Boosters Are Being Paid More Than Writers?

Why are the ones recommending stories to be boosted being paid so much more than the writers of those stories?

I’m going to begin this by saying that I might just be Medium’s biggest cheerleader. I adore this platform and everything it offers to writers.

I love it so much that I’m constantly trying to learn more about it…which is why I write about it, often.

This post however is one that I heavily debated writing. I’m not a Medium conspiracy theorist. I think the earth is a globe, Michael Jackson really is dead, and this platform is fair.

But, I’m not liking what I’m seeing about the boost.

There are a few things bothering me, but I’ll start with the fact that it looks like the boost curators are making more than the actual writers of the boosted stories. Then I’ll talk about how the curators are doing with their new roles.

I’ll finish off with a doozy of a fact for ya. And yes I put it at the end — read the whole article, this was a shit-ton (that’s 2.7 fuckloads in metric) of work.

Are Boosters Making More Than The Writers?

In a recent post by Ariel Meadow Stallings she shared some details. Including that editors with boosting powers can make up to $900/month from the stories they recommend for a boost.

So the way it works is that they get 20 shots at boosting stories per month. I don’t know why the magic number is 20, probably for the same reason that the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” is 42.

Using my utterly astonishing math skills (yeah yeah, I used a calculator) $900 divided by 20 equals $45. They get $45 per story they submit that gets boosted, although not every story is approved by Medium itself and given the boost.

Not bad, I think we’d all happily take $45 for reading Medium stories. Especially since we all pay to read Medium stories. Well, 70% of us pay, and 30% of us cheat the system because some don’t want to support writers I guess.

Ok, so if the boosters get $45 — how much are the writers making?

How Much Boosted Writers Are Earning

Did you like that practically magical seamless transition? Woosh.

So, let’s look at how much writers make from their boosty boosts. There are no official stats, because…Medium. But don’t worry — I did the scouring for you.

Here are a few examples of the ‘boostier’ examples I could find:

• Samantha Hodder’s boosted article (10-min estimated read) received 2.8k views and earned about $75.
• Mai Provencio’s boosted article (9-min estimated read) made $75.
• Carlyn Beccia’s article received 2.6K views and $226 in earnings (8-min estimated read).
• Ben Ulansey’s boosted story (6-min estimated read) received a whopping 112,000 views, which earned him $2,387.

And here is the majority of where boosts get to:

• Jason Provencio received 850 views and $35 on his boost (5-min estimated read).
• My friend Bruce Coulter made about $10 on his boost.
• Yusuf Melih Basli’s article (4-min estimated read time) received over 2.1K views and earned about $13.
• Ray Day received just over 500 views on his boosted story and earned $2.25.
• Roz Warren received just over 700 views on her boosted article and made $13.75 [EDIT: Roz commented: “As of 6/2/23, this boosted post has been viewed 3.3K times and earned $125.82.”].
• Lauren Coggins was boosted three times, 875 views earnings $45, 583 views earning $22, and 1.3K views earning $57.
• Gareth Willey got 550 views and earned $4.25.

But hopefully, most boosted writers are the former examples and not the latter — right?

Well, in Ariel’s article, she posted this graphic to show how many views boosted stories are getting:

According to the graphic above, 80% of boosts have less than 5K views. From what I have heard from my Discord chums who have been boosted…most boosts seem to be 1K or less (which is inline with the Medium data).

I wrote in another recent story that getting the boost is an algorithmic audition. The reach of your views depends on the engagement of the audience; the more people spend time reading, highlighting, and commenting on it — the further it will be boosted.

It is still awesome to be boosted! But…for most, it doesn’t earn a ton of money.

From the numbers above, 80% of boosted stories seem to be earning far less than the $45 that the boost curator receives.

What Do The Boost Curators Do?

The boost curators have to read through ample stories to find the diamonds in the rough — the stories that fit what Medium wants to boost. So they are out there scouring Medium (that’s why they get paid the ‘big bucks’…or at least medium bucks) looking for the creme-de-la-creme. Right?

I have a few thoughts though…

1. Repeat Boosting

The same people seem to keep getting boosted again and again. So to me, it looks like when they find a writer that is boostable — they just keep going back.

How long until they’ve found enough of those writers that they don’t have to do much scouring anymore?

But Robin, it’s hard!

Yeah, that’s why you get paid the medium bucks. However I don’t believe that in the first few months of the program boosters have exhausted all of Medium and run out of new people to boost already.

2. Not Scouring Enough?

For $45 I guess I kind of expect the curators to be scouring more than Shark Tank’s Scrub Daddy sponge.

One editor with boosting powers wrote a post called “Get Boosted!” and put a Google Form in it for people to submit stories to be boosted to. So…uhh…exactly how hard is he out there scouring? Well, I won’t be calling him my Scrub Daddy.

Some of the best writers I know are absolutely terrible at marketing their stories. They would probably never use the form above, where you have to write out why you think your article is the cat's pajamas.

I applied to the boost curator program. And no I’m not writing this as a bitter and scorn woman. I applied before I knew it pays up to $900/month. I actually applied because you get to submit an article with it and I had just finished reading another piece of brilliance (in my opinion…for whatever that’s worth) from Mirko Božić.

Mirko is shit at promoting his writing. But a great writer. There are a lot of Mirko’s out there (like Brandon Ellrich, who is frickin’ hilarious) who don’t realize how amazing they are. I don’t envision them filling out forms like that.

Tony Stubblebine wrote, “Often, the best writing comes from people who don’t want to be audience builders”. I couldn’t agree more. That’s why we need Scrub Daddies.

3. Added Perks Above the $900

The above point hurt to write, I loathe pointing out any person in particular. In Ariel’s post she linked to a number of other curator articles announcing their boosting powers.

It makes me wonder what kind of added ‘street cred’ are you getting when you become a curator? When you announce to the Medium world that you have this power at your fingertips, I’d imagine you get pretty popular and that people want to be on your radar.

So are they getting the added bonus of the views and reads of writers who want them to notice their own articles? I’d do it if I didn’t already know Medium ain’t never boostin’ ma shiznit. Mirko and Brandon probably aren’t going to do that either by the way.

How many curators are being funneled stories, one way or another, by more ambitious writers? And where does that leave the ones waging an epic internal battle with imposter syndrome?

Why Can Boost Curators Boost Themselves?

Here’s the doozy I mentioned…boost curators can boost themselves. I would have thought this would be the second rule of the boosty Fight Club. The first, of course, being don’t talk about boosty Fight Club (but apparently they’re all talking about it).

For the love of everything Medium…why on earth can they boost themselves? And are they getting paid $45 to boost themselves?

I’m not saying that boost curators should be disqualified from being boosted. They just shouldn’t be able to boost themselves. I’m also not a huge fan of them boosting each other — but that would be a horse’s ass hair more acceptable. Ideally, the Medium boost staff would be the ones boosting them.

I really don’t think they should be getting paid to boost themselves either — if they are.

But I suppose I shouldn’t care how Medium spends its money. I don’t think the $900 comes out of the writer payout pool. I think I heard that before, but I couldn’t find information confirming that (I’m sorry…I tried…but the rest of this post is pretty decent fact-finding considering I’ll probably make $30 for all these hours of work).

Remain Hopeful

I did not write this to sound an alarm or create a new conspiracy theory. No tinfoil hat here. I believe in Medium’s new boosting program. I think the boost program is needed. I believe it will make our feeds better. Also, I think Ariel’s experience in publishing is a great background for this project, and I’m sure Tony is keeping an eagle-like eye on the program.

The boost program is still in beta; it is learning. Ariel said it best when she wrote:

We’re still in the testing phase, gathering information about how readers interact with Boosted content, how pilot program participants use their nominations, and how being Boosted affects writers’ stories.

The boost program will have growing pains. It will make adjustments and pivots. And I for one am really excited to see the impact it makes.

But, I believe that in any learning process, community feedback is important. So I wrote this.

Now I have to muster up the courage to hit publish — hoping that if someone at Medium reads it they don’t hit the self-destruct button on my profile. Every time Tony comments on my story I get a pang of absolute dread (he seems like a genuinely good dude — but he's still the head honcho).

Ariel, if you’re reading this, I’m writing this wearing spanky pants and a tank top covered in Cheeto dust. My “gendy neutch caftan” (as you hilariously put it in your article) is at the drycleaners til Tuesday.

~Robin Wilding, reporting from…a secret (and hopefully self-destruct-button-proof) bunker full of Spam.