Medium Has Not Curated my Last 49 Stories (This One Will Be Number 50)

Why it’s OK. What I do instead. And how you might benefit too

Save for my little experiment with taking nine days off Medium, I’m making more money on the platform than ever. While my approach appears to have upset the curation gods, I’m actually relieved to have that stress off my plate.

Everything I publish is almost instantly denied.

There are no stats to check. I don’t have to refresh my screen every couple hours to see if I made it. Nope. The answer is no. I did this to myself. The decision was semi-deliberate. Not that I don’t want to be curated, but that I took a hard-line approach to my content.

…and it’s paid-off in spades.

I actually enjoy watching the non-curated numbers grow. It’s become a little contest with myself. I’m not saying this to cover-up some internal angst or anything. I’m working to reach 100.

I figure 100 would make another great story.

So, why doesn’t it bother me that I haven’t been curated since Nixon? Well, non-curation has lifted a burden from my shoulders. I no longer have to comply with all the curation rules.

I can now do my best work — to serve my readers the best way I know how — and to grow my tribe in the process.

I uncovered what my readers like reading and I continue to provide more of it.

Yes, my visibility has tanked. My individual numbers are down. But I’m making plenty of money off my cumulative basket of content, plus, I’m foot-loose and fancy-free to build my off-Medium tribe with little restraint.

Everything I write serves two purposes — one for the reader and one for me.

The first two-thirds of each story are for the reader — a bit of educational infotainment, hopefully they’ve never read before. The last third is for me — to entice new readers to join my email masterclass.

I’ve now repeated this process more than 730 times.

When I was hell-bent on getting curated I had to dance-around the whole ‘asking for subscribers’ thing. I had to do it tastefully, with as little fanfare as possible.

Welp, tasteful and simple is a hard way to gain new subscribers. Fanfare and obvious works a lot better in marketing.

Let your freak flag fly

I know full-well that non-curated content has a short shelf-life. My older, curated stories continue to earn money for me. For that, I’m grateful.

Instead of getting bent on the stats, I like to think of Medium stories like long-form Tweets. Most of what we write here will be forgotten. Some will stick. Some will be mediocre. This is the price of admission.

I believe it’s better to have multiple versions of your message out there — gathering new members of your tribe — than a single blockbuster, which may or may not last into next week.

Why not focus on your readers instead of the curators.

Take the weight off your shoulders.

Write more of what people are already reading instead of worrying about checking the boxes of curation. Those folks have way too much to read anyhow.

You can earn a lot more with your email list than you can by being curated from a couple stories.

I used to write for a bunch of article mills. I wrote over 1,000 articles without getting paid, all for the traffic I earned for my email list. It was worth the free labor. I grew a huge list and operated a marketing newsletter for three years, before I closed the doors.

Now I’m here. I found my people. And curated or not, I’ll continue to serve them.

Join my tribe

How’s that for direct?

But seriously, the entire purpose of my work is to help writers and creators make work that sells and sell more of that work once it’s made. Medium is just a piece of my puzzle.

I want to peel back the curtain and let you in on things that most writers ignore.

I’ll show you how to get your first 1,000 readers (or your next 1,000) without wasting a bunch of your hard-earned Medium cash on advertising. You no longer have to worry about self-promotion.

Your email will do all the heavy-lifting for you. So, you’ll have more time to write.

Tap the link below.

Join the free, Tribe 1K email masterclass.

We’re waiting for you.

Enroll in my Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers

August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indies how to make work that sells and how to sell more of that work once it’s created. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing, August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.