My 7 Most Mediocre Articles
Help these sprouts turn into trees
Everybody talks about their best or their worst stories, and in this article, it’s my mission to change that. I’m going to talk about my most mediocre stories. These are the stories that neither over-performed nor under-performed. Instead, they launched, grabbed a couple eyeballs, and then faded into the pages of obscurity.
My criteria for a “mediocre” story is one that has only earned 8 or 9 fans. Whenever a story gets 10 fans, you get a nice little notification informing you of the fact. These stories are so close to the finish line that they need only the slightest nudge to get over. I’m hoping that a little virtual watering will help turn these sprouts into mighty trees. Without further ado, my 7 most mediocre articles.
7 Requirements For Anyone Contemplating a Writing Career
Perhaps it’s a little premature to include this one. It’s only been live for 3 days and has 86 views. It’s a good, general article that provides a decent amount of tips and tricks for finding success as a writer.
But it’s only got 9 fans, so it’s super mediocre:
Yes, I Will Review Your Book for FREE!
Actually, I’m almost happy this one has under-performed. I run a review publication called Write and Review. The publication gives me the opportunity to review small-press and independently published books.
Independent authors are always on the lookout for reviews, and I’ve been swamped by review requests in the past. This article kind of points fun at the fact that even though an independent author will hound you to invest your time into reading their book, they often won’t so much as lift a finger to share the subsequent review.
Also, many independent writers fail to read my submission guidelines, and just tag me in a twitter post like I’m going to rush out and buy their book as a consequence. C’mon people.
Why I Turned Down a Lucrative Ghostwriting Contract
I’m noticing a trend. All of these articles are with the same publication. However, one of the articles I published with them is among my top 5 best performing pieces of writing, so go figure.
I probably should have gone elsewhere with this one. It’s a solid article. Then again, a larger publication might not have made any difference.
Treat Depression by Learning a Foreign Language
This one is a bit of an anomaly. It’s a curated article published in a massive publication, and still only 8 fans.
Again, this one is only 3 days old, it would have gotten to 10 on its own. But I happened to write this article today, so…
The Writing Secret that Guarantees a Million Dollars and a Baby Unicorn!
With a title like that, how could this article have anything less than a million fans? Alas, it has only 8!
Actually, this is one of my favorite Medium articles. It’s a satirical response to all the “get rich quick” articles you find on this platform. I was actually surprised at how well this article has been received. Medium readers are a better class of people.
This one deserves 10 fans based on the title and picture alone!
Dear Millennial, Gen X Feels Your Pain
Again, a curated article with a major publication. I sent this article in as a draft to get accepted as a writer for P.S. I Love You. There are some really good stories on that publication, some of them scandalous, but I haven’t quite figured out what the editors like (even though they’ve published 3 or 4 of my articles).
The Great Cookie Catastrophe
Sometimes I write stories about fun things that happen with my children. I really enjoy these, although often they don’t get the attention that I think they deserve.
Really, these stories serve as mental pictures that help me remember delightful times I’ve shared with my children. They say a picture is worth a thousand words…but it isn’t really true. I’ll take the thousand words every time.
All They Need Is Love!
It’s all about the claps people! Now, if all goes well, before the clock strikes midnight I’ll have 7 new notifications on how all of these articles now have 10 fans!
Thanks in advance everyone!
If that happens, I’ll be able to write another article about 7 “new” mediocre articles. Wouldn’t it be ironic if this article made that list? We don’t want that do we? You know what you have to do!
Here’s one with 90 fans…but that doesn’t mean it can’t stand to have a few more:
