free stand space is provided as a result of generous donations and sponsorship.
Sadly space is limited at the Expo. However unlike other LinuxWorld Expos we do not allocate space on a first come first served basis or based on the perceived size of your .Org, so all are welcome to apply.
Please visit http://www.linuxexpo.org.uk to register your interest.
Geoff Foster,
.ORG Village organiser.