Here Is What I learned After Getting 20K+ Views From My First Month As A Writer.

Here are my experiences and some of my top tips on how anyone with even no writing experience can do it.

Introduction:

I have been reading articles on Medium for almost two years now. I stumbled across a YouTube video that talked about starting a blog. After that, I actually thought, why not try to write an article to share my knowledge and experiences. To be honest I had no prior writing experience.

When I wrote my first article it did not get many views but I just found out that writing was so much fun. So I just continued. Then my second article also did not get many views. Then I published my third article and that’s when my second article just blew up all of a sudden and now I have more than 20K+ views. I know it might not be much but, I just found it very exhilarating by the fact that I could share my ideas and experiences with so many people.

In this article, I am going to share my experiences and some tips on how you can do this.

Pareto Principle:

You might ask what is this principle. The Pareto principle states that.

“For many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes.” -according to Wikipedia

This principle was named after an Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. He observed that 80% of the land in Italy is owned by 20% of the people. It is also known as the 80/20 rule.

This principle can be applied to almost every aspect of life. So what it actually means that 80% of the results are from 20% of the effort.

We spend 80% of our time with 20% of our friends.

In books, 20% of the pages contain the most important information.

Similarly, on YouTube, 20% of the videos generate 80% of the views and revenue for a given YouTuber.

This can be applied to Medium as well. So suppose we write 10 articles only 2 of them might produce 80% of the required result.

So you might ask how would this matter to me? So by following the tips below or by experience, you could possibly work directly towards getting the 80% of results since you will be identifying the 20% of the effort required. So instead of going and writing as many articles, you can try writing articles with better quality.

Publications:

Since we are new here as a writer, we don’t have any following so there is no user base to which we can share our knowledge. However good our article may be it might not make a great impact if no one reads our article. So publications are the easiest way to get your article to increase your readership.

Publications essentially have a good following and you have an opportunity to communicate to a huge user base. There are many publications that are open to anyone. Publications are an advantage you can leverage on Medium when compared to other platforms. Publications also have the ability to send Newsletters to their subscribers and hence you have a greater chance to reach out to a higher number of people.

So how exactly to get into a publication. Head on to different publications based on your interests then look if they take submissions. Even I have been rejected by many publications, but we need to have patience and keep trying.

“No, I don’t ever give up. I’d have to be dead or completely incapacitated” -Elon Musk

Read some articles from the publication to get an idea of what type of articles they accept and write an article accordingly. Make sure to read the submission guidelines before you submit any story.

Topics:

Do not choose the topic based on what recommendations you get or try to write an article based on what you think might make money but actually write about a topic you are passionate about and interested in. I just feel earning money through writing is just an added bonus.

Make sure you can share your experience and knowledge about the topic. You can check this list of some topics here.

Here’s a tip: Anytime you get an idea just make sure to write it down so that when you're planning to write you don't have to spend time searching for ideas.

Length of articles:

The length of your articles can be anything. I personally feel that articles that have 5–8 minutes of reading time perform the best. Try to write articles that are well researched and yet concise. Make sure that they add value to the reader.

The headline for your article:

Make sure you take some time to come up with a good headline for your story.

Like when Abraham Lincoln once said:

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” -Abraham Lincoln

There is no article if the user does not read the article. So it's fine to spend some time to come up with a great quality headline that would engage with the user. It does not by any means, mean that you come up with a clickbaity headline. (Never write a clickbaity headline).

You need to back up the headline with the content and the claims you have made.

Quality of your articles:

This is one of the most important aspects to be considered while writing an article. Make sure that your article is researched and well structured. If you are a beginner I would highly recommend to use Grammarly to ensure that your article is free from typos.

“Everybody is talented because everybody who is human has something to express.” -Brenda Ueland

Make sure the article adds value and makes a connection with the reader. Do not forget to add your personal views and experiences. The article must have in-depth points. After writing the article try to read the article and check if it would be engaging the reader.

Formatting:

A lot of people ignore this part. Since Medium is a very visually appealing platform and even I appreciate its User Interface as a Front End Developer. So, make sure that your articles are well formatted with spaces, links, and headings. Don't forget to add some great pictures. You can add pictures from Unsplash or Pexels.

Formatting your articles here is very easy compared to other platforms because of the nifty toolbar Medium provides. Make use of the toolbar to format text as bold, italic, vary the font, and embed links. If you are writing code make sure to use Github Gists. Spend some time to format your article once you’re done writing.

Conclusion:

I know it might be a little disheartening if our articles do not perform well but it is all part of the process and we need to always keep improving ourselves and keep writing. In the process, we will fail sometimes and also face rejections, but the important part is to keep trying. To sum it up:

1. Find your 20% by using the Pareto Principle.
2. Try to get into publications.
3. Choose a topic based on what you are passionate about.
4. Take some time to master your headline.
5. Never compromise on the quality of your articles.
6. Make sure your article is well-formatted.

Do you have any tips that worked for you? Please share your thoughts and opinions.

In case you are wondering which article got those views. You can find the article below.

👋 Hey, let’s be friends! You can reach me on Twitter. Don’t forget to follow me here on Medium as well for more content like this.