How Top Earners Format Their Stories
Increase your chances of curation.
Most people who start writing on Medium with the belief that they can make thousands of dollars a month will quit. Here is the truth about making money consistently on Medium, it is a lot of work. It takes time, effort, and weekly posting, if not daily.
That is just the hard truth.
But if you’re willing to put in the hours and keep a daily writing schedule, it is possible to make a monthly income, not one that will buy you a Tesla, but one that could be one significant revenue stream for any online entrepreneur.
If you’re going to put time into writing on Medium, make sure you increase your chances of curation by formatting your posts correctly.
So many times, I read great stories on Medium, and the story isn’t formatted in the way Medium prefers, possibly eliminating the story from curation.
Curation is what you seek.
Curation translates into engagement. Engagement translates into income.
Medium’s curators scour Medium for stories they want curate into topics. Curation still remains the best way to increase follower count, get views, reads, claps, comments — engagement.
Medium curation means your story is shown to the people following the topic in which it was curated.
The Medium story algorithm is driven by topics, so when your story is curated in the productivity topic, it is shown to all the readers on Medium who follow productivity.
This is huge, your story will get in front of a larger audience and not only your followers.
More eyeballs, more reads.
The readers following the topic of productivity will have a chance to see your story.
How to format a story properly
Medium is going for a magazine-style look and quality formatting. Make your story fit the platform.
Checklist:
- You must have a title, subtitle, and an image that reflects your article.
- The image must be appropriately cited.
- Use subtitles within your text to break up the story and create white space to increase readability.
Once you learn to nail these components plus a compelling story that is well thought out and has no grammatical or spelling errors, you will be curated.
Make sure you follow these rules before you hit ‘Publish.’
Let’s start with titles.
Titles
Medium prefers a title that is clear and concise and is written in title case.
Title case means most of the words in your title are capitalized, and there is no end period. If you don’t know what title case is, click here, enter your title into the search tool, hit ‘convert,’ and it will format your title into title case.
The title is the first part of your story. Enter it, highlight it, and then click the large ‘T’ on the Medium editor toolbar to format it correctly. See photo.
Medium does not like clickbaity titles, yet the title has to elicit an emotional response, be unique, and describe your story. It walks the fine line of emotional and personal but not hyperbolic or exaggerated just for clicks.
I used to use a title generator that rated my titles and told me which titles were better — used more words that provoke emotion — but then my stories were curated less.
Use your best judgment and experiment.
If one of your stories doesn’t get curated, try changing the title and see what happens.
I would argue that your title is the most important part of your story, the story a close second, by a hair. If you don’t get people to click on your title, there is no chance they will read your story. So take the time to find the title that works best. Imagine you’re the reader and put yourself in their shoes. Read your title out loud, would you click on that title?
Many times it is only the title that is preventing your story from being curated. Think about it carefully before you hit publish.
Below are some of my titles that were curated immediately.
The One Book That Will Change Your Life
It’s Hard to Consciously Uncouple While Your Husband Is Slashing Your Tires
5 Things High Achievers Have in Common
6 Reasons Women Should Masturbate Regularly
Listening Carefully Makes Love Last
Five Obvious Behaviors That Ruin Relationships
Finding Joy in a Mandatory Slowdown
Subtitles
The subtitle goes directly under the title and needs to be formatted in sentence case.
Sentence case is a title written in sentence form. The first word is capitalized, with a period at the end of the sentence. Don’t ask a question in your subtitle, it probably won’t be curated.
Just like the title, your subtitle should be informative and reflect the content of your story. Make it count. Get a little more detailed in my subtitle, this seems to work for curation purposes.
To format the subtitle properly, highlight the text, and click the small ‘t’ icon when the editor pops up. See photo.
Images
Except for writing, choosing the right image is my favorite part.
Take your time with this.
Try not to select a photo that has been overused on Medium. The more time you spend on Medium, the easier it is to tell which photos are overused.
Unsplash is the best site for compelling photos, try to go deep into the website for unique images that haven’t been used yet.
Your image needs to reflect your story and what the reader is in for, not literally, but somewhat. Try to match the gist of the story — what you want your reader to walk away from the story thinking and feeling — with the image.
The photo goes directly under the subtitle.
Choose the largest option available, this is the farthest option to the right on the Medium editor toolbar, this option will fill the screen with the photo and make for a striking look to your story on the Medium homepage. It gives a magazine-style look to your piece. See below.
A horizontal photo works best.
Make sure you cite every photo you use.
Photos within the body of the story
I sometimes add photos within the body of my story to make it more visually appealing.
These photos need to be cited also.
Use vertical or horizontal oriented photos in the body of the text and select the option that gives you the photo in the same width as the text, the second option from the left on the pop-up toolbar. See below.
Using a compelling photo, and formating the title and subtitle correctly, along with a well-written interesting story, will increase your chances of curation.
Write on.
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.
