Confusion About Medium“Curation”

Summary

Michael Patanella, a prolific author on Medium, expresses his confusion and frustration with Medium's curation process, which he has found to be less beneficial for his articles compared to not using curation at all.

Abstract

Michael Patanella, an established writer with 660 articles published on Medium, has been grappling with the platform's curation system for three years. Despite positive feedback from readers and significant engagement with his work, Patanella's experience with curation has not led to the promised increase in views, reads, or earnings. He observes that his articles perform better when not set for curation. This contradicts the common advice he receives to switch articles to curation for greater success. Patanella remains skeptical about the value of curation for his work and seeks insights from other Medium users about his lack of success with this feature.

Opinions

Patanella believes that the quality of his work is not the issue, as evidenced by his high engagement and readership numbers.
He has observed that articles not submitted for curation tend to receive more views and reads than those he sets for curation.
Despite advice from readers to opt for curation, Patanella's personal experience has shown that his articles' performance either stagnates or grows very slowly when they are curated.
He questions the effectiveness of Medium's curation process based on his own metrics and success outside of curation.
Patanella is grateful for Medium as a platform that has enabled his writing career but remains perplexed by the curation system.
He is open to learning more about curation from the Medium community to understand why it has not worked for him.

Medium curation, what’s the secret?

I write here to say hello to all my readers here on Medium. This piece of literature here might make me seem like I may be a bit of a confused space cadet. But I of all people should know that I should reach out for help, when I am struggling to figure something out. And boy oh boy, do I need help regarding Medium curation. That thing in life we always hear about on Medium.

We hear about how amazing, and wonderful it is, and how it is the one way ticket to dollars, readers, and riches. Well, I have been here three years. And while I once in a while may a buck with some articles that I tried for curation, it has been a extremely slow, almost non existent process. Most of my articles still making a few cents a day are articles from a couple years ago, when I was trying to become a big fan of curation. However, over the years, I am setting less and less articles for curation, because for me, it still has not shown me what makes it so impressive. When I don’t set an article for curation, I get significantly more views and reads then I do if I try for curation.

Now I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I will say that the reason for low engagement in curation is not because the quality of my work is low. Because I’ve published 660 articles on Medium over the past three years, and my stats go into the several hundreds of thousands.I have no luck or success with curation. That’s a fact. Not an opinion. Numbers don’t lie.

I often receive wonderful feedback from my readers with my different articles, and on a regular basis, I will get messages that are along the lines of this-

“Michael, this is an incredible article, you should really switch it over for curation, set it for curation, another good article Mike, get it curated” and etc. etc. etc.

Each time I take the advice of comments like those, my stats either completely stop rising, or they rise extraordinarily slow, and I end up taking off the curation setting.

I do not say any of this as a way to bash Medium. Afterall, it is because of Medium that I have a writing and publishing career. But I have been in the dark about curation since day one. I open up a forum to my awesome readers and writers; please help me learn why I am in the dark. I have found a lot of success without curation. So, do you think I should just remain on this journey, in a world of no curation?

Thank you so much for reading!

Michael Patanella

is a Trenton, New Jersey Author, Publisher, Columnist, Editor, Advocate, and recovering addict, covering topics of mental health, addiction, sobriety, mindfulness, self-help, faith, spirituality, Smart Recovery, social advocacy, and countless other nonfiction topics. His articles, publications, memoirs, and stories are geared towards being a voice for the voiceless. Hoping to reach others out there still struggling.