9 Raw Writing Tips After 240 Articles and 2.5M Views on Medium
After two years of writing, this is what I learned about getting more views, followers, and money on Medium.
I wrote my first article on Medium in late 2018, but I only started taking writing seriously a year later. Since then, I’ve written more than 240 articles, generated over 2.5 million views, and earned $50,000+ through the Medium Partner Program.
All in all, this platform has changed my life — and I’m only planning to write more in the next few months.
Medium is one of the few places on the internet where ordinary people with a passion for writing can make money without creating a website, driving their own traffic, or doing any other headache task that comes with making money online.
However, I know many writers are still struggling to get views, followers, and income from Medium. That’s why, for the first time in two years, I’ve decided to share some of the most valuable writing tips I’ve learned along the way.
Write A Lot
The secret to writing success is simple, but most people don’t have the patience and persistence for it:
Write + Write + Write Some More = Potential Success
First of all, the more you write, the better you get.
Second of all, the more articles you publish, the higher the odds that one of them will generate a lot of views or even go viral.
If you only publish one article a month, you only have one shot at getting views. But if you publish ten or twenty articles a month, you increase your odds of success by ten- or twenty-fold.
Look at Tim Denning, Ayodeji Awosika, Megan Holstein, and Zulie Rane for example. They’re all crushing it on Medium. What do these top writers all have in common? They are incredibly prolific and consistent with their output. They write a lot.
80% Is Good Enough To Publish
Perfectionism is one of the biggest struggles for a lot of writers. Perfectionism isn’t all bad — it does lead to higher quality writing.
But, as mentioned above, if you want to succeed as a writer, you need to publish a lot. And if you strive for perfection, you’ll hardly publish anything.
To help you publish more often, adopt the ‘80% is good enough’ mindset. I know, it sounds like a lousy mindset, but it’ll actually fuel your success as a writer.
First of all, your work will never be 100% perfect. There’s always something you can improve. Thus, if you wait for perfection before you hit the publish button, you’ll wait for a long time.
Second of all, realize that you aren’t the judge of your work — the readers are. What might be ‘not perfect enough’ to you might be a life-changing article for the reader. Don’t take away this opportunity from the reader because of your perfectionism.
Of course, you don’t want to rush your articles or publish mediocre work. But, as a rule of thumb, when the article is at 80% of your capabilities, just publish it. Don’t get stuck in endless tweaking or editing. Get it out there in the real world. Gather some real feedback. This is the only way forward.
Make Your Headline Irresistible
They say we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but we all do. The same goes for headlines. The reader — yourself included — judges an article by its title. It’s the first piece of information we analyze to decide whether or not an article is worth our time.
This is why it’s critical to make your headlines irresistible. You want more views on your article, right? Then make it a priority to write a highly attractive title for your article — whether you like it or not.
It’s a shame how many high-quality articles are collecting dust right now simply because the headline is dry, boring, or vague. It didn’t spark the reader’s interest enough to make them click.
Keep in mind, your job as a writer isn’t just to write a high-quality article. It’s also your job to get people interested enough to click on your article. This is an essential part of a writer’s job description. To create irresistible headlines, here’s what I suggest:
Create Curiosity: When you create a lot of curiosity, readers can’t resist clicking. Look at the example below, it’s just too tempting…
Use Numbers: Listicles get clicks. I mean, which article would you click first? ‘Some ways to improve your productivity’ or ’17 ways to improve your productivity.’ I know which one I’d click!
Use Sexy Language: Most headlines are too dry and boring. But you need to get ‘sexy’ if you want to get clicks. Use buzzwords. Use words that appeal to emotion. Use words that are trending.
Keep Your Paragraphs Concise
We live in a society where attention is scarce. If you’re lucky enough to get a click based on your irresistible headline, make sure you keep the attention of the reader by keeping paragraphs concise.
Personally, I try to keep paragraphs between 3–4 lines instead of 6–8 as I see with some writers. The longer your paragraphs are, the more readers will drop off as they lose attention.
In my opinion, it’s a writer’s responsibility to help the reader finish an article. I see it as an essential part of the job description. Of course, you can’t force people to read the entire article — but you can encourage readers to finish an article by making it ‘snackable.’
Whether through concise paragraphs, intriguing subheadings, exciting images, clever formatting, or bold attention grabbers — help your readers finish an article.
Do The Work And Move On
One of the more painful lessons I’ve learned over the past few years is that you shouldn’t get too attached to your articles. There’s a weird phenomenon I hear from a lot of writers:
The articles you’re most excited about tend to bomb — whereas the articles you’re not that excited about tend to generate a ton of views.
Of course, this phenomenon isn’t necessarily true for each article — but I’ve found this to be a recurring theme in my own writing. The higher my hopes for an article, the worse it usually does. The more detached I am from an article, the better it usually does.
All in all, once you’ve finished an article — let it go. Let it get 40 views or 40,000 views. You’ve done your work, now it’s time to let the article do what it needs to do. Move on. Focus on the next article. Get started on the next piece of work.
Ignore Haters
When you create content online — whether on YouTube, Instagram, or Medium — you will eventually run into haters. And as a general rule, the more views you get, the more haters you’ll attract. Fun, right?
Here’s a lesson I learned in my years as a content creator on the internet:
Never debate with haters. Just don’t.
I’ve made this mistake a few times, but it’s really not worth it. It can be tempting to prove your haters wrong, but they’ll always find a way to be ‘right’, even though they aren’t. Your response is their fuel.
Whenever I receive a hateful comment, I just smile and continue with my life. I honestly don’t care about it. I don’t need to go into someone’s negative ecosystem. I’ve got my own goals to achieve, money to make, and a life to build. As Drake said, “I don’t get paid to argue with you.”
Use Grammarly
As a non-native English speaker, Grammarly saves my ass. You’ve probably heard of Grammarly already. It’s software that shows the mistakes in your writing and suggests how to make your article more engaging.
If you’re not using Grammarly as a writer, you’re missing out. I’m on their paid plan, but their free version is good enough. Honestly, it helped me a ton in improving my writing.
Put The Reader First, Not Yourself
Too many writers put themselves first when they’re writing. They make the whole article about themselves instead of putting the reader at the forefront of the article.
Before writing an article, ask yourself:
What can my readers learn from this article? How can they get inspired, entertained, or informed?
Of course, you want to use personal examples and experiences in your writing as this will improve the quality of the work. Just don’t make it solely about you.
Even though you are the content creator, it’s not really about you. It’s about the reader. Put your reader at the forefront of the article, and things will change.
Stop Blaming Others — Take Extreme Ownership
I remember one month where I was writing a lot on Medium, but I was hardly getting the views I used to get. The first thing I did was blame Medium. The algorithm sucked. Publications sucked. Everything sucked.
All I did was blame everyone else instead of taking a hard, honest look at what I could do better.
When you blame others for your lack of results, you give your power away. When you take extreme ownership over your results, you gain power.
If you want to succeed as a content creator, you need to develop the habit of taking extreme ownership. Extreme ownership means you take full responsibility for your work and your results — 100%.
You don’t blame others. You don’t blame the economy, the president, the platform, the founders, or your audience. Instead, you look at what you could do differently to get better results. Not a lot of people have the mental discipline to do this.
Blaming won’t get you any further. Zero. Taking full responsibility for your work and results, however, will help you move forward. It focuses your mind on getting smarter, better, and stronger.
Instead of blaming others, you’ll be making moves to learn more about writing, marketing, copywriting, content creation, productivity, and other skills to help you get better results. It’s a game-changer.
