No posts for a week, what happens?
What happened when I stopped posting for a week in Medium, and what happened when I resumed
I recently ran an experiment to see what would happen if I stopped writing for a week. That’s me saying I got busy for a week and did not find the time to write enough to publish! I did keep writing and improving some of my drafts but didn’t get any of them ready enough to hit the ‘Publish’ button.
I did feel the urge to write some semi-cooked post just to keep the algorithm warm, but then reminded me of my own promise! Read my post on the topic here. I would never post anything that is not worthy of your time. If I put all my effort in and then still fail, I can live with that. A few of my articles don’t even have ten reads, but that is ok as I gave my best shot.
I judge myself by the effort, and will leave the results to my dear readers!
Before this experimental week, I was posting almost every day. There were a couple of days where I posted more than one article. My views/reads were consistent, around 90 views and 40–50 reads per day. It started increasing steadily as the new posts kept feeding the algorithm.
Also, I started to realize how the curation worked and could almost predict which of my posts would be ‘distributed’ by Medium. For example, this post is unlikely to be curated as it is particular to what happens within the Medium universe. But articles I write about Travel, Books, and Agile are likely to be curated (when I write with some decent quality).
Coming to the point now, what happened when I stopped posting?
Once I stopped posting new stuff, my stats flatlined to 10 views/5 reads per day. Oh boy, that is hard! It didn’t slow down over 2–3 days, and it was immediate! The corresponding numbers on Fans/Claps etc. started falling as well. I have added some screenshots at the end in case numbers interest you!
Even the number of followers I was adding each day dropped. I was adding somewhere close to 10–20 a day that dropped to 4–8 per day in this period.
It seems like Medium does punish you for being lazy! You may or may not like the rules, but the Medium universe is built on these rules. If you want to succeed, buckle up and write!
The experiment is now over! I’m back to writing every day! The good news is, you can regain lost ground very quickly by becoming consistent again! And I have a number of drafts that I believe would make a good read! Who knows, I might even end up writing something that delights you, follow me if you haven’t so far!
Thank you for reading!
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