9 Tips for Your First Medium Stories

How to avoid common mistakes and get curated more often

I am a new writer on Medium, in fact, I am new to freelancing in general. As a new writer on this platform, I can identify many mistakes I made on my first few posts.

Getting curated by the Medium editors and being added to publications is the way to find success on Medium. I am still a big time work in progress, but I think I am starting to hit the sweet spot and avoiding these common mistakes has helped. I have begun to get more of my stories curated and added to publications.

9 Tips to avoid common mistakes on your first few Medium Posts

Read the Curation Guidelines

Medium has its own curation system that will add your story to certain topics main page. Getting curated is the goal here. Curation makes your story more accessible to readers and will help you gain more views and widen your audience. Make sure to read these guidelines and find out exactly what Medium is looking for.

Follow a Style Guide

Medium doesn’t have its own definitive “Style Guide” but you can look at other popular posts and other stories written about style guides and learn from them. Most publications have their own style guides as well.

Honestly, I didn’t really know a certain style was needed on my first few posts. If you don’t follow a guide, your story won’t ever be curated in topics, it will be annoying to read (especially on mobile), and won’t garner very many views. To date, my first post has a whopping 13 views and 39 claps, part of the reason was not following any style guide. Lesson learned, I think.

Credit your Photos

My first post, I just copied and pasted photos I had downloaded from Unsplash. I thought I was in the clear and using stock photos was A-OK. I didn’t realize that there was no credit given on these photos.

Make sure to use the built-in Medium image search function when publishing (Look for the Magnifying glass and use that). Without proper photo credits, there is no way you are getting curated or published in any publications.

Make your post shorter

My first post was my coming out party to the world of online blogging/freelancing. I made my first story a manifesto, pushing 3500 words, ending with a 12-minute read time. I thought it was a genius work, sure to gain fame and fortune. Turns out, no one has time to read an extra wordy, not properly formatted, 12 minute read.

I now try to keep my posts around 1000–1500 words, and under a 6 minute read time. Most successful Medium writers try to find this sweet spot.

EDIT!

This goes along with the above tip. To be more specific, edit your article to not only remove grammatical errors and spelling mistakes but to also make it more concise.

Curators won’t even consider your article if you have errors. My first story was littered with errors and misspelled words, looking back, I am super embarrassed that I even put it out into the world.

Make a good Headline

My headline was, “I Am an Incredibly Stubborn, Idiotic, Middle Aged Guy with an Anxiety Disorder, and I Am Obliterating It. 18 Words, and no Subtitle. Again, in this case, less is more.

You only have a fleeting chance to get someone to click on your story, so you need to make it quick and to the point, try to catch the reader’s interest in a quick glance.

Use the right tags

With my first posts, I used tags that were related to my story but way too specific. I still use related tags but now I try to use the more popular tags, the tags with more followers.

Doing this will help you reach a much larger audience, a lot quicker. You will also be more likely to get curated in popular topics than you would be with an obscure, niche tag.

Shop to Publications

When I made my first post, I didn’t even know what publications were. There are thousands of publications on Medium that help writers find a larger audience. They already have established followings (some more than others). Make sure to become a writer for multiple publications, you can submit your story before or after publishing to have it added to their publication.

Also, if you are looking to make a living as a freelance writer, you need to shop your story to publications outside of Medium, this freelance game is all about reaching a larger audience.

Don’t expect to make money

You likely won’t make money on your first Post, or even your 10th, or 20th. To date, I have made $0.14 on my first post. I still haven’t made much money on any of my stories, but I am slowly gaining traction, followers and readers. Don’t go into writing on Medium expecting to make a bunch of money right away.

Most writers on this platform don’t make a living solely by posting here. It is possible, with hard work and dedication to make a living with Medium, just don’t expect it to happen immediately.

Keep in mind, starting off, you have no audience and no followers. You are a big fat nobody in the beginning.

I still claim “Newbie” status as a writer on Medium. I am learning everyday and reading more and more is helpful to learn about what successful writers are doing different from me.

Hopefully, some of these tips will help you in your journey and you can become a successful writer on this wonderful platform.