PARTY TIME!
Exciting News at Iberospherical!
Can you guess what it might be..?
Yes, folks! That’s right! The pub has hit the truly gargantuan milestone of 50 followers, in just under two months since launch!
I’m kidding. I mean, yes it has — 52 at the last count — which is great. But that is not what this reveal is all about. I wouldn’t be tagging every single writer on the Iberospherical roster just for that.
The only announcement momentous enough to warrant such a gross breach of Medium etiquette has to be… [drumroll]…
Boost Pilot Programme approval!
¡Sí, señor! We made it to the Eldorado of Medium distribution, effective April 1st. But this isn’t an April Fool’s wind-up. I would post a screenshot of the contract I was sent by The Management, except I had to sign an NDA in my own blood (which I guess makes it a DNA NDA), and swear to secrecy.
You’ll just have to take my word for it that as of next month, I will be able to nominate 20 stories a month for Boosting, starting with a few already published here that I think are the kind of piece the inhouse Curation team are looking for.
After that, it’s a question of you guys keeping the good stuff flowing in, and I will do my best to pick the right ones for proposal and approval.
This has all happened far quicker than I dared hope when launching back at the end of January. My plan was that once we had about 40 stories by a dozen different writers, with more than half of them by someone other than myself, it would make sense to submit the application.
That happened in early March, and I got the email a few days ago to confirm that the publication’s topic area was seen as a good addition to the programme, and would I like to jump on board?
You betcha!
So here we are. Old hands know the score with the Boost programme — let’s face it, we’ve been talking (or in some cases bellyaching and conspiracy — theorising…) about little else for the past year.
But for newer members of the platform, it’s worth making a few points about what it means for you and your stories. A more detailed, official version can be found in these stories by Ariel Meadow Stallings who runs the show:
But here are few brief points I think it’s worth taking on board:
What the Boost does
A story that is picked for Boosting will be pushed out more actively by the Medium distribution system. It is expected to pick up 500 extra views within two weeks, and my experience tallies with that. 500 is typical, but I’ve had up to 1,000 views. And it can take off way beyond that if a story really strikes a chord and maintains a high read ratio.
So that means you would expect 300–400+ reads, which will also be rewarded at a somewhat higher earnings rate than a regular story. All these numbers change constantly, but my boosted stories have tended to bring in between $30 and $90, though I’ve never hit the big time with anything truly viral.
How stuff gets boosted via a pub
As stated, I can nominate up to 20 stories per month. Most of those would normally come directly from this publication, as it’s the topic area I’ve been ‘licensed to nom’, and is the work I’m most familiar with. But I also follow related topic tags and hope to find other great stories and writers that way as well.
Those nominations go to the inhouse Curation team, who give them the thumbs up, or down. The expectation is that when you first start out, maybe half your picks will be approved. But that rate should go up to 70% or higher once you get a sense of how your instinct aligns with Medium policy.
So eventually we might be looking at 14 or 15 stories from Iberospherical getting a privileged place at the top of readers’ feeds, which is great for their writers, but also for everyone else publishing here, as it means more eyeballs on the pub, and more followers, who have a better chance of seeing non-boosted pieces as well.
What gets boosted?
The six-million-peso question! Again, there are plenty of articles both by Medium staff and other editors and writers about the set of criteria that would tend to make a story boost-eligible.
If I had to summarise them in a single word, that word would be ‘impactful’.
What does that mean? Stories that draw on personal experience, skilfully told, reflecting strong feelings and emotions. ‘Moments that matter’, might be another way of putting it. But as well as drawing the reader in that way, they would ideally also chime with their own experience, or prompt reflection on our human condition, if that doesn’t sound too posily philosophical.
And I feel that this publication should attract plenty of those stories. Explorations of the cultural and social nuances of different lands, and the ways they open our eyes to a new way of seeing the world. Lived experience and reflection, more than fleeting tour bus snapshots.
Of course there is room for plenty of other stories here as well, from film and book reviews to travel to digital nomad visa how-to guides. But however appealing, useful or popular with readers they might be, they are probably not going to be nominated for a boost. Unless they bring in that personal perspective that makes them perceptions unique to you, rather than generic observations.
That’s my view so far, anyway. For what it’s worth.
What about editorial mechanics?
Again, how the story is presented is important, as that shop window display is what invites the passing reader inside. A striking cover image helps a lot — landscape format to display properly — as do a snappy headline and subhead.
The idea is that when a new reader comes across the story in their feed, they should take notice, and see enough to think ‘That seems intriguing — I’ll take a closer look’.
A gripping, vivid opening is useful as well. How high your boosted piece flies seems to depend a lot on its ‘read ratio’, i.e. the proportion of people who after clicking on the link, spend at least thirty seconds reading the content.
Images are another key aspect — please make sure that your photos are all properly sourced for reuse, with the relevant link built into the caption, or are your own and marked as such. And that they have useful, relevant Alt text describing the content and context.
Paragraph length is another point specific to platforms like Medium. The distribution of paras in this piece is, I think, just about right to display on a small screen in an unintimidating format that doesn’t look like a wall of text, but doesn’t read like LinkedIn ‘broetry’ either.
My high school English teacher would roll in his grave at the idea of such short paragraphs. But then he never owned, or even imagined the concept of, a smartphone. Let alone the attention span of the TikTok generation. Again, this ties in with protecting your read time — if your second paragraph fills the entire screen of a phone, you may find that some readers take fright and leave you with nothing but a kick in the stats.
That is pretty much it as far as general Boost info goes. For Iberospherical itself, I will keep everyone posted with updates about how it’s going after a couple of months or so. If a piece of yours gets picked, you will see an upwardly thrusting arrow appear after the story title on your stats page.
Hopefully we will all be getting plenty of those little arrows in the months to come — and for newer writers, it’s well worth seeking out other small pubs that belong to the Boost Pilot and match up with your interests. That’s the best way to increase your reach and audience, and also your earnings.
¡Hasta el infinito y más allá, amig@s!
And here is the promised tagwall of current Iberospherical writers. With apologies, but I figured that you would all want to know this particular piece of news. If anyone would like to be removed from the writer list, or not included in any future pub-related updates, please just let me know.
Unfortunately, until I set up a publication newsletter, this is the only practical way of getting info out to you all.
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