A Fairer, Better, Cheaper Way To Boost Stories

The idea is for free. You’re welcome.

I’m very happy for the boosters who can make $900 (20 stories x $45) per month, but when is the joke going to end exactly?

When I was a used car salesman, my commission was never higher than the cost of the vehicle. It didn’t make any business sense to have it otherwise then and doesn’t now. Yet, the boosters get a flat fee that can be higher than the money made by the boosted story.

I’m not mentioning the potential problems of favoritism, partisanship, nepotism, and other words usually associated with politicians because many have done it before.

Here’s a cheaper, fairer, and better way to boost stories.

There are currently 100 boosters, nominating 20 stories per month or so. That’s 2,000 stories per month. The exact number doesn’t matter.

• Step 1: select 2,000 writers.

Let’s say 500 are random. 500 have made more than $100 in the last six months. 500 have been on Medium for more than a year. 500 had a story with more than 1,000 internal views. There, you have a diverse group of writers.

• Step 2: give them an e-mail address to send stories to.
• Step 3: each writer can submit X stories per month.

They can’t self-nominate (because that’s an unethical joke). Only stories written by other writers. X depends on Medium’s capacity (both in terms of filtering capacity and boosting slots available) — it can be 1, 2, or 10.

• Step 4: change writers regularly.
• Step 5: pay them $0.

There. You have a boost program that is fair, cheap, and better because it’s guaranteed to be more diverse.

I’m (also) on Substack.