Satire and Humor

Gimmicks to Increase Your Reading Times and Earnings Tenfold With Almost No Effort Needed

Try these simple techniques to slow the reader down and earn more money with practically no work necessary.

Since MuddyUm’s new earnings algorithm, many writers have felt at a loss regarding how to continue maximizing their income. The new equation focuses on reading times so writers on the platform have been trying to come up with ways to increase the amount of time it takes to read their articles.

While some have simply decided to alter their writing so as to create longer, well crafted high quality stories, many of us feel that this requires far too much effort and will limit the number of articles we can produce in a short amount of time or our free time. This article will provide you with several strategies that you can use with all of your articles, stories and even poetry that will greatly increase reading times with the least amount of effort.

Add Fluff

Use unnecessary words to cause your writing to drag and slow down your reader. For example, consider this opening to an essay about the secret of life:

I’ve discovered a secret that can change how we view the world and make life more enjoyable.

But that opening is not going to take your readers very long to get through. Consider this instead:

I’ve discovered the absolute secret of life, the one secret that everyone is after, the one secret that we all long for and search for to make everything perfect. The secret that will help us to learn once and for all exactly what we were put here on this earth to do and precisely how to do it. It is a startling revelation that is guaranteed to change everything about the way we live, the way we interact with other people, the way we care for our pets, the way we clean out homes, the way we wash our cars and, yes, even the way we view the very world in which we live.

Much better, right? Well, okay, maybe not really much better in terms of clarity but definitely much better in terms of reading time and that’s what we’re aiming for.

Here’s another example. Instead of writing:

Because the poisonous fluid was dumped into the river, the company was shut down

Try this instead:

Because the goopy, smelly fluid, which was brown, poisonous and deadly, was dumped into the previously pristine and beautiful river, the terrible, evil, horrible company that was extremely and endlessly negligent was forced to shut down production and shutter it’s doors and windows.

See how much more descriptive that is? And so much slower to read. Here are some words that you can add into your prose to make it longer and slow the eye.

Just, Only, Really, Almost, That, Slightly, Very, Seemed, Appeared, Perhaps, Maybe, Somehow. Simply, Absolutely. Basically, Actually, Now, Sort Of, Kind Of, A Little, Extremely, Majorly, Literally, Totally, Due to the Fact That, In Order To, Quite, Perhaps.

Basically, just make sure to follow the rule that if one word is good then ten words are absolutely, positively, out of this world, fantastic.

Add a Lot of Gorgeous Pictures

This one is great for increasing reader engagement and interest so that they will keep scrolling. Find some incredible photos that you can put between short blocks of text. If you worry that this will take too long, don’t. It’s not important for the pictures to actually relate to the story in any way. The most important thing is for them to engage the reader’s interest and keep them scrolling.

To do this, choose the most colorful and striking as possible. Include one photo that relates at least tangentially to the topic just to keep the reader on task.

So, say, for example, you are writing an article about getting help in Windows 10. Try something like this:

Here are a few different ways to find help for Windows 10.

Go to the help section, type help into the search bar or try the FAQ’s. If those don’t work, start a chat with a Microsoft technician.

You can see how easy it is with enough great photos that will make the reader stop and linger, you can turn three sentences into at least five minutes of page scrolling.

Use Blocks of White Space After a Hook or to Divide a Sentence

Part of what goes into reading time is how much there is to scroll through. Those who are actually taking the time to write high quality, long form content have a lot of text that readers are scrolling down as they read which takes time. Whether or not a reader scrolls down also is something MuddyUm uses to calculate the reading time score.

But whose to say that you need to fill the page with a lot of text to make readers take the time to scroll down? Instead of wasting all that time creating content filled with words you have to actually think about and put the effort into combining them to form a logical progression, why not just leave the space blank?

You can use blocks of blank space to make readers scroll by inserting it after a good hook or even in the middle of a sentence. Since they want to find out whatever it is that will change their life, they will be eager to scroll down.

So for example:

Ev Williams, MuddyUm CEO, told me the secret to a guaranteed minimum monthly income of $10,000 from just three stories. The secret is

magic, spells and easily made potions.

See how well that worked? You can also do what I call a feint and dodge which tricks them into scrolling through a second block of white space like this:

The way you can REALLY write a book in a weekend that will make a million dollars is

You really want to make a million dollars right? Keep scrolling!

Just one more time! Keep going — I promise you it’s worth it!

Hack Stephen King’s computer, steal his latest novel after it’s been finished but before it’s been published, change the name on the cover to yours, go through and substitute some words for those in the manuscript which mean the same thing every few pages, then submit it to a publisher.

You can also add just a bit of text in the white space to ensure that readers won’t give up before they get to the next part of your brilliant article. This can be jokes you find online where you change enough words to make it technically not plagiarism, a statistic that will amaze and shock them, or something they aren’t likely to know. Don’t worry if it’s not entirely true since with the advent of fake news this is perfectly allowable. Here’s an example:

The three simple steps to become a billionaire in a year are:

A 65 year old billionaire went to the play with his 20 year old wife.

His brother asked how he managed to land such a young wife.

The billionaire said that he had lied about his age.

“You said you were 30?” His brother asked

“No, I said I was 95” he answered.

1)Find a great business idea.

2)Implement your great business idea.

3)Collect the profits

This is one of the best ways to ensure that the reader will continue to scroll down without needing to put in hardly any effort.

Take Away

While everyone is waiting to see how much the new earnings algorithm will affect income, there’s really no reason to be concerned. There are still plenty of ways to scam the system. Try adding unnecessary words to fluff up your work, add numerous pictures and lots of white space to slow the reader down and keep them scrolling. Then just sit back and watch the money roll in!

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You can find links to my other work on M*d*um and follow me here. Thanks for reading!