Med Matters: Is Curation Dead?

When all your non-curated articles are killing it, you wonder if getting curated is even worth the trouble.

So Medium has been a strange place over the last week.

You always know when something algorithmic might be up because the chatter gets a little crazy in the Medium Facebook Groups where writers go to chat and kvetch about writing and all things Medium.

So far, there are two topics that keep coming up:

1. A serious curation drought — and no, I”m talking about those who’ve never been curated, but writers who’ve experienced a great deal of curation in the past and all of a sudden the well has run dry. Completely dry.
2. Increased engagement — And by increased, I mean significantly so. Double and tripling of views, reads, and fans in a short period of time typically on uncurated posts.

I fall into the latter category, though I started experiencing curation woes a while ago and wrote about why and how it was likely to spread to most indie-writers as time progressed:

I almost forgot curation was a thing.

And that’s not hyperbole.

Most of my posts weren’t curated, but my stats were through the roof.

I was consistently getting hundreds of views and tens of fans on posts that — not only were they not curated — but I wasn’t pushing them much either. My average daily fan rate has jumped from 30 a day to 100 a day over the last week.

Once again, most of the action is happening on non-curated posts.

Here are my two curated articles for October:

In The Shadow of the Moon Review |Views: 52 Reads: 18 Fans: 11

Purge Election Year Review | Views: 72 Reads: 30 Fans: 22

And the Purge Election Year Review looked like the In The Shadow Of The Moon Review until I spent some time heavily promoting it to get the numbers up.

And now two recent non-curated articles:

Here’s Why You’re Still Single| Views: 160 Reads: 98 Fans: 52

Where to Submit Short Stories| Views: 118 Reads: 59 Fans: 35

Yeah.

I got nothing.

Getting curated in the Film category is so bad that I often go read all the film content and max clap for everyone because some articles won’t even have one clap, let alone 50.

I’m thankful for the boost in my stats (and let’s hope it translates to dollars and cents); it all seems so out of the blue that it is hard to process. And it is not just me, others in the FB groups have mentioned their stats have skyrocketed as well — on non-curated posts — and they have no better explanation for it than I do.

Look, I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth; however, when your non-curated posts are doing gangbusters, and your curated articles can’t get off the ground, it kinda makes you wonder if Medium’s whole system of determining high-quality content is working as intended.

I know that Medium is prioritizing the content in their pubs and partner pubs for curation over indie-publishers and smaller publications, but when curation offers so little boost to your traffic numbers, it makes you wonder if it is even worth the effort to try and get your posts curated.

Outside of new writers who are trying to establish themselves on Medium, what purpose does curation serve for the rest of us?

Like a Top Writer badge, maybe curation has turned into little more than an ego boost or way to have some bragging rights?

And before anyone tells me about the potential longevity of articles, my “In Your Network” feed is showing me old and new articles from writers in my network and not just their curated ones.

I beleive Medium has changed up a bit how they decide what you see, and it’s not just the curated posts that are getting distributed.

It seems to be solely based on your previous reading habits, so if you’re reading a lot of Medium related content, that’s what you get, and we know (with a few exceptions) that articles about Medium don’t get curated.

Whatever is going on, it is definitely making for fun times in the various Facebook groups I belong to.

I’m sure there will be something new to talk about next week, but for now, I’m going to enjoy my newfound success and be thankful that (at least for the moment) my success on the site isn’t determined by Medium curators deciding whether I’m worthy or not.

This is How I Made $135 Dollars in My First 30 Days On Medium

Only seven to nine percent of writers make at least $100 each month on Medium. I did it in my first month. Here is what I did each week to achieve my goal, hopefully, you can use my journey to $100 a month to achieve yours.