Are You Dissatisfied With the Views Your Stories Get

The answer might lie in a different plane of thinking

If you don’t get views, you think your writing skills are not good enough. But the solution might lie in a completely different plane.

How many times have you met someone who had a perfect idea, and a sound plan, but when they executed their strategy, they failed. The reason is that we don’t live among ideas — we live among people.

Think about it: you write the perfect nonfiction book, but then you refuse to go to seminars, radio talks, Ted Talks, and promotional tours to spread the word. When you write something good, but you don’t connect with the people, they do not click on your story.

The Medium Hello

Medium is a massive social and democratic writing platform. People from around the globe display their work here. If you don’t say hello to them, they won’t say hello to you. On Medium, you say hello by reading. By paying attention to what a writer is saying through his or her writing. That is the ‘Medium Hello.’

Once you become acquainted with a writer, she feels socially obligated to read what you have written. It might be the start of a beautiful relationship. You are not interacting using sounds, but you are talking directly from mind to mind through words — sending a lengthy stream of consciousness from one human mind to another. It is a higher form of communication.

You are not interacting using sounds, but you are talking directly from mind to mind through words — sending a lengthy stream of consciousness from one human mind to another.

In the past, you could meet wise people only in books. But as technology has connected us all, we can meet people through this higher form of information exchange. Written words have been the mode of meaningful communication for a long time now.

The bonds you make this way enrich you. I would be lying if I said that I have not learned to write from my friends on Medium. They were saying what they wanted to say, but by reading what they had written, I learned to hone my writing skills.

Writing is not an art; it is a habit. You have to write more to learn to write well.

How will the Medium Hello increase your views?

When you say Medium Hello to good writers, your views start increasing. But then you write a superb piece — the right idea written in the right style at just the right time — and the number of your views skyrockets. The upward trend continues as the Medium algorithm starts suggesting your story to other readers, or the Medium staff features the article, or your publication features your work and profile.

At this point, you must have noticed that getting more views is not related only to your writing ability but to other factors: the most important of which is being more supportive and social.

Your character matters too.

I am an optimist. But more than that, I maintain that all human beings are born good. I believe nobody wants to hurt others. I think others would always be good to me. Because everybody is nice to me in my world, I am forced to be polite to everybody.

It’s okay if you disagree. That is not the point. The world may as well be full of villains and charlatans — but at least I would not be the one spreading rudeness.

My belief is similar to what the law says: you are innocent until proven guilty. I am unwilling to punish everyone before they hurt me.

If you think like me, you can easily read a well-written piece and say the Medium Hello — hoping for a kind response.

Final Thoughts

Like life, Medium is not fair or unfair. Medium is a big community of writers. The power of this idea — a community of writers — is going to grow.

Creativity is a natural result of information explosion. When our brains accumulate a lot of information and ideas, they start creating new synaptic connections until you become more creative.

It means that we are living in the past — as far as creativity is concerned. Medium has just started. At this time, there are around 40 million Medium readers, but this number will increase to more than 500 million in a few years. In the future, it will be more difficult to succeed on Medium.

The number of views has increased to 1250 million. Here is a graph that Evan Williams provided this year:

This graph is saying that more and more writers and readers are becoming a part of Medium. Medium’s subscription fee of $5 is less than its rivals like Vocal, who charge $10. Steemit is free, but it mostly publishes articles related to cryptocurrency and blockchain.

If you want to increase the number of your views, stick to the Medium Hello. Think of it as a sort of courtesy to read what others are writing.

Medium doesn’t pay you anything — it’s your writing community who pays you.

Medium doesn’t pay you anything — it’s your writing community who pays you. Let me end this article with an anecdote highlighting the importance of community:

A few days ago, a Medium member read one of my stories for two minutes. A writer’s earnings depend on how much time a Medium member spends reading during a month. The member — who read my story — had probably not read any other story during that entire month. And I got $4 for a two-minute read.

Have fun and say many Medium Hellos today.

You can read my curated stories here.