Getting A Viral Story on Medium Is Like Winning A Lottery

The story behind my most successful story

I started writing on Medium in September 2019 but only took it seriously at the end of November. Ever since then, I have published 65 stories on various topics.

During the initial days, I would try to focus on publishing one story every day and pitching them to the bigger publications. Most of the stories would get rejected, and then I would send them to those who publish almost everything. The stories would get views ranging from 60–400 depending on the title and how dedicatedly I promote them on social.

I was only making pennies and few dollars from these stories. And to be honest, it didn’t bother me because I had spent 4 years writing on Quora and made absolutely nothing. Compared to that, these few dollars felt great.

I would continue to the same writing and publishing anywhere, not worrying about the views or curation.

But then one of my articles took off.

My Most Viral story

I wrote this story talking about some of the books I read in 2020. The story instantly got curated and surpassed my lifetime view within 2 days. I was confused at first and didn’t know how to react. I had written much better pieces, longer pieces, more researched pieces, but they never got to see the daylight.

Here are the stats for the viral story. You can check the story here.

I had never seen these many numbers on any of my stories before. It was my first time to cross $100 and be among the 5% writer to make more than $100 every month.

It was good news, but I was busy contemplating what it meant for my writing career on Medium. I learned two things that totally changed my perspective about the platform and the way I write now.

A semi-viral article is like winning a lottery.

I may have exaggerated it a little bit. But that’s how it worked for me. Out of 65 stories I wrote, one managed to get 9K+ views and made more money than all my other stories combined.

There are a few things to understand here. First, you don’t know which story is going to get viral and when. All you can do is buy as many tickets to stand a better chance to win the lottery, and for a writer — you write as many stories as you can and hope then Virality god or the algorithm will make it reach hundreds and thousands of people.

The sad part about seeing a massive win is now everything you publish, and you hope it to get the same views and make you some quick bucks. Even when you know that most of your stories will tank, you keep writing in the hope of getting to that viral story.

In fact, the story I am talking about is not even a viral one when you compare it with other writers. For example, Micheal Thompson talks about his viral story changed his life in how his How One Article Has Paid My Mortgage the Last 23 Months, which is astonishing.

This is what viral content can do for you.

But it doesn't happen frequently, neither for the people nor me I admire here.

It all comes down to how much you write and how much patience you have.

People spend so much money buying lottery tickets because they can get back 100x or even 1000x if they win the lottery. The probability of winning the lottery is much lower than getting your story get viral. And you don’t even have to invest money in buying the ticket.

All you’ve got to do is write more content and wait for your lucky stars and the internet fairy to throw some stardust on your story.

Conclusion

Now I write every story as if it would get viral, and it allows me to double-check the errors and put out valuable content. I try not to expect too much from my stories because 99% aren’t going to give the results I want. But working on every story like it’s going to get viral has helped me improve and become a better writer.

Getting a viral story on Medium is like winning a lottery, but it’s so much easier.

When you write a story next time, remember it has the potential to change your life. If not yours, then it must have had helped your readers :)

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