More Medium Curation Analysis

Nothing comes easy

Checking some of my stats a few days ago, I came to discover that after publishing over 500 articles without having even one curated, I had suddenly garnered somebody’s approval — and in one day boasted 10 curated stories.

This momentous news I received with guarded enthusiasm. I’m a realist at heart and wasn’t about to jump up and down for joy until I saw some results.

I know that curation is a significant goal of most Medium writers. After all, the idea is to get yourself in front of as many readers as possible. And curation is certainly a path toward that goal.

I’m sure that those who haven’t been curated/distributed (same thing for our purposes) are curious exactly how my suddenly exalted status has affected my bottom line with respect to the number of views and cash earned.

Well, it’s only been 3 days so obviously, I can’t relate with certainty how the new reality will affect my bottom line with respect to the two aforementioned criteria. But here’s what I see so far:

You can deduce from the story’s image that my views are up somewhat. Not hugely. But it looks as if curation is placing me in front of more readers. That’s the good part.

But with respect to my earnings? Nothing. If anything, they’ve gone down in the past 3 days. That could be a result of my writing boring stories. And of course, I really don’t have a significant sampling after 3 days to declare definitively the overall effects of curation. Still, my revenue is more or less stagnant.

On a positive note, it seems as if I’m on the right path. But that path is not paved with gold — as I suspected it wouldn’t be. I happen to really like Medium — and am most appreciative that it exists for our use.

But I will say that the road to success involves a lot of hard work. Maybe it happens in a day for some lucky or extremely talented writers. But I’m not sure I qualify in either category. Which puts me on the dirt road to success. And that’s ok. Because success you work hard for is that much sweeter.

I know it’s been said before. But I’ll repeat it. Just write as many quality articles as time and your imagination will allow. And then let the pieces fall where they may. Trust the system and hopefully, it will all work out. What more can you do, really?

P.S. It is now 3 hours since I wrote this and I have found one of my curated stories which has clearly benefited from that curation. Notice what has happened! And we’re now 7 hours from the end of that last day!

Here's the story. It’s about a New York City policeman who didn’t realize the woman he’d picked up in a deli was transgendered: