Medium

Ellemeno Gets A Boost

It’s time for our contributing writers to up their game

I’m happy to announce that the work we’ve been doing here at Ellemeno has been noticed by the powers that be. We have been chosen to participate in a pilot program on Medium that allows us to nominate five stories a week to be considered for boosting by the Medium curators. Boosted stories are eligible for further distribution across the Medium ecosystem, and if they catch on with readers can garner real numbers.

For instance, I recently had a piece go viral after being boosted, and it ended up garnering 38k views, 13k reads, 14.6k claps, and has paid out over $2k in a little over two months. So it’s not a small matter. Boosting can really make a difference in how many people see your writing, and that can, in turn, become rather lucrative. But there is a catch.

In order for your piece to be recommended, and then accepted by the curators, your writing has to meet a high bar. It must be authoritative, original, authentic, well-constructed, and typo-free. It should have all the qualities of a solid magazine article, rather than simply a personal blog post. Everything from your title, subhead, and featured image contributes to the magazine quality of your article.

We are incentivized to nominate high-quality articles, because if a piece we nominate gets chosen, we make a little extra dough. On the other hand, if we nominate too many pieces that don’t get chosen, we will eventually lose the privilege altogether. So we have to be judicious in our selection process. We only want to recommend the top five stories each week, and even then, only if five rise to meet the standard.

Currently, we are looking for Culture and Lifestyle stories that meet the requirements for distribution, which you can read here. This is a pretty broad category and could include everything from philosophy and religion to travel and food, right up our alley here at Ellemeno. It’s a pretty wide-open category, but you should choose things you can speak about with a certain amount of authority.

Writers should be aiming for a word count of 1500–2500 words, but that’s not a firm requirement. Obviously, the longer your story, assuming you can keep the reader’s attention, the longer your reading time, which translates into real money. I usually try for a minimum of 1200 words and go from there.

If we nominate your story and it gets chosen for further distribution, you will be notified by Medium. Boosting certainly elevates your numbers but be warned, not everything goes viral. We will be looking at our own writers first and foremost before we look outside for writers we might wish to recruit to become contributors, so you have a good shot of being recommended, but only if you present your best work.

Because we’d like to see the publication grow, and become known for high-quality writing, we will be stricter with what we decide to publish. We will also be working with writers to make sure their stories are as tight as they can be so they have the best chance of being chosen. Rather than seeing this as an obstacle, I urge you to see it as an opportunity.

I’m looking forward to seeing some fantastic new work and for you to be recognized for it by a broader audience. We’re here to ensure you succeed, but first, you have to up your game. Imagine you’re submitting to your favorite lifestyle magazine and write compelling, entertaining, informative articles. If you do that, we’ll all be a little more successful.

Good luck and good writing.

— David Todd McCarty, Publisher