I Can’t Believe I Did It Again!

Easy Peasy: 8 Ways To Boost Your Writing Presence revisited.

On January 7, 2022, I wrote: “8 Ways To Boost Your Writing Presence.” This story has 6.7K claps, 127 responses, 709 views, 247 reads, and 244 fans. 90% internal views / 10% external views.

Introduction

On January 7, I told you I was a relatively new writer in this venue. I’d written some in 2019, but it was not until November 18, 2021, that I jumped in and actively engaged in the community. I have 1161 followers and 81 subscribers, and I follow 1.1K members.

My goal

My goal is to cover the costs of two memberships and a premium Grammarly subscription. I am also pretty happy to have a steady increase in revenue. I think it would be cool to earn enough that I could write off a business weekend at the coast.

For new writers on Medium, especially those with less than 400 followers, I heartily recommend you follow “8 Ways To Boost Your Writing Presence” as written.

I want to review each of the eight ways for more established writers and share how I have tweaked them as I reached the 1K followers level.

Writing is important.

If you want to become a writer, writing is the first step. There is no magic number of stories you need to write. It all depends. On what does it turn? It depends on everything. If you want Medium to provide a living income, you have to make it your job. You must write and publish to create a presence.

Followers are important.

Any followers that read, clap, highlight, and comment are delightful. The followers I want and want to support are the paying members who read, clap, highlight, and comment. These followers’ reading habits help me. I want to support writers that have skin in the game.

I make every effort to read, clap, highlight, and comment on my followers’ writing, hoping they’ll return the favor. It’s a matter of a fixed amount of time and an ever-growing follower base. The economics of this requires me only to reciprocate the reading of paying members that publish. Of course, I reserve the right to read anyone’s story whose title attracts me.

How you read your followers is essential. I have tweaked this since I hit 1000 followers.

I followed my original advice to subscribe to every full-paying member that followed me. The net effect was receiving close to 250 new stories in my inbox daily. I don’t subscribe to free members, so their stories don’t land in my inbox. In March, I had 2700 unread stories going back to January 1, 2022.

There was no way to keep up with the flood. I strongly suspected that many story-senders were not reading my stories.

To test my theory, this is what I did and found out. I started collecting data on a legal pad, several pages worth.

Beginning with the oldest, I searched for all stories by a particular author. I was determined to read something from each writer. I used a 10% reading rule. For prolific writers, I read one out of every ten stories. For others, it was one of four or one of one. On my tablet, I wrote the writer’s name, the number of stories I read, and the number of instances the writer engaged with my stories. Claps, highlights, and responses each counted as an instance.

Reading and documenting for a week, I identified 259 writers who had submitted stories, of which 55 had left some evidence of having read at least one article of mine. I unsubscribed to writers for whom I could find no proof, having read at least one work of mine.

Now, I have a much more manageable flow of stories in my email inbox. I continue to subscribe to writers for whom I newly follow and for whom show up in my notification list. In June, I’ll review my subscription list again to see who has been supporting me and make room for other supporters.

Become a full-paying member.

More than a few members will not read free members’ works.

Subscribe to those members you want to read your work.

If no one reads your articles, you can be a starving, highly prolific writer.

Be creative about what you write and how you promote your work.

(1) The four topics I primarily write about are Writing and Medium, Relationships, Idioms and the English Language, and Introduction to Klearance Cannabis Collection writers.

(2) I worked at Radio Shack one Christmas season in the 1990s. The manager had hundreds of $2 battery-operated pencil sharpeners on and behind the counter. I asked him why he had so many. Each sharpener sold was a $10 sale with accompanying long-lasting Durocels. “8 Ways To Boost Your Writing Presence” performs well each month. It’s a solid $10/month story. It drives readers to my profile, finding other stories to read. It’s my $2 pencil sharpener.

(3) When I introduce myself to a new Medium writer with few followers, I invite them to read “8 Ways To Boost Your Writing Presence,” to help them build followers. That article is my business card.

(4) Be assertive and creative about inviting members to read your essays. A week from the end of last month, I saw all but five of my stories had earned something. I carefully crafted an invitation for the membership to read those last five stories. “Stories Get Lonely, Too,” consisting of only three sentences. “The stories linked below are suffering from social distancing. Each one is seriously in need of a reading date. You can make a difference in the life of a story just by reading.” I included a link to each of the lonely stories.

(5) I’ve found useful help from other Medium authors. It would help you to read these writers to build your brand on Medium:

Jan Sebastian — “The Medium $500 a month quest. We got this! Here are some tools.”

Dan J— “My Account Has Become a Solid Passive Income”

Peter White — “Turn Medium into a Gold Mine By Accepting these Truths”

Copyright 2022 Harold Zeitung All rights reserved

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