Why People Should Stop Rubbishing The Boost Program & Medium
Accepting something puts you in a clear space to effectively deal with it
In November 2018 I signed up with Medium. I discovered the platform through a person sharing a story on Medium on Facebook.
I was delighted to find that I too could write on Medium and that it was simple to use with an in-built audience. I was fortunate enough to sign up for the partner program, thinking that it would be great to earn back my monthly fees.
Over the nearly 5 years that I’ve been with Medium my earnings never went to the coveted $100 USD until July 2023. With one boosted story in July 2023 my total earnings for all my published stories to date, went to $187 USD. Here’s a link to the story that was boosted.
No, don’t tell me if it was boost worthy. Keep that to yourself. It is what it is, so accept that it was boosted regardless of whether you think it should have been or not. This story on its own earned me $138 in July.
And that is the key: a deep acceptance of something means acknowledging it even while not liking it possibly, WHILE taking polite or civil and intelligent actions to understand and change things the way you would like them to be.
Here is what I have read explicitly or implicitly inferred in posts and comments published on Medium.
- Nominators for the boost are the anointed ones
- Nominators are mainly in it for the money
- The only way to earn good money on Medium now is to be a nominator
- It’s easy as falling off a log for a nominator to find stories to consider for boosting
- Nominators are hand picked by Medium (for the earnings revenue they personally bring to Medium)
- Nominators only choose stories within their Publications to nominate for boost
- The wrong types of stories are boosted
- Poor quality stories are boosted
- The right types of stories are not boosted
- Long form stories are hardly ever boosted
- It’s a completely arbitrary and subjective choice for a nominator and a curator to decide whether a story is boost worthy or not
- Medium doesn’t know what it’s doing
Appointment of nominators & nominators are hand picked by Medium
I began my role as a nominator on 1st June 2023.
I am not anointed and nobody except jealous people believe nominators are regarded by Medium as “better” than anyone else. I reject being referred to as “holier than thou”.
In fact, I would prefer the phrase “the appointed nominators.”
Stick with the facts rather than colour your words with your subjective meanings.
Editors of Publications are eligible to apply to be a nominator because they have experience writing, reading, reviewing, editing, and working with writers in their niches or topics of interest.
I run 3 publications on Medium, “Thirty over Fifty”, “Lockdown Peaceful Space,” and “Boosting and Writing Matters.” I am female and over fifty. And I host a space on Medium for writers over 50, and for readers of all ages. Thus I fill a specific demographic and a certain writers niche.
The only way to earn good money on Medium now is to be a nominator
Really? Tell that to the top earners who, despite recent changes to how earnings are made, still earn at least $100 USD a month. Back when I started with Medium in 2018, the member email newsletters gave statistics, such as less than 8 % of all writers on Medium earned $100 a month or more in February 2020.
For nearly 5 years my earnings have averaged $50 to $60 USD which to me is very good money. I appreciate what I earn how I earn it. My observation skills, patience, and intelligence also teach me the nuances of earning on Medium.
For example, my biggest earners are articles about how to successfully work with Medium. There are plenty of nay-sayers who tout the line that writing about Medium is just a money-grabbing ploy. And I am offended by them writing or saying that.
I LOVE technical writing and working with software AND helping people. This is why I write my original pieces about such, regardless of any jealous or righteous or rigid people claiming that I shouldn’t do so. Such content is a way to diversify information getting to people that it helps.
Also, every original writer has a unique angle of perceiving and presenting information. The top earners can write about what they love writing about, so why can’t I, within the rules, write about productivity or technical subjects?
It’s a wildly sweeping generalization to think and tell others that from now on you can only make, say more than the coveted $100 USD per month, if you have a story that is boosted and is popular and/or if you are a nominator.
Maybe dial down how much you expect to earn monthly from Medium, if your earnings have gone down. Appreciation will go a long way too. The only thing constant is change. You never signed an agreement with Medium for x amount of earnings permanently, as far as I know.
Nominators are in it just for the money & It’s easy as falling off a log for a nominator to find stories to consider for boosting
It is offensive to me people thinking that nominators are in it just for the money. When I applied to be a nominator I of course could read, like anyone else, and read that nominators would be paid a stipend or a finder’s fee. This felt right to me for them to be compensated for their time.
As Ariel Meadow Stallings has pointed out in comments to articles about the boost several times, there’s a maximum payout. A nominator gets paid per story that is accepted so if she has only 5 stories in a month accepted for boost, she’ll receive 5X amount compared to 20X for 20 stories accepted, which is the maximum number that will be paid for.
To date, my acceptance rate of stories boosted has never been 100%.
While some writers rely upon Medium earnings for an income stream, such income stream is, like income from any other freelance job, variable and subject to change.
The Partner Program is a bonus scheme and an incentive to join Medium as a paying member and earn from regularly publishing content that someone will read.
No, I am not frittering away my earnings as a nominator; rather I deeply appreciate it. I respect the finders fee that I’ve been given by looking for a range of stories to nominate for boost, based upon the boost criteria and the issues of the time.
Be aware that the boost program is still in its beta or pilot stage and that the number of nominations that nominators can make monthly and/or the pay structure may change.
Tens of thousands of stories are published daily on Medium, with maybe 10,000 per day being left on the platform and the rest removed as unfitting the terms and rules.
The stories nominated usually need to have a very strong point and be unusual or unique or otherwise memorable. All Publications are not guaranteed to have enough boost-worthy stories in them every week for a nominator to spend, say only half an hour each week, submitting 5 stories for boost consideration.
I spend 3 to 5 hours each week scouring the Medium platform, mainly outside of my Publications, looking for suitable stories to nominate for boosting.
Let’s say that I invest 5 hours per week finding and nominating 5 stories, i.e. one hour, statistically, for one story. At a 70% acceptance rate overall or having 14 stories that I submit per month from a total of 20 boosted, that of course means I get paid for 14 stories for the month.
In other words I get 70% of the going rate for 20 hours of work against a possibility of receiving 100% of the maximum paid for 20 hours of work, the same amount of work. 100% of the maximum earnings is not guaranteed for anyone.
No, I don’t just pull 5 stories out of my own publications and dash them off to the curation team for boosting consideration.
If other Editors are able to find 20 stories per month from their own Publication(s) to nominate per month, “I take my hat off to them and to the usefulness of their Publication(s).”
Remember that the Editors will often have to work with their writers to tweak story titles, grammar, spelling, word use and story structure and themes made by the writer, to make a story boost worthy.
I have come across many stories on Medium of which the titles aren’t suitable for a boost worthy story or there are other precluding elements, like a link to the members referral program, which no longer exists, or too many embedded links to the writer’s own work. Stories should not overly promote the writer.
Nominators can use private notes to ask a writer to change her or his story in an effort to make it boost worthy, without any guarantee that the story will be accepted for boost. Of course, all this takes time and effort.
Nominators only choose stories within their Publications to nominate for boost
Remember that the program is in its beta stage and that as more Editors are appointed as nominators, more Publications will be represented.
The program had to start somehow sometime, didn’t it? And due to resources the nominators are being added in increments, not all at once. Also, patience and tolerance are virtues.
At this stage of the boost program, an increasing number of niches of story content are being covered. The niches that I cover are spirituality, self-help, personal development, mindfulness, mental health, trauma recovery, disability support, empowerment, equity, racism, travel, family, animals, inclusivity, diversity, creativity, arts and crafts, etc.
I don’t see that there’s a need to be jealous of other people’s “good fortune” in having their story or stories boosted. You don’t have a crystal ball so you can’t see the impact of their boosts. It may bring them a lot more followers, reads and earnings, but it may not.
Using your intelligence and supportive or positive engagement skills (as well as your writing skills) you can make your stories known to the 60 plus nominators currently. They may look at your profile page to see what you write, but don’t spam them. They won’t respond to desperate or inauthentic attempts to get your attention. The nominators are not ignorant or gullible.
Most of the nominations that I make are of stories outside of my Publications. No, many nominators do not only select stories in their own Publications to nominate.
The wrong types of stories & poor quality stories are boosted and the boost process is completely arbitrary and subjective
Long form and short form stories are boosted, as well as boost worthy poetry, fiction, and technical articles that are unusual or unique and that show the author’s use of what she/he is writing about.
Let’s face it: you and I are not perfect.
Nothing is perfect, so yes, some stories may (subjectively) appear as not boost worthy to some people. You, just like the nominator and/or curator are judging, based upon your personal likes, beliefs, and preferences.
Nobody said that all boosted stories would meet all expectations of all nominators, curators, Medium staff, writers, browsers, and readers on Medium. That’s a heck of a lot of people; that’s millions of people.
We are human beings, always comparing and judging; but being discerning means noting what has been boosted if writers etc. share that information, and reflecting over what this means.
It’s condemning others if you immediately and indignantly brand a writer and the writer’s story as being un-boostworthy and the Medium curation team as being totally subjective or biased.
It may very well puzzle you as to why a certain story has been boosted, but if you are outraged that one story of yours has been boosted while another one has not, that demonstrates a lack of gratitude.
Why not be grateful that you have had a story boosted, even if you’re surprised that it wasn’t the one that you wanted to be boosted?
A boost is a boost and results in some increased views and reads compared to if the story wasn’t boosted, after all.
Human beings also can be demanding or insist on things going their way. Wouldn’t it be better for you to be flexible and to note the data or information on hand, such as X story was boosted, but Y wasn’t, with interest. Use this information, civilly, rather than to complain about a lack of perfection. There’s no need to feel sorry for yourself, if you have a healthy sense of self-esteem.
I find it less stressful in life to go with the flow, including gaining factual information and working politely with the stakeholders involved to try to change things if I think something needs changing.
Of course, there’s an element of subjectivity with choosing boost worthy stories but of course there are also guiding principles. And these guidelines are strong and a testament to the boost program.
Rather than complain about the boost program as being unfair, or brand nominators or Medium as they don’t know what they are doing, or be jealous of nominators; get your facts straight and put in right effort to understand or change what you have concerns with.
It saddens and distresses me to read huge sweeping statements or generalizations about the boost program, and incredibly, many people agreeing with them. Some people also suggest alternatives to the boost program, of which the principles are already in place or their ideas are just not feasible.
Don’t normalize or minimize the impacts of the “shadow” side of yourself or others to blame or mock, i.e. rubbish others. We are all trying to look after our mental health and here are some questions for you.
Are you concerned about the mental health of the nominators and others who you are making fun of or who you brand as being the chosen or anointed ones? It may seem harmless to you in which case I invite you to swap places exactly with me.
Why not understand the intentions of the boost program and give it a chance? The program is to help Medium surface feature type or magazine type stories to be distributed widely. Of course there will be bumps in the road. Another question: if you were a nominator, what would your story be then?
And if you’re not happy with elements of the boost program, there’s always the Help Centre to go to submit a ticket to air your grievances, to ask questions, and to give suggestions.
Please don’t agitate and try to recruit other people to your uninformed cause against the boost program.
I am a real person with life experiences and feelings and I am a nominator for the boost program. I am not anointed or laughing all the way to the bank or lazily submitting anything from my publications.
I look for stories outside of my publications and I spend up to 5 hours per week searching for and reading stories on Medium to find boost worthy stories. Other nominators may get the bulk of nominations from their own Publications and still get paid for that. But why always measure value against time spent?
As pointed out, they still may need to edit the pieces; plus you can bet your bottom dollar they won’t have a 100% acceptance rate, and they may not find 5 boost worthy stories every week even within their own publications.
Don’t use blanket statements or generalizations and tar everyone with the same brush! People should stop encouraging others to rubbish the boost program and nominators, in my opinion. If you engage with stories that do this, you are showing that you are judgmental against the program and nominators!
In wrapping up, my last statement is to ask for people neither to write slander against Medium or nominators or to support it. Air your concerns factually, politely, and in a cohesive useful manner.
Don’t rubbish or spread disinformation about the boost program or about the nominators or about Medium because doing so hurts someone.
Thank you.
