Here’s What Readers Highlighted from My Highest Earning Stories

Do you ever try to determine what readers like about your stories?

It’s not a secret to anyone who follows me or my Daily Justiss publication; I’m constantly trying to figure out how to improve my stats on Medium.

To me, and probably a whole lot of other Medium writers, getting high views that convert into increased reading time is an ongoing goal.

While the obvious motivation for doing this is the monetary incentive — aka: earning more money — you can’t overlook the validation factor.

Admit it. Don’t you feel validated as a writer, when a story gets a lot of reads, which also results in a boost to your earnings?

I sure as hell do!

Those are the times that I really try to determine just what exactly my Readers liked about a particular story.

Why should you pay attention to what readers highlight in your stories?

Among the many topics that writers on Medium spent time writing about recently, one subject still continues to linger in the community.

The subject of highlighting text in a story.

This is a worthy topic, whether you’re all for highlighting and you recognize the benefits, or you’re against it in general, or opinionated on the whole David Perlmutter controversy.

Being the diplomat that I am, I can appreciate both sides of this controversial coin. But while over highlighting — if there’s such a thing — may bug the hell out of some folks, it doesn’t prevent you from reading the tell tale signs.

So however you feel about how much is too much, I caution you not to completely devalue the practice of highlighting. Believe it or not, it really does have its’ benefits, like this important tip:

TIP: The content that your readers highlight can often give you a clue on what to continue writing about.

I must admit, after months of writing on Medium, the value of doing this is only just now starting to sink into my brain.

I got interested when I was looking over my titles that have earned me the most on Medium. I was trying to understand more than just what the stats page tells me, so I took things a step further.

Here’s what I did:

• I began going back to the highest earning stories, and revisiting the content they contain (pretty good stuff if I do say so myself).
• I began looking at the passages that were highlighted, and tried to figure out how many people highlighted the same thing (This used to be easy to do with Medium’s previous format, but not anymore).
• I began noticing highlighted passages, specifically to determine who did the highlighting (I can’t deny that I play favorites and value certain opinions more than others).

One other thing that writers can do, in order to get the most out of highlighted passages, is to pay attention to the comments. They just might help convey why a reader found a passage worth highlighting. You can make mental notes of your observations, and apply them in your next story.

Actually, I rarely read comments left on my stories anymore, but that’s my personal issue. However, for those writers who do choose to read their comments, try to find additional confirmation about the value of the highlighted text.

The interesting thing about highlighted text, is that in some cases, you really don’t know WHY the reader highlighted the text.

We as the writer, will typically assume that the information was received by the reader, exactly as we intended. With that assumption, we therefore imagine the highlighted passage to be a confirmation of their agreement.

But even if that is not the case, the fact that the reader disagreed enough to highlight (and possibly comment) on the material is still a signal to the writer.

The highlighted parts can often tell us that the subject is worthy of continuing the discussion on, and writing at least one more story on the topic.

A good example of what I mean can be seen in the following three titles I singled out from my highest earning stories.

I believe that the highlights help to shine light on the most relatable parts of these stories. I encourage you to read the stories and see if you agree.

Feel free to comment and talk among yourselves — or not, your choice.

Writing about your Medium stats is always a popular topic

As much as some writers hate to admit it, writing about your Medium stats is always a popular topic. Whether you decide to get on the band wagon or not, won’t change this fact.

Since I’ve never had a problem with sharing candid information about my writing journey here on Medium, I didn’t blink an eye when I published the following story.

I was, however, surprised that it resonated with so many other writers the way it did. Apparently I wasn’t the only one feeling burnt out.

6 Month BURNOUT: 440 Stories Later and Still Struggling for Reads!

Of all the highlighted passages from multiple readers in this story, the two statements I made that I believe were the most relatable were:

“I wrote about everything; constantly trying to figure out what the masses wanted so I could generate higher earnings.”

And also:

”Whenever I embark on a new endeavor, I tend to jump right in and give it all I got. Unfortunately, I end up having to walk things back sometimes, so I can reexamine my decisions more closely.”

I found myself wondering exactly what the readers may have been thinking when they underscored the above words.

I’m guessing, that just like me, many writers on Medium were starting to feel the same way back then. In fact, they still are!

Those stories were published last year, and as early as today, writers are still up in arms about some of the very same issues.

Don’t believe me? Read this recent story from a seriously malcontent writer on Medium, published in February 2022.

And in case you’re thinking: “Oh that’s just Sherry — you no how she is”, well damnit, think again!

That’s not just Sherry McGuinn giving you another piece of her mind on this issue. It’s more and more writers every single day. Before long, we’ll all be writing stories like this: Life Is Too Short To Live With This Much Negativity

That’s where we are TODAY, but I really could have seen it coming, way back then, thanks to all the highlighted text.

A story about helping other members can gain lots of reads

The second highest earner of all my Medium stories doesn’t come as a surprise to me, given what was going on when the story was first published. I shared this story with the community, right after we got the news about a follower quota on Medium.

I Can Help Members with Less than 100 Followers Reach the New Quota

The truly notable passage for me, from this particular story, was the call to action that I tried to stir up in readers. I was trying to help them appreciate that one way or another, they would have to start doing things differently on Medium, and step up their pace.

Here’s what I wrote and what some readers chose to highlight:

“So you see, those of you who have been quite content with 10 or 20 followers, and going on your merry way, without sweating it; it’s time to start sweating it! The same thing will be true of brand new Medium Members who we’ve been tasked to help recruit.”

This story has received 219 Responses so far, but somewhere along the way, I stopped reading comments (as I mentioned earlier).

From what I gather, readers seemed to truly appreciate the points I brought out, including the highlighted portion about the need to do more.

Many of the earlier responses I read (before I came to a halt on reading comments) expressed gratitude for the help and suggestions on how to obtain the needed amount of followers.

Various highlighted passages in the story also indicated the same thing.

New members want to know what really makes Medium tick

When it comes to things like publications and algorithms, new members are always anxious to find out what really makes Medium tick.

It usually doesn’t take them long to find out, for the most part, NONE of us know what the hell is really going on around here.

New and older members alike, truly have no idea about curation and distribution, or why you can end up like Jo Ann Harris, with hundreds of stories, thousands of followers, and barely clearing $100 a month.

Hey — that sounds like ME

Another mystery we’re always trying to solve is whether or not there’s a best time of day to publish your stories. I tackled this topic in the following story:

I Figured Out the Best Time of Day to Publish and Get the Most Views!

From what I could determine from the highlights, readers could totally relate to the analogy I gave, when I compared our newly published Medium stories to freshly baked donuts.

“So freshly published stories are like newly baked donuts. Even when they still taste good the next day, you can’t continue to sell them as freshly baked. At the very least, they’re now considered “Day Old”, and not as appealing.”

Some of the Responses to this story indicated that not everyone agreed with my flawless logic (in my opinion). That may or may not be why the following passage was also highlighted, but either way, my theory about the “time zone” was worth singling out and bringing attention to.

“This is true for wherever you live in the world, so when I say publish it just after midnight, that means midnight for WHATEVER time zone you happen to live in.”

Final Thoughts

As you can see from the above passages that were taken from my highest paying stories to-date, our readers have a way of letting us know exactly what interests them.

Whether they like it, hate it, or something in between, it says something, when they make a point to highlight a passage.

As a writer, you have a number of options to choose from, with regard to how you decide to view your highlighted passages.

Even if your page happens to be highly saturated with an all too familiar green hue; try to pay attention to exactly who is trying to tell you what.

• You can do like me, and keep your head in the sand if you’re allergic to trolls. I simply give my Responses a brief glance, just to notice how many there are, and which stories are being talked about. Besides that, I don’t dare read them. I just pretend all the comments are favorable.

This may sound like the coward’s way out, but it keeps me from feeling like Medium writer Laura Eve describes in her story: Why I’m Changing My Medium Writing Strategy.

I don’t need to read the trollish responses that make me want to stop writing how I write. But I can take a cue, and continue to write about the topic, if the subject is getting a lot of reads and reactions.

• You can also choose to read through your responses, and compare them to the highlighted passages. This is one way to get the full picture about what readers think and feel — just be sure that’s what you really want.

Thanks for reading

HEY READERS:

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