As far as spreading your writing without shilling it around, it can be tough... No doubt. It's hard to get people to read things these days, but make no mistake--there's an audience for just about anything out there. The hard part is finding the audience. To be honest, I'm working my ass off to get published right now (while working through school), and while I have a blog, I don't update it much as I spend most of my time working on my novel. However my best advice is consistency. On the blog you have now, keep pushing out content on the regular. I have a few friends who started blogs from nothing, having no readers but me and their girlfriends and now have regular readers. It's mainly a matter of persistence and perseverance, keeping your site fresh is huge. Over time, people will start to recognize your work, although it may be very slow. Just gotta keep working hard to improve your craft and you will find an audience. Find what your 'niche' is, and cater to it. For example one of my buddies is a writer but he loves typewriters, collecting them as a hobby. So he posts pictures of his collection along with his work and he has gained a nice readership. And as thenewgreen has already mentioned, use the avenues available to you like reddit, Hubski, CritiqueCircle, Absolute Writer's Watercooler Forum... There's tons of sites out there. Hell, I just started posting my work to this site and have already gotten some good feedback. Also, I'd be down to participate in a podcast on writing. It's not just my passion, it's my life... And I love talking about it with others. And your podcasts are primo dude.
Have you considered the self-publishing route? It's what I've done with my first book (no idea if I'll do it with the one I'm currently working on, I'll see how it goes) and for the extreme lack of effort I put into publicising it outside of social media, it's done alright. I was never expecting hundreds of sales, but I've sold about 20-30 copies now, which I think isn't terrible for where I am and the effort it took. Self-publishing is a lot of work, but I really like the amount of control it gives me. I would seriously consider any publishing offer, for sure, and with the amount of work university etc gives me at the moment, I'd probably take it, but I can certainly see myself self-publishing other works in the future.
Have you linked to your blog? I'd like to check that out if I've not already. Sorry for the vague recolection, I'm two glasses in to a fun night of absinthe enjoyment. One thing I would suggest to you or anyone else out there with a blog that they think would be something the Hubski community is interested in is "Discussion Via Hubski." Take a look at this post from theadvancedapes site. Scroll down to the bottom and check out his comment section. You'll note that it's the hubski comments mirrored on his site. We've begun offering this to sites that we think our community would enjoy the content from. Let me know if you or anyone are interested. Its been a great symbiotic thing for the blogs and Hubski. onehunna, I'll reach out to you with the questions for the podcast and the process etc in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for agreeing!
Music for podcast on writing: Here's a song you can use 36 seconds of pure joy.
Also, damn, yes, I'd love that comment thing - though I'm currently using Disqus.
I haven't linked to my blog on here yet. Mainly because it... blows. Yeah. As I said, I very rarely update it. It was my New Year's Resolution to regularly update my shit and (surprise, surprise) I have failed miserably. I'm hoping my lack of attention to my blog will pay off in the future with a book deal. That comment thing is sweet for sure, though. I saw it used on lil's site as well. Will it work for Tumblr?
I'm not sure about Tumblr. mk or forwardslash, do you know if it is compatible? As for the blog, I know it's hard to be consistent with them. It's a lot of work for seemingly little reward at times. I'm off to check it out, it's all new to me.
It looks like you can edit the HTML of your tumblr so it's possible.