Another Way to Promote Your Medium Stories
The usual ways, plus one.
If you’re new to Medium, finding a way to market yourself is essential to making it — yes, good writing counts. But no amount of good writing will attract an audience if you start from zero and you don’t market your work.
The writing industry is similar to that of the music industry — even now, with the addition of an online market to share your work. Many talented musicians will never find an audience, a mass-market will never know their names, not because their music isn’t good, or great even, but because the arena is packed.
The last decade has made it easier to reach an audience and get your art to the masses because of the internet and social media. However, not every great artist will have their day.
Unfair, yes. True, yes.
I started writing a year ago.
No audience, no professional writing experience, never paid a dime for a word, not a large following on any one social media platform.
It would not matter if I had an audience on social, I don’t use my full name on Medium. I was coming in a neophyte. I use that word because it is a great word, one of my favorites in the English language.
I had written a two-line poem for ArtParasites (a great website for artists) that garnered 15k likes in a matter of hours. Conquered Twitter quickly with a great line about Trump vs. Hillary (one month after I joined), and a tweet about sexism that blew up my phone with so many retweets my phone couldn’t register them.
That is it.
The only benefit those three limited experiences gave me was the confidence to try longer-form writing. I thought, if I can get 15k likes for a two-line poem, a real challenge would be to get 15k for a long-form story. After less than a year on Medium and a lot of writing, I have. 👇🏻
It has over 100k views and is still earning. It took off a good five months after I wrote it.
The first month on Medium, I earned one penny.
Triumph! No sarcasm, truly. I was grinning from ear to ear — one penny.
I remember exactly where I was when I received the notification that money had hit my bank account.
Do you know what this means, I told my wide-eyed and jubilant self, it means there is money to be made on Medium, and if I can make one penny, I can make 5,000,000 pennies.
Last month someone was paid 33K for one story. Not a bad day at the office. Money is simply energy. Some attract it more than others.
I’m by no means where I want to be.
My highest month is 2k, but my earnings are increasing with my follower count.
What works
There is one thing you need to make it on Medium, eyeballs on your work (plus decent writing, but by no means do you have to be Hemingway to make money on Medium. Hemingway would not make it on Medium if he were a new writer today).
Medium pays its writers based on the reading time by its readers. The more time readers spend reading your story, the more you get paid.
To get eyeballs, you need followers. Or, you need someone else’s followers.
Enter Publications.
Get into Medium in-house publications, or smaller ones, until you have your own following. That is how the giants make money — they are everywhere. In large and small publications.
Eyeballs.
The more followers you have, the more chances you have to be read.
When a story is curated, you get more eyeballs on your work. Topics drive Medium’s algorithm. The more topics a story is curated in, the more people will see your story, the more likely your story will be read.
The plus one
One more way to market your stories, a tool I use all the time, is adding backlinks to stories. Yes, Medium writers add past story hyperlinks into their current stories, but I also add newer story links into older stories, stories that are still generating buzz.
Take advantage of your first story that does well, a story that keeps generating reads, with this strategy.
My Medium Journey
I wrote and published every day for the first three months, rarely did I publish more than once a day. Many writers suggest multiple postings per day, I could never keep up with that content schedule in conjunction with other businesses I’m monetizing.
Below is the first story I wrote that did well, about three months into my Medium journey.
When a second story took off, Four Negative Communication Patterns That Accurately Predict Divorce, I started using backlinks methodically to get more eyes on current stories.
Choosing Your Word Carefully Makes Love Last took off months after I wrote it, and it keeps getting reads. It is interesting to note that I published this story in my own publication, The Happy Spot, when I didn’t have many followers to the publication. So you never know which story hits and why. You just have to keep trying.
I wrote Four Negative Communication Patterns That Accurately Predict Divorce based on a negative comment I received to Choosing Your Word Carefully Makes Love Last, and that did well also.
Then, I backlinked the second story to the first.
So now I have two strong stories linked to each other, each keeps getting read.
Someone commented on Choosing Your Word Carefully Makes Love Last this morning.
While reading his comment, it reminded me to add yet another link from another story I wrote about Twitter since I mention Twitter in the story. It is still attracting readers, so why not promote newer stories.
If you do this often with your stories that do well, you have one more way to promote your work.
I keep adding hyperlinks to stories that are getting attention, even if that story was written a year ago. The story is current as long as people keep reading it, why not add my newer work.
More eyeballs.
The upshot for newbies, use your first story that gets attention, to promote your latest work.
If people keep reading and commenting on a story you wrote a year ago, add links to more previous stories to the one that is getting attention.
Yet, another way to market your hardwon writing.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering Type A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.
