FYI, I Don’t Read Stories with Marketing Titles

I don’t even click on them

I’ve caught myself a few times with stories in draft that made me want to vomit, myself. But, I chose not to actually publish them.

Here is how I write:

• When I’m writing about writing (like this), I keep it short with careful attention to not sound like I’m selling information that is common knowledge. Like someone selling cups of water from a river, to people by the river. I understand if someone writes a longer story based on them writing a complex breakdown.
• If I’m writing a poem, I don’t rush and I let the story length fall naturally
• If I’m writing relationship and other psychological information, I don’t steal someone’s emphasis or point and butcher it. I quote them. But, usually if someone steals your stuff, they can’t quote you because your point was better than their half-brain point — they just needed to publish something, anything, for a dumb writing challenge
• If I’m writing a funny snippet about a news story (like I have done), I keep it under 5 minutes. No news story snippet should be longer than the original story, unless it’s not a snippet of a news story, but it is a thorough examination of a story that just happened to be covered by the media
• If I’m writing about men and/or women, I write based on my own research, my coaching/consulting sessions, being there for friends, and scientists/researchers to create a statistical significance and not just publishing an article based on one woman or one man… 🤮

If I hear titles like the examples below, I do not click on them even if I want the information:

(These titles are fiction. If one of these are actual titles, that is totally coincidental)

• “If you are new to Medium, here is your ultimate to-do list in order to get $$”
• “Journalism”, such as “The White House and SCOTUS, then and now: the pros and cons”, “Liberals this, Conservatives that mumbo jumbo”
• “Stop Publishing with Big Publishers”
• “I met a Homeless man who Taught me the Value of Bitcoin”
• “What I can tell you after Dating a Vogue Model”
• “This Type of Guy Always Finishes”
• Writing challenges

Here are the reasons why I don’t read them:

(In order with the previous list)

1~ A title speaking to a certain group, like new writers for example, I will not read since Medium popularity doesn’t equate to scholarship, Steven King-ship, business excellence, or writing experience (but I have seen viral clickbait…). I sort of group them with the Christian bands that create very generic struggles to be able to relate to literally everyone.

2~ Journalism means properly quoting sources from ALL of someone’s research and investigation. Not quoting sources that aligns with one’s “bias”, as the American Psychological Association commonly talks about, in reference to the ethics of accredited, scholarly, and peer-reviewed psychologists and other providers. Actual journalism has a legit quality standard. Also, it is not stealing someone’s actual work that can make someone money on Medium.

In fact, when it comes to libs and cons, polls show that when a political party leader has seemingly swayed, they lose their people. I have met literally 10’s of dems who were those that wanted the last president dead and as dead as dead can get, now publicly wishing he’d come back and have switched parties. Some are in the LGBTQ+ community. And vice versa.

More so, there are a lot of “political writers” who are so out of touch with life in general that they were offended by the last president’s tweets, but don’t understand all billionaires are just like that, but in the board room — which is why they did not know that. The previous president just used Twitter as his board room, and marketing tool (he got a little bored). That’s all. They (billionaires) are all just like him and you work for them without complaint. Each business move they make is worth between $10,000,000 and $300,000,000. If someone can handle that kind of pressure and be a sweetheart, let me know. So no, I have not seen an actual journalist on here at all. NOT 1. But, I’m optimistic.

3~Big publishers. This is what I think about those titles.

4~ Someone meeting a homeless man: 1) who had time for the man, 2) located and shared a common interest without the homeless man getting upset and 3) was a genius in said common interest, 4) that led a Medium writer to earn so much money that they wrote about it on Medium makes me want to vomit.

Do I look stupid? I know I have worked in mental health, law enforcement, self-publishing, self-marketing, self-social media-ing, nonprofits, and military and mental health coaching/consultation, but dang, I’m not that dumb. That is a 1 in 20,000,000 chance, because even on here I have not found that much content to help my endeavors to even send a thank-you letter to someone. How many people with money can you sell to? (talking to salespeople). Then how many homeless people would you have to talk to in order for that to happen? That’s lottery stats.

So, I don’t click on stupid articles that think I’m stupid. Just because I know that having Forex “inside information” in the US is legal and I had a Chinese friend that makes buckets of cash with said information (to be humble about it), literally means nothing. It’s a family thing for them. I’m not going to write about it just to make $100 for the article. (I giggled a little there just imaging their face if I told them my business plan to make $100 this month on Medium is to do that. I think they would cut ties with me)

5~ Dating a Vogue model. What can I learn about women from one woman who takes 4 baby-bites of a donut to market a watch on her wrist, because she makes so much money in modeling, then gives it to the boyfriend? Nothing that I can think of that I need to know, that I don’t already know.

That is clickbait. Want to know about women? Read the two books by Louann Brizendine, M.D., an American scientist and neuropsychiatrist. Is your woman a Yale and Harvard Alumnus? What’s in your wallet?

I have a dream, that people would quit saying things against her research based off of 1 person in their life.

6~ “This type of guy always finishes first”. Until he doesn’t.

7~ Writing challenges do a few things. They tell the general writer on Medium what might trend, “so write with us! You will make a lot of money, because time equals diligence…”. (which is not true). This just gets the original author of the challenge $$$ for themselves.

Legit writing challenges are for specific writing groups (tying this into #1). I’m not in any writing groups and I should not be seeing these challenges everyday, but I have books published and 2 on the drawing board. Prompting me to a writing challenge is marketing and sales because we are not friends in a running group. I’m probably never doing one. I would do one if I had time, sure, and if a group of us planned it like actual big events — a year in advance. But, that doesn’t profit a Medium writer. Events are not supposed to profit any one person.

And there are a ton more articles that I do not click on.

The jury is out on whether I click on “making $$ on Medium” articles. Sometimes I’ll read them, sometimes I don’t. So far I have not read any — well, maybe I have read 1. Maybe. And only because the author engaged with me, as a human, and did not ignore my article comment.

Here is just one great example of a perfect story title; it’s by Kristina God:

The title is creative. The title is relevant to the content. The title holds original value. It’s not a call-to-arms as if it’s a federal agent memorandum. It’s not trying to rope in every man, woman, and child in the world. And it’s professional!

P.S. if you see any title of mine that fits this list, it’s probably just satire.