Publishing Everyday is the Wrong Goal
It’s impossible to put out thoughtful pieces every single day. Try this instead.
When I started writing on Medium, I had three goals:
- Improve my writing skills
- Build a following, in advance of the publication of my books
- Make money
By being crystal clear about what I want, I can gauge my success week over week that I’m on the platform. My sense that I am achieving my goals gives me deep satisfaction.
Medium is by no means perfect, but it is a writer’s dream. We writers are lucky to be alive in 2020 (you know…zoom out…), when the publishing industry has been disrupted and the idea that a book deal from Random House is the only way to make it in this business has long been debunked. We live in the information age, surrounded by information gobbling ogres, and we writers are peddlers of information. Lucky us!
Conventional Wisdom
In learning the Medium ropes, the most consistent and most challenging piece of advice I encountered was to post every day.
“You’ve gotta post every day.”
“Just write and post.”
“The algorithm favors consistency.”
And on and on…
The authors of those myriad advice stories are not wrong. The Medium algorithm values immediacy and devalues stagnancy on several metrics. We should know better to expect otherwise in the 21st century.
Still, as a fan of Medium, I hope that the company comes to see the error of its ways with this. Medium is the anti-twitter, birthed by the same visionary to balance the scales of the information age. When toppling corrupt regimes in the Middle East or venting at 2am from the Oval Office, Twitter is your address. But, if you have a thoughtful idea, best expressed in about 1,000 words, Medium is your home. As such, as Medium refines its mission, I hope Ev and friends will come to realize that whereas “timely” has great value here, “new and shiny” really doesn’t.
The algorithm should not prioritize new. It should prioritize quality.
A Better Strategy
When I really got going on Medium, I took on a 30-day writing challenge, motivated and inspired by Dr Mehmet Yildiz, and it benefited me in several ways. First, it introduced a dimension of discipline to my work on the platform, it helped me to really integrate the style guides that are essential for curation success on Medium and initially, it made me a better writer.
Great writers write every day.
Great writing is crafted over time.
Here’s the kicker. Great writers write everyday. But, great writing is crafted over time.
Though I have seen first hand in my own metrics that the Medium algorithm benefits those who post everyday, it is no longer my goal.
In that my aim on Medium is to 1) Improve my writing skills 2) Build a following 3) Make money — publishing work that is unpolished and/or unintelligent does not serve me.
I cannot achieve my goals and compromise quality.
My dream goal is to earn $5,000/month on Medium, but my realistic high bar goal is $1,000/month. Like 95% of writers on Medium, I’m not there yet, but as I watch more of my stories go viral, I see that it is within reach.
- $1,000/month = 10 x $100 stories
- $100/month = 10 x $10 stories
I no longer aim to publish everyday, though many days I do end up publishing. Rather, in order to achieve my financial and growth goals on Medium, I aim to write 10 excellent stories a month. In financial terms, 10 stories that will each earn $10 in a single calendar month. This goal is achievable and cultivates exponential growth.
Here’s why:
- 10x$10 gives me three days per excellent piece; one for it to bake, one to write it, one to edit and craft the perfect headline.
- Three days gives me the space I need to find each story its home with the right publication.
- Stories that earn $10 in one month often earn $100 over time.
- 10x$10 earns me real followers who value my work
Cons to Publishing Everyday
Publishing everyday…
- Disincentivizes editing
- Disincentivizes being patient and publishing with the right publication
- Disincentivizes letting ideas bake
- Disincentivizes market-testing headlines
Pros to the 10x$10 Strategy
- Incentivizes patience and quality
- Incentivizes consistency
- Allows for exponential growth, of income and followers.
Professional content creators are paid to churn out words to meet SEO targets. Those folks put out lots of words, everyday. Medium writers are not those folks, and we don’t want Medium to read like a bland sea of keyword clutter.
As founder Ev Williams explained in his inaugural post:
Medium is a new place on the Internet where people share ideas and stories that are longer than 140 characters and not just for friends. It’s designed for little stories that make your day better and manifestos that change the world. It’s used by everyone from professional journalists to amateur cooks. It’s simple, beautiful, collaborative, and it helps you find the right audience for whatever you have to say.
As content creators on Medium, our goal should be to put out the highest quality, most thoughtful content we can. We should write as though our words make the world better. Because they do.
Posting everyday is not a strategy for creating great content. Adopt one, like the 10x$10 suggested here, that is.
More advice on honing your Medium Strategy
To succeed on Medium, you MUST know the history of the platform
The best person to take writing advice on Medium from is Shaunta Grimes