Congratulations. Your article is now in the public domain, where it is extending the boundaries of nursing knowledge and helping others to reflect on or change their practice.

You could stop there but it is in the interests of you and the journal you’ve published in to ensure the widest possible readership, so now is the moment to publicise your achievement.

There are some limits, however, to what you can do. Your agreement with the journal will, in most cases, involve granting exclusive license to publish to RCNi. This protects you from others reproducing your material without consent or acknowledgement, but it also restricts access to your work to those who have subscribed.

‘Open access’ titles aside, journals work in different ways after publication. Some will send authors a number of printed copies of the relevant issue; others will send off-prints of the individual article. Some will pass on a link for the author to distribute and which allows free online access to the published work for a limited period.

However you choose to promote your article, make sure it is within the terms of your agreement with the journal.

Your biography

To help promote your article among journal subscribers, you may be invited to submit a short biography to accompany the published piece.

The biography needs to be no longer than 90 words and should include your job title as well as any important training and positions you have held during your career. If you have a Twitter handle, please include this too.

If you write for Nursing Standard, your biography could be used on our ‘Meet the Contributors’ page. This page, which features three biographies a week, lets our readers know a bit more about you and promotes your article and the important work you do.

Your photo

If your article is accepted, we may also ask you to submit a head and shoulders photo of yourself. These can usually be taken using a smartphone and we will supply you with guidelines on how best to submit a photo.

Online comments

Our subscribed users have the ability to leave comments underneath articles on our website. We encourage authors to respond to comments wherever possible to increase awareness of their article.

Social media

While there may be restrictions on your reproducing the full article, you can of course post a summary for interested colleagues on Twitter, Facebook, your personal website or blog and any other channels, ideally with a link to the journal’s website. Using networking sites such as LinkedIn in the same way can help build your professional or academic credibility.

Local channels

Can you work with your employing organisation’s communications team to build awareness of your work? Use opportunities afforded by internal newsletters or intranets to publicise the article and drive traffic to the journal’s website.

Personal contacts

Tell others in face-to-face meetings and in emails about the article. There is no need to feel shy; you are promoting your work, not yourself. This is about improving care rather than showing off your success.

Conferences and events

Copyright affects the published article, not the ideas behind it. While you cannot distribute hundreds of photocopies as part of a conference presentation, you can discuss the article’s content and encourage delegates to read it for themselves.

Finally, remember to include a list of your published articles on your CV, and as perhaps evidence that you have met the Nursing and Midwifery Council requirements for revalidation.

Further reading

• Advice on social media
• Reasons to publish with RCNi