My solution to this problem is to simply use Medium as a place for feedback, exposure, and a place to collect my poetry. Once I have enough, I'll self-publish a book and hopefully make a bit more money that way. I'm still building an audience.

When I launched my newsletter, I offered a free, custom haiku to anyone who signed up. This accomplished two things: 1. It increased the number of people who signed up; 2. It attracted people who value poetry. So now, when I have a book of poems to sell, I have a primed group to sell it to. I've also built loyalty because I gave them something they valued. Since most of my early sign-ups were people I know, I was able to use personal details to make their haiku special for them.

I also promote my haiku on FB, Instagram, and Twitter by turning them into memes where appropriate. I use the photo that accompanied my poem on Medium as the backdrop. I agree that buying FB ads and stuff like that is a waste of money, at least at this stage of the game, but my efforts are educating me about Twitter and Instagram and how they work, which I didn't know before. In the long run, time spent acquiring knowledge can be just as valuable as time spent acquiring money.

I don't kid myself. Up until about a year ago, past poet laureate Billy Collins made the bulk of his income from his college teaching job. His income surged to several million dollars in 2019. I suspect his very entertaining MasterClass had something to do with that.

But I don't write poetry to get rich. Even the greats like Dylan Thomas struggled to feed themselves. Shakespeare had to have a day job acting and managing the Globe Theater. I write poetry because I have to. That's all there is to it.