A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO WRITING ON MEDIUM, PART 7
How To Find Your Way Back From Medium’s Dead Zone
Archives, lists, and email subscription promos
This is part of an occasional series giving you the inside scoop on Medium. Here are all the guides: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7.
As you can see from the image above, it can feel like your writing gets flushed down a never-ending virtual drain pipe…
I wrote in last year’s art review of the Medium Writer’s Challenge logo: “If you still believe they value your work, look no further than this logo.”
And that drain pipe continues to grow exponentially, with a 17x increase in articles published each day.
In a 2019 satire piece about the get-rich-quick message of this site, I referred to data collected by Harrison Jansma.
He reported that the number of articles published between August 2017 and August 2018 was 993,000, or 2,720 per day.
Back then, writers could succeed by gaining over 2,000 followers who would all see your work in their feed each day. If a tiny percentage of them clapped 20–50 times, each article would make money.
Fast forward three years, and the entire system has changed:
- According to J.J. Pryor’s calculations, the number of articles written in 2020 jumped to 16.6 million, or 47,000 per day.
- With everyone complaining about the terrible articles in their feed, Medium created a new relational system that supposedly allows readers to see what their favorite writers are doing. So you see this:
Each writer’s icon has a number in the corner which shows how many stories they published since we last read them. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.
But if you click on a writer, you will go to their profile page to find one or more “pinned” stories at the top followed by everything else in chronological order, which means only one thing… scrolling.
In the online world, time is the destroyer of cyber empires.
Amazon found out that a page load slowdown of just one second could cost it $1.6 billion in sales each year. In 2006, Google experimented with increasing search results from 10 to 30, but the extra half a second caused traffic and revenue to drop by 20%.
But the same thing applies to online writers.
Very few people (not even your mom) are willing to scroll down for more than a second or two to find an article on your profile timeline.
And if you are an established writer with a backlog of 500 stories, how will readers ever find your old work?
Glad you asked.
Here are three approaches that can help your readers find the work you want them to see.
#1. Create a good-old-fashioned archive and pin it to your profile
Or, as I like to say “Welcome back to 2016!”
With Medium’s latest interface, the only way to display your stories is to create an archive. It is an index story that contains links to your favorite stories.
Here’s how a pinned index looks on the profile of my friend Anthony Lawrence.
I like his index story because it contains plugs for himself and other writers, as well as his publications.
If you are new to Medium, there used to be this cool thing called publications that you could customize.
This example features a custom header with a logo and a navigation bar, plus three sections that display stories in different ways.
Alas, publications were never available on tablets and smart phones, so all most readers see is an unending scroll of titles with tiny images.
In order to minimize load time on mobile devices, you might be better off creating text-only links, like those found on Anthony’s index story.
Maybe people will be more likely to scroll down to find such classic stories as top ten fan favorite* Original or Extra Crispy: the Definitive Rankings of SNL’s Best Cast Ever., Do you know the difference between bloggers who write and writers who blog?, or The Kid in “The Giving Tree” is a Victim.
#2. Use Medium’s list feature.
Last year, Medium renamed bookmarks as lists and added some new features that will help readers find your work:
- You can add stories from other writers as well as your own
- You can make multiple lists based on how you want to use the list. For example, you can keep your lists private (like your old reading list) or public (in the hopes that other people will search for and look at those lists)
- You can link the same story to many lists
Under your profile, you will find three links: Home, Lists, About. Click on lists and you can get a list of lists the author has made public. Given the number of articles in these lists, Anthony has been using this feature for a long time.
As you can see below, the Lists link is easy to overlook. That’s why Anthony’s index story includes a link to his lists.
Given the overwhelming number of articles, I would be far more selective with my lists. It’s tough to cut down your writing to a single top 10 list because those stories are like your creative baby.
So maybe you can create lists with your top 10 stories in a few different categories.
#3. Email Subscription List
This feature allows you to create an email newsletter that notifies subscribers when you write something new or to plug old stories that have been buried deeper in Medium’s feed than the sand covering the tomb of Alexander the Great.
To create and customize your email subscription promo, click your profile photo and go to SETTINGS > AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT > PROMOTE SUBSCRIPTIONS.
You should see a page like this:
The first option is to share your subscription page in stories or social media posts. (Because everyone wants to read a tweet that says “subscribe to my email newsletter!)
The second option allows you to display your promotion after the second story on your profile and at the bottom of every story you write.
Then comes my favorite part.
[Fanfare] Medium now gives you the ability to customize your promotional message.
I’m surprised at how few writers use the opportunity to write about their writing. Here are some of my favorites. (not the treacly “I’m so excited to share my meaningless shit with you so you will send a few pennies my way!”)
I hope this inspires you to say “Hello, World!” in your own way.
Kristi Keller, one of my favorite writers, goes for a hint of titillation:
You know you want some more!
Amy Sea goes for a more direct approach, ready to flash her humor any time:
If you want to laugh or read about breasts, I’m your writer!
Kristen Stark dares to expose a different kind of look behind the curtains:
Are you a risk-taker?
Sign up for my emails. Maybe you’ll get a story I published. Maybe you’ll get artsy photos of me sobbing. Who knows!
Carol Lennox seems to enjoy probing for new subscribers:
Ready for one more alien invasion in your inbox? Need to know about everything from clitorises to hacking?
BOFace uses a different form of feminine wiles:
There’s no telling what I might do. Maybe your dishes, even.
Susan Brearley uses an aside to warn us about her assorted folderol but refuses to put it in parentheses (Oh, the horror, the horror):
Susan publishes humor, essay, poetry, and assorted folderol. Be forewarned. Subscribe.
Hogan Torah provides a completely different kind of warning:
Don’t be the last to read my awesome writing. I promise not to send any more nudes. It was a one time thing.
Smillew Rahcuef makes a bold statement that sounds more like self-deprecating humor:
There are 2 types of readers in this world:
Those that subscribe to my newsletter, and I cannot subscribe to myself.
Rolli takes a stand against the snake oil salesmen of the world:
Support art — not content.
Jack Herlocker shows his humility and vulnerability:
Get an email whenever Jack publishes something interesting. Or possibly not, alas.
Anthony Lawrence, the tech guy, focuses on ease of use:
You can unsubscribe if I become annoying.
Reuben Salsa, master of self-loathing, does everything he can to stop you from subscribing:
Press SUBSCRIBE as your last resort ONLY
Please do not enable me to pollute your inbox with shit you do not want to read. I offer no value. Think twice before pressing the subscribe button as this allows me access to all your nudes.
And I am a ̶t̶r̶u̶t̶h̶-̶t̶e̶l̶l̶e̶r̶ ̶c̶y̶n̶i̶c̶ old-dude-yelling-at-kids-to-get-off-my-front-porch with all the subtlety of a virtual sledgehammer:
And you thought you couldn’t torture yourself with more unnecessary emails.
Here’s to better writing.
Did I leave you out? If so, post your unique mailing list promo message in the comments below.
FOOTNOTES
*No, these are not part of Medium’s top ten, just mine. But there’s no accounting for taste, especially when it comes to the small number of people who like my writing.
