Don’t Pay for An Expensive Class from a Top Writer — Buy a Profile Review Instead

Here’s What My Medium Profile Review Revealed

You’ve seen the opt-in emails from some of the top writers, sign up here to learn what I do and how you can do it too and make lots of money. Blah. Blah. Blah. Don’t kid yourself, they’re in it for themselves, not you!

These classes are made for the masses, not individually tailored for you. In one class I took, the writer took our money first, then created the class and bragged about it. The only thing that came from that class, was a great new friend and writing buddy.

She shared an article with me, where I learned about having a professional profile review. I know what you’re thinking, add the word professional and you immediately think of the cost. It simply means that you’re paying for an honest review of your work.

If your readers aren’t telling you, find someone who will.

Let me share with you what I learned from Rachel Yerks

“I’ve spent some time going over your Medium profile and here’s what I would suggest working on to increase your earnings, curation, and reach. Your writing style itself is great, so here are some notes related to optimizing it on the platform.”

Aim for Pieces 4 Minutes and Over

“Many of your pieces are under 2 minutes in length, which makes it hard to collect read time by members if they’re skimming.” “If you aim for 4 minutes and over, getting the read time up even with skimmers should be easier.”

This wasn’t a surprise; I write a short-form of 150-word posts. Two reasons I like short form, I can write regularly, and it’s taught me to be concise with my thoughts. My writing skills improved and so has my consistency.

Generally, I post two longer articles a week and I plan to increase to three or four a week next month. Working full-time as well as living with a chronic illness, I do what I can and at a pace, I can handle.

Branch out to bigger, more well-known publications.

“History of Yesterday is a fantastic publication to be with, so stay with them, and congratulations on writing with them.”

I love history, especially the WWII era and I guess it shows. It’s personal to me and so are the stories I’ve written. I’ve learned so much from the editors, and they ask for more from me. I know that I’m giving my best work.

“Illumination is a great starting publication, but most people there in my experience are posting to promote their own work, not reading other work within the publication.”

I’m loyal to this publication, and I like writing here. We need to support each other, so read something from another writer, and comment on their story. Let’s change this perception.

If you are having difficulties with curation, there is a way to guarantee it.

“Certain publications such as The Ascent, P.S. I Love You, The Writing Collaborative, etc. have instant curation — that is, anything that is published in their publication will automatically be curated. I have never had a piece in these publications that were not curated. It’s a great way to get your curation rate up so when you publish in other publications or self-publish, the curators are more likely to curate your work.”

“If your work is not curated, the earning potential is low overtime. Building a library of curated pieces will help you meet that $100/month mark through old pieces popping up in the algorithm from time to time.”

Make sure your title is a complete thought to help reel people in

“Some Medium users won’t read subtitles (especially on their phones).”

This is a helpful tip, especially since titles are a struggle for many of us. Many times, my subtitles end up being my title after I finish my rough draft. There’s always room for improvement.

Do you start with a title and build your story from it, or develop a title afterward? It doesn’t really matter, just do what works for you. I’ll keep this in mind when I’m writing from now on.

Adding a brief introduction to your articles helps for curation purposes + audience retention, in my experience.

“Knowing a brief outline of what is going to be discussed going in helps people to decide if they want to read until the end.”

I thought I was. So, it’s good to know that I need to work on this. Remember what you learned in school?

· Tell them what you’re going to tell them,

· Tell them

· Then tell them what you just told them.

The same process with your stories and this is something I can do to boost my articles.

Start an email list — it’s never too early

“I didn’t start an email list until I had around 800 followers. This was a mistake. Having an email list allows you to not fully depend on Medium for your writing income. If the platform eventually goes down, you still have your readers and these people may want to hire you someday. If you end up releasing any paid product, your email list is the best bet for selling it. Substack is a great, free email list you can start with. I recommend signing up for some of the bigger Medium peoples’ email lists to see what they write and then model yours after theirs.”

This is on my to-do list, so it’s time to set this up. It’s easy to avoid something you don’t want to learn but it will be beneficial. You’ll start seeing this on my stories soon. If you’ve been following me, you know the house project is first on my to-do list.

Imbed other stories

“I notice you do not imbed other stories into your posts. If you copy a link from one of your other stories and paste it into a new article and hit enter, it’ll pop up as a formatted, clickable story. I do this with every piece I write, although some publications do not allow it. If they don’t they will remove them from your piece before publishing. I like to add two story links at the end of each article so that readers will continue binging my work. If you have some articles that are not curated, this is a great way to breathe some life into them.”

Ok, here it is:

The Takeaway from this experience

Don’t pay for an expensive class from a top writer because they only have their best interest in mind. This profile review was a great investment instead. She offered specific advice based on my writing and gave constructive tips to work on.

My Medium profile review revealed areas to improve on, and let me know a few things I’m doing right. And, it gave me a great idea to write this story and promote another writer.

It was a good insight and something your friends or readers won’t tell you.