Curate your own Stories
A topic and issue that we see over and over on Medium and on social media support groups, is “Why isn’t my Story curated?”
I would love one of my Stories to be curated, however there is “Life outside of Medium.”
It’s probably NOT because your writing is bad or what you have to say doesn’t appeal to a single person, why your piece is not curated.
I’m sure that those who want to be curated have done their homework and have read articles like the following, to ramp up the odds of a Story being curated.
But consider that Medium has stated that it has “over 25 editors” which I take to mean that they have about 27 editors (because why not say that they have over 30 editors, if they had at least 30).
The number of Medium Stories recently tripled, with 3 million Stories in a year, so I read somewhere when I did my research.
Sure, we write because we want to share, and we want to be appreciated and acknowledged, and those in the Medium Partner Program would like to receive money for their writing.
I get it that for some people, Medium is a critical or an important part of their revenue stream.
Human Nature: let’s look at what we don’t have and complain about it.
It doesn’t do any harm to have a whinge, yet it does reveal something about the nature of the person doing the complaining. Thoughts spring to mind:
- Are you saying that the Medium editors are biased or stupid or don’t read your Stories? ←- chances are that they haven’t read your Story, there’s a reporting mechanism for referring inappropriate Stories, sorry but 27 curators cannot possibly read 8,219 Stories a day (3 million / 365).
- Are you saying “Life isn’t fair?” ← sorry, but humankind has created a world that is unfair in the very real sense of some people starving and some not having their basic needs met.
- Are you saying that the Medium editors owe it to you to curate your Stories because your Stories meet the brief for curation ← refer to no. 1 and 2
- Are you just saying “I would love my Stories to be curated” and “it stinks that they aren’t” ??
Well consider that what you focus on, grows.
“My Story wasn’t curated” ← will attract more of this because it is what you are drawing into your energy field / Life
“My Story may be curated” ← should bring you gratitude and some comfort or satisfaction.
“My Story has been curated” ← should make you feel elated and grateful, if that is what you wanted.
And get this: you can curate your own Stories. If you have time to do so, you can run 8 blogs and write for 8 Medium publishers, and promote your articles on Facebook, Twitter, Mix, Instagram and Pinterest.
I do, and although my numbers of Followers are small, and the number of people genuinely interacting with any of my blogs, including Medium, is next to minuscule, my perspective is to distance myself from great expectations and to understand and appreciate that Medium doesn’t “owe you” curation, and that people don’t owe you their readership.
You can create at least one blog outside of Medium and share excerpts of your Medium stories with links to Medium; and use the aforementioned avenues to market your work.
You can zip your Stories (download them) from Medium and circulate them or some of them, and refer readers to your Medium profile.
Why not write a best-selling novel or non-fiction book, or go in writing competitions outside of Medium, or go on speaking conferences or offer to talk about your expert area at your local speaking club?
If you don’t have time to do any of these, consider that the best way to have one of your Stories curated on Medium, is to accept that what happens happens and to keep writing according to Medium’s curation Guidelines.
Thank you for putting up with my views. If you got something from this Story, you may be interested (or not) in the following articles, which I wrote.
