Writing and Audience Building

Either a Story Gets Boosted or Fails from My First Year Experience

What I learned after 12 months of writing at Medium, what really matters and what doesn’t, and practical tips on how to write a quality story for new writers

It’s been exactly a year since I started writing on Medium. It’s been a long and exciting journey, during which I’ve published over 80 stories. Throughout that time, I’ve experienced a mix of different emotions, from disappointment to excitement and fulfillment. Now, looking back, I can share my own experience and answer the question: How do I approach writing and publishing stories?

Challenges: Learning and Adapting Along the Way

When I first started writing, I didn’t even know how to format text, let alone how to write and publish stories. So, I began reading advice on all of that.

From everything I read, I concluded that it’s important to publish stories frequently. It seems like many members set themselves the task of publishing stories every single day.

Although that seemed excessive, I decided to apply that advice during the first month of writing on Medium. That task was really demanding, considering I had to find inspiration for so many different topics. But it was also very time-consuming, as it took me an average of three hours to write one story.

My Concerns with Generative AI Writing

It’s true that today artificial intelligence can help us generate new content instantly, and I myself have used AI assistance in shaping content.

However, despite the advantage of AI, it seems to me that it has a much bigger drawback because, due to its availability, the platform is flooded with stories with click-bait titles and inferior content.

Yes, inferior content, because I’m convinced that artificial intelligence, at least in the form it’s available to us today, simply cannot generate content anywhere near as high quality as a human can, that is, you and I. Of course, provided that the story is well-written.

A quality story generated by a human being always prevails over AI.

And so, I started publishing stories every day or almost every day. Although I believe that writing every day is very useful in terms of developing a writing habit and structuring one’s thoughts, I must admit that my beginning was marked by a lack of success. In other words, although I was gaining followers at a satisfactory pace, my stories had weak viewership and readership.

Even though writing fulfills me and gives me satisfaction as I explore various topics and situations, attempting to craft them into coherent narratives, I couldn't ignore the mounting dissatisfaction stemming from the low readership of my stories. I simply didn’t have ideas on how to write effectively.

Leveraging the Power of Established Publications

Then it occurred to me that the key might be in publishing stories in publications. So, I started publishing stories in that way, but still, I didn’t notice any difference in readership, whether I published the story in a publication or not.

But then, there was a turning point that completely changed my understanding and approach to writing on Medium. I wrote a story about prayer that I felt was well-written.

That feeling gave me the courage to submit it to the Illumination Curated publication, which is a boost nominating publication. Fortunately for me, I wasn’t mistaken because the editor of the publication, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, slightly edited the story to meet the boost guidelines and it was accepted for a boost bringing me a new audience which I didn’t expect.

Until then, I had no idea what boosting was or how to achieve it, but what followed quickly showed me what it was about.

The story had 20–50 times more views than any other story I had written. In fact, it had more views and reactions than all my stories combined.

Although I was completely thrilled by this, it also brought a responsibility that I wasn’t sure I was ready to accept. I felt that from now on, I shouldn’t lower my writing standards, but I doubted if I was ready to deliver them in every story.

But in any case, the boost of that story cheered me up so much and motivated me to write more, so since then, I’ve paid much more attention to the quality of my writing.

I also became interested in how stories get boosted and realized that editors of certain publications can nominate stories for the boosting program, but stories can also be boosted if Medium editors come across them and deem them of sufficient quality, even if they haven’t been published in any publication.

This prompted me to explore which publications have editors who can suggest stories for the boosting program. Here is an article with a list of those publications.

Then I decided that when I write a story that I consider to be of sufficient quality, I will submit it to one of the mentioned publications whose editors can nominate it for the boosting program.

After several attempts and failures, it happened that my second story was boosted. In that story, I wrote about the experience I went through during my father’s long and difficult illness, and ultimately his death.

Soon after that story, another one of my stories was boosted. In this one, I wrote about practical tips I received while collaborating with my excellent photography mentor.

It’s been a year, and here I am writing this story. What’s the conclusion of all this?

My personal conclusion is that either your story gets boosted or it fails to gain recognition. To maintain writing quality, I’ve decided to reduce the frequency of publishing stories in favor of quality.

“Write quality stories” became my motto.

It simply pays off to write quality content for several reasons.

Firstly, it leads to significantly higher readership.

Secondly, it even saves time because it’s less time-consuming to write a quality story compared to writing 20 stories that fail.

Now, on to another question: How do you write a quality story?

Insights into Writing Quality Content

Despite having successfully written three stories nominated and accepted for the boosting program so far, I don’t feel competent enough to give complete advice on how to write a story for boosting, as I still find it difficult to objectively evaluate the quality of my own writing.

What I have noticed is that for stories to be engaging, I had to expose myself, write from personal experience, and bring value to readers. However, if you want to find out more about how to write quality content, please take a look at an article by Dr Mehmet Yildiz, the editor of Illumination Curated, who discusses the same topic.

Here are Dr. Yildiz’s main points on what we need to consider when writing a story to appeal to a broad audience on Medium.

“While writing and self-editing each piece, I asked five main questions:

1 — Is my story impactful and constructive?

2 — Is my story original?

3 — Do I write from relevant experience?

4 — Is my story well-crafted?

5 — Does my story feel memorable?”

As an editor and boost nominator, Dr Yildiz also answered frequently asked questions to guide new writers in enhancing their chances of boosting. It is a helpful resource reflecting his hands-on experience.

Takeaways

As I reflect on my year-long journey of writing and publishing on Medium, I can say that I really enjoy writing, as it has become one of the most enjoyable activities I currently do.

Along the journey, I have experienced many ups and downs, but what is most important is that my passion for writing has ignited like never before. And this is what matters.

Furthermore, I’ve come to realise that writing isn’t just about producing a massive load of content. Instead, it’s about crafting meaningful narratives that connect with others on a deeper level.

In the meantime, I’ve learned some valuable lessons through personal experience, and I am ready to share them with you, should you find them beneficial.

1. A story either gets boosted or fails in my experience.

2. Quality matters much more than quantity.

3. The story must be of high quality, written based on personal experience, sincere, and must bring value to readers.

I learned that the boost program is at the beta phase, so only a small fraction of high-quality stories get boosted.

Although it did not happen to me, a few writer friends mentioned that some of their exceptional stories were not selected for a boost but performed well. There must be a different mechanism on Medium that distributes stories to a broader audience beyond boosting. Perhaps I will discover this nuance in my second year and report it in another story.

So, as I sign off, I’m filled with gratitude for the opportunity to share my stories with you.

Thank you for reading my story. Here’s some info about my background.