Curation VS Quality

Both are equally important

By now, there are probably hundreds of articles on here talking about whether curation matters for writers (and even readers).

I even did one about a month ago where I stated that personally, I’m on the fence about curation but swinging more towards ‘for’ rather than ‘against’ because it does help in some ways.

Despite that, I still see a lot of people asking if it really does indeed matter.

Well, let me talk a little bit more about it based on my very recent experiences of having a few articles curated.

So, please bring your attention to the screenshot of my articles’ stats below.

Above are the stats for my last 6 articles that I’ve published. Out of those 6 articles, 2 of them were curated. The one at the bottom of the screen was my first ever article to be triple curated. It was curated under Equality, Society and Self. The other curated one was only curated under Self.

The other 4 were deemed not good enough or didn’t fit the criteria (or were missed by the curation team) to be curated.

Doesn’t matter. You win some, you lose some.

Anyway, what I’m trying to bring to your attention here are a few things based from my above stats.

Out of the 6 articles, 3 of them did/are doing well.

‘Men, It’s Time To Start Crying,’ ‘4 Things You Can Do For Self Love,’ and ‘Why Writers Post The Same Things On Medium.’

Now, let’s compare them.

The first two were curated and the last one wasn’t.

Let’s take a closer look at the curated ones first. My triple curated article is doing a lot better compared to the single curated one. Despite the views and reads being almost similar, the biggest difference are my fans. One has 27 fans from 58 reads, while the other, only 7 fans from over 65 reads.

The triple curated article has:

• 58 reads from 180 views
• 27 fans from 58 reads

The single curated article has:

• 65 reads from 163 views
• 7 fans from 65 reads

Despite getting more reads from less views, the single curated one only have 7 fans to date. That’s 20 fans less than the other one.

Now, compare these two to the article that wasn’t curated.

That article has:

• 58 reads from 77 views
• 30 fans from 58 reads

Same number of reads as the triple curated article from less than half the views and more fans than both curated articles.

Why is this?

Well, that’s the title and subtitle of this article.

Quality

The quality of your article really determines whether it gets curated or not. That’s what the team of curators are looking for. Quality articles that will impress and excite the readers.

If it excites them, it will most probably excite the readers too.

But in the event your article does not get curated, the quality of it can still ensure it does well. Case in point, my non curated article getting more fans than the curated ones.

I can only assume that the quality of that article is good and people enjoy reading it, hence why the number of fans. To date, that article is my best performing non curated article. I’ve never had a non curated article surpass more than 15 fans. This has doubled that amount.

To conclude this, I would again say that curation is still important, although it will not guarantee more earnings.

What it will guarantee though, is that your articles will get more traction. It will be displayed in areas where it will be visible to a lot more readers and in turn, increase your chances of earning more.

Whether it really does, depends on the quality of the article and whether it resonates with your readers.

So, there you go!

Keep writing, keep churning out your best work and it should all turn out OK in the end.