How to Get Your Stories on Medium Curated into Topics
Follow these strategies.
The more experience I have writing on Medium, the more I’m convinced curation matters most. When a story is curated, it gets curated into topics.
Topics drive Medium’s algorithm.
Thus, placing that story in front of more readers who follow the topic in which it’s curated. The more topics a story is curated in, the more opportunity for readers to see your story. The chances of your story getting noticed by readers multiply by how many topics a story is curated in.
So, how do you get your story curated?
I have a high curation rate. My last eight stories I’ve written, except the stories I’ve written about Medium (Medium doesn’t curate stories about Medium), were curated.
The story below was curated in three topics: Politics, LGBTQIA, and Election 2020.
My story with the most views,
has earned over $3,000 and has over 108K views, was curated in two topics: Books and Self.
Curation is important.
Here is how I aim for curation
It’s in the writing.
Write what you know or love. I stick to topics I love to write, what I know or what I’ve learned — even if I failed at the learning part. Or some combination of the three while entertaining the reader through a personal story.
When you write what you know, it jumps off the page as confidence.
Readers like reading writers who write with the force of their opinion clearly and concisely. And they’re savvy. Take a stand on something you believe and write with conviction.
There is so much content on the internet vying for attention, you need to stand out, and one way to do this is to write what you have firm beliefs on and convey it in a way that resonates with your audience so that they believe you believe it.
Even if they don’t agree with your stance, especially if they don’t, that’s a fan. As long as they’re reading your work — you get paid for reading time — consider them a fan, even those who write negative comments.
Convince them you have valid ideas through clear and concise writing.
One way to do this is to write under a pen name, as I do.
Consider a nom de plume.
I write personal stories. I don’t want my friends and family (with a few exceptions) to read what I write.
Writing under a nom de plume may not be necessary for you, but writing under a pseudonym means I’m writing for strangers, which allows me to say what I think more easily without feeling pressure to censor myself as I would when writing for friends and family. With the chance of offending friends and family out of the equation, I don’t subconsciously change my writing, afraid of hurting those I love most.
Using a different name allows me to take more chances in my writing and experiment with topics outside my comfort zone. I want to be able to write on a wide variety of issues, so I can stretch and grow as a writer.
Write well.
OK, writing well takes practice. Writing. And reading quality writers. So write and read.
It also takes a lot of editing. If you are a new writer and haven’t had a lot of professional experience, it may help to have a writer friend read your work, find an editor to work with who can give you valuable feedback or take a class.
I have done all three. I’ve worked with an editor years ago, and it helped my writing more than any class I’ve taken. When working with an editor, you get one-on-one feedback, you can ask questions, and if they are outstanding, their editing seeps into your writing. My editor tailored her criticism to me and my writing, it wasn’t a class with others, so my work got all the attention.
When an objective person reads your work, they come to it from an observational standpoint as a reader, from a distance, so they can see mistakes that you yourself are too close to see.
Finding an editor is kind of like finding the right therapist or doctor. It takes trial and error. You will work better with some more than others. There are several online classes to take to help you hone your craft for writing online. Jeff Goins has a great class, as do many others.
Whenever you share your work, make sure it is free of grammatical and spelling errors. For Medium specifically, make sure your story has plenty of white space, reducing eye strain.
Read aloud.
This improves writing a significant amount.
If you read something in your head, your eyes skip over the typos. When you read your story aloud slowly to yourself, it helps you find mistakes and where you could improve on flow.
Run it through Grammarly, but be selective about what suggestions you take and edit.
I use Grammarly for typos, spelling mistakes, and to fix some grammatical errors. If you fix everything, like fragmented sentences you’ve used for effect, your writing can get stale and boring. Fragmented sentences set pace. Punctuation. Sets. Pace. As well.
Be creative with your sentence structure; it adds to your distinct voice and writing style.
Your title needs to grab em’.
I would say the three most important things to consider when aiming for curation is the title, opening paragraph, and image.
The first two have to be 100% free of spelling mistakes and errors.
Your title must be interesting.
The two writers on Medium who almost always nail their titles are two of the most successful writers on Medium, Tim Denning and Shannon Ashley — they both have a gift for the art of the title.
Go look at their titles, just come back to my story after to finish checking out their titles.
Your title can’t be clickbaity, but it has to be interesting, and it has to reflect what is in the volume of the text. It has to reflect the story, as does your subtitle and image.
Images need to be impactful. Images of people are better than other subjects, close-ups of people are better than people in the distance. One person in the image is more compelling than four. Sexy is always good, but it needs to match the story. Color is more impactful than black and white. Colors that pop work better than dull colors.
Your first sentence has to grab the reader. Make your first sentence interesting, so the reader wants to read the second sentence, and so on.
Summary.
Close your story with a summary that sums up the whole thing and ties it up nicely, there should not be errors in the story, but this is especially true of the first and last paragraphs.
You must have a subtitle.
Stories that are not formatted correctly will not get curated. It needs a subtitle. Stories without subtitles won’t get curated. Your subtitle is important. It needs to provide the main takeaway of the article — a summary. To add a subtitle, highlight it, and use the small ‘t’ subtitle tool. It will turn to the color green when you click the small ‘t.’
All top earners on Medium format their stories in one way. Here is more information about how to format your stories correctly.
Stories about Medium and how to succeed on Medium will not be curated. I write them anyway because they are fun and easy to write because I’ve been reading Medium for years and writing on Medium for a year now.
Every day.
Consider which tags you use.
Make sure you choose up to five tags when publishing your story, that is the maximum number you can use. Make good use of them. But make sure the tags reflect your story accurately and are popular topics on Medium, like, “Life,” “Self,” and “Life lessons.”
Medium will not curate the following:
- Stories about Medium.
- Stories with ads, or links to Patreon subscriptions.
- Stories with glaring typos.
- Stories with photos not correctly cited. Cite the artist of the photo or illustration.
- Stories in which your call to action is the only purpose of the story. Make your call to action one or two sentences in length at the bottom of your story. E.g., “Join my email list here,” or, “Follow me here.” Add the link on the word ‘here.’
Recap:
To increase chances of curation.
- Nail the title and subtitle. Both need to reflect the content of your story.
- Concentrate on the first paragraph. Make it scream with favor.
- Write compelling content free of typos and grammatical errors.
- Add a conclusive summary at the end of the story.
- Use proper and popular tags when you publish.
- Chose a compelling image that reflects your story and cite is properly.
Then…
Hit publish and know you did your best. While you are waiting for curation work on another story.
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Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering type-A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.
