3 Reasons Why Nobody Is Reading Your Work (I’ve Been There)
You can fix it
When I started writing, there was only one pair of eyes that ever saw my stories.
It was frustrating and challenging. But I’ve come to realize that there are 3 key ingredients that make a story worth reading.
Headlines
I overlooked this at the beginning.
My belief was that people would come read your work if your writing was good. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Your headline matters more than almost anything. You shouldn’t have a great headline and terrible writing. But you want your headline to draw people to your work. Then, when they show up, you need to deliver what you said you would.
If you promise one thing and deliver something else, you’re using clickbait titles. And that’s a terrible idea.
The best headlines generate a bit of intrigue and keep things simple.
It’s more of an art than a science, but you can learn a lot from the headlines of top writers here on Medium.
Some of them have perfected the art.
The best headlines are the ones that I struggle to scroll by. It’s like I saw them and quickly felt like I needed to click on them. It’d be like fighting my own instincts to not click on them.
Now that’s what we’re aiming for.
Images
Images matter too. Often, the only thing someone can see about your story is the headline, image, and part of the hook.
That’s it.
If you haven’t already built up a following and reputation, that’s all someone can judge you on at first glance.
So you want those things to be in good shape.
I honestly can’t give you much advice when it comes to images.
I’ve experimented with using images from Unsplash. I’ve also used AI to generate plenty of my images. I try to keep it visually pleasing.
I wish that I had more useful things to say about choosing great images, but I don’t. I hope that I’m not breaking your heart.
I’m sure other writers on here have shared guidance on choosing the right images.
Hooks
Your hook comes into play when you’re lucky enough to have someone click on your story.
Just because they clicked on your story doesn’t mean they’ll read it.
People will often give you less than 5 seconds to capture and keep their attention. If you don’t hold onto it, they’ll click away.
This presents you with a challenge to develop engaging hooks.
Your hooks should steward the reader into your story. Guide them there seamlessly while feeding them something that keeps them curious.
I’m constantly experimenting with my hooks. When I look back at a story that was read by many people, I find that I used a decent hook.
On stories that have flopped, I notice that my hooks could be improved. Early on, I didn’t even know about hooks.
I might have tried to use introductions, but then I quickly went into long blocks of dense paragraphs.
If you’d like your work to reach a larger audience, experiment with headlines, images, and hooks.
While I wouldn’t say that honing these things is the most interesting thing in the world, doing so will make a big difference.
Plenty of people don’t put effort into these things, so your work will stand out if you do. If you improve your headlines, images, and hooks, more people will read your work.
I wish we lived in a utopia where the “best writing” would receive the largest audiences and nobody would have to care about headlines, images, and hooks. But we don’t… And rather than shaking my fist at the sky, I try to learn how to effectively use these things to supplement the rest of my writing.
Experiment with it. Play around. Let yourself fail. Notice what’s working. Double down on that.
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