No Matter What the Giants on Medium Say, It Is Hard to Make It Here
New writers need a marketing strategy.
No matter what the giants on Medium say, it is hard to make it here New writers need to implement a strategy.
Let’s define ‘make it’ — a full-time living.
Yes, good writing and consistency count.
But making a full-time income from Medium alone is harder now than it was five years ago, hey! even two years ago. Because the platform is attracting writers at an increasingly hyper pace, even Obama is in on the action. He is an example of someone who does not need a marketing strategy to find an audience on Medium — he is coming in with one.
When there were fewer writers, it was easier to stand out.
Those writers who’ve been writing here for years are way ahead of the game.
Their names stand for something, making it easier to get into larger publications of their choice. When you are at a point that you get 1,000 claps (engagement — I don’t know what the read time equivalent is) within the first few hours of posting, then you may be blind to what it feels like to be a newbie on a platform that is much different from five years ago. I’m not taking anything away from those writers for having the smarts to write here early on, when Medium didn’t pay its writers, I’m just setting expectations for newbies.
It won’t be as easy as it was five years ago, and that is why people give up, leaving open the path for you to continue.
I started writing consistency — publishing every day for three months without a day off — in June 2019. My growth has been slow but steady, and a lot of work.
Unless you have an established writing career outside of Medium or a huge fan base on another social media platform, good writing alone will not get you one.
You need a marketing strategy.
If you are a writer who wants to be paid for your work, you’re an entrepreneur. You can be an entrepreneur in anything. It’s about starting something from scratch. Entrepreneurs don’t just talk about an idea, they make it happen. They have a vision and commit to making it real.
Professional writers create content and then implement a strategy to get it shared and read, it is a combination of innovation and implementation. The second part is the most important.
I believe everyone is born with the desire to do something beyond themselves. Writing is one way to go beyond yourself and help others.
Those who don’t have a name for themselves (yet) on Medium — make a strategy.
The strategy
The two ways to get noticed on Medium are curation and getting into large publications.
Not until I got into a more substantial publication did I start to see movement — about two months into my Medium journey — I was accepted to P.S. I Love You and The Startup. I write for other publications, but those are my main two. I write mostly about productivity, writing, entrepreneurship, self, and relationships. P.S. I love you, and The Startup fit my niche.
1. Curation
Master curation.
Curation is when a story gets curated into a specific topic or topics getting it in front of more readers. Curation means your story will be shown to the people following the topic in which it was curated. This is huge. The more topics a story if curated, the larger the audience.
Readership is how Medium determines payment, the amount of reading time per member.
The more topics your story is curated in, the more eyeballs will see your post, the more likely your story will be read.
Tags are important
Tag your post with appropriate and popular tags — you can use up to five tags.
The “Life Lessons” tag is more popular than, say, the tag, “Loss.”
Find out what tags are popular and write well for those tags.
Curation has multiples. If a story is curated in one topic, that is one group of readers. If curated in five topics, well, that is a big audience.
Topics drive Medium’s algorithm.
Curation is the best way to get noticed.
Medium gives helpful advice about what they’re looking for, read it, to increase your chances of curation. The best way to figure out what Medium likes to curate, read curated stories by other writers, and emulate those.
Below is an article that speaks to formatting.
Good formating on Medium is essential for curation.
Medium likes articles of magazine-style quality. The headline, subheadline, and image are equally important.
2. Publications
Submit to publications.
Make sure you read the publication’s guidelines to produce what they are looking for. I’m terrible at this. You will increase your chances when you read their guidelines and follow them.
If you’re starting on Medium with zero followers, publishing an article outside of a publication is a waste of time.
A better strategy is starting your own publication while simultaneously submitting to more significant Medium-owned publications.
Add one story to your publication while submitting to a larger publication, alternate each day or write two posts per day, and post one and submit one.
While waiting for curation, or acceptance to a publication, don’t rest on your laurels, keep writing and improving your writing style.
You are covering your bases with this strategy.
Until the publication you submitted to accepts your story, you will have some work for readers to read in your publication.
I did this by starting two publications.
I published a few times a week to each of my publications while also submitting to larger publications.
Unless you wrote something spectacular (no one has yet to come up with a definitive recipe for writing viral content on Medium) that no one can ignore, posting in a publication that already has an audience is your best bet.
Why? Because even the smaller publications like The Startup and P.S. I Love You have a built-in audience, with thousands of followers.
People will see your writing that would not have otherwise.
Those followers may like you and what you have to say that they check out your profile, see if you have a publication, and follow it.
That is a true fan.
If you can get five true fans, you can get 500,000. That is the power of larger publications, they already have an audience to share your writing. Your job as a writer is to convert the reader into a true fan, so she keeps coming back to your content. But if you don’t have an audience, there’s no one to turn into a true fan. You need to get your writing in front of people, so you have the opportunity to turn them into a fan.
Good writing must be there. But good writing alone will not earn you an income, you have to be methodical in marketing your content. That is the second step of entrepreneurship, implementation.
It would be amazing if all great writing were read. That is not the case. So many great writers will never be read. You have to market your content and find an audience to read your work.
Entrepreneurship is an approach to life, it’s making it happen.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering type-A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.
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