Summary

An author embarks on a quest to write a story that earns no money and has no readers, using the rarest word on Medium, "nudiustertian," to define the narrowest possible niche.

Abstract

The article discusses the author's challenge to write a story that is financially and socially unsuccessful within the Medium platform. Inspired by Roz Warren's advice on writing about universally interesting topics to gain readership, the author decides to do the opposite by focusing on an obscure word, "nudiustertian," which appears only once on Medium. The author's research leads to the discovery of Mesonoxian Nudiustertian, a writer with no stories, one follower, and no bio, whose name embodies the concepts of midnight and the day before yesterday. The article is a playful exploration of creating content for an audience of zero, using the least common words, and the author invites readers to reflect on whether the mission has been accomplished.

Opinions

The author takes a contrarian approach to writing on Medium, aiming for zero readership and earnings as a challenge.
There is a humorous tone in the author's pursuit of the "perfectly worst story" and the use of obscure words.
The author values the rarity and uniqueness of words, as demonstrated by the search for the least common English language words.
The author expresses gratitude to Mesonoxian Nudiustertian, whose unique name and lack of presence on Medium provided the perfect subject for the narrow niche story.
The article implies that writing about niche topics may not lead to financial success or a wide audience on platforms like Medium.
The author playfully engages the reader, inviting them to participate in the experiment by considering if the story meets the set criteria of zero engagement.

FUN

Mesonoxian Nudiustertian — and the Search for the Perfectly Worst Story

Can I write a story that earns zero dollars and has zero readers?

This all started with “wombats” and led inexorably to “nudiustertian” then on to author Mesonoxian Nudiustertian.

I know. I’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do.

Here goes.

To Get Thousands of Readers?

You Have to Write for Thousands of Readers

medium.com

I started thinking about weird words like “wombat” and writing popular stories after reading Roz Warren’s excellent story above.

In it she offers,

“It’s not how well you write. It’s what you write about. Unless you are writing about a topic that is of universal interest (love) and not merely of interest to a tiny subsection of the population (wombats) you will not make much money here.”

That got me thinking. In a contrarian fashion of course, since that’s how I roll.

Is it possible to craft a well-written story that earns zero dollars? Simultaneously, could I create so narrow a niche that no one on this platform would have any interest whatsoever in the topic?

Essentially I strove to build a zero-earning story for an audience of … zero!

Seemed like a natural synergy — and a wonderfully worthwhile pursuit — so I strapped on my scientific spelunker’s cap and hit the world wide web to do some research.

A search for “least common English language words” led me to a great list containing “fudgel, selcouth, hiraeth,” and more. Almost all of them earning the dreaded squiggly red underlining of death as I typed this up.

Then I did some cross checking.

I searched this platform, our happy writer’s community, for a word that would appear there — remember the narrowest niche quest? — only once. No appearance wouldn’t work because there’d be no niche.

“Nudiustertian” fits the bill … perfectly. It appears once and only once on this platform. And, it’s not even in a story. Nor is it a publication name. It’s not a tag either. It’s an author’s last name.

Mesonoxian Nudiustertian is the writer’s full name. He/she/they (I’m not sure.) has written no stories, has one follower, and no bio.

In case you’re wondering, “nudiustertian” is the answer to the question, “How do you say ‘day before yesterday’ with one word? I love it, but I’ll probably never use the term in conversation.

“Mesonoxian” — according to thefreedictionary.com — means ‘of or related to midnight’. I’ll probably never use this term in a convo either.

Since I’m nothing if not complete and completely grateful, author-M.N.-whose-name-means “Midnight of the Day Before Yesterday” my heartfelt thanks goes out to you. Without you I would not have been able to fulfill my quest.

Oh, but have I done it … really? Did I write a narrowest niche story that attracted no readers and generated zero cents?

You tell me!

😜 [email protected]

Thanks for reading and for playing along.