Summary

The article discusses strategies for Medium writers to increase their earnings by padding their posts to extend reader engagement time, inspired by the payment model that compensates based on read time rather than content quality or brevity.

Abstract

The author of the article provides a humorous critique of the Medium Partner Program's payment structure, which incentivizes writers to produce longer content for increased financial return. The piece suggests that poets and writers of concise content are at a disadvantage in this system. To counteract this, the author recommends adding lengthy introductions, commentary, and extended biographies to even the shortest of poems or posts. This approach is likened to the practices of Charles Dickens, who was paid by the word, resulting in his lengthy novels. The article itself demonstrates this method by including a brief poem preceded by a long-winded introduction and followed by a detailed backstory and an extensive author bio.

Opinions

The author satirically suggests that the current Medium payment model, which favors longer read times, is detrimental to poets and writers of succinct content.
The article mockingly encourages writers to emulate Charles Dickens' approach of writing at length to increase earnings.
It is implied that the quality of content may be sacrificed for the sake of increasing read time and, consequently, revenue.
The author expresses a tongue-in-cheek frustration with the necessity of padding posts to make them financially viable on Medium.
There is a subtle critique of the Medium Partner Program's potential to encourage less genuine writing practices for the sake of compensation.
The author humorously acknowledges their own participation in the system they critique, as demonstrated by the structure of the article itself.

Short Poem, Long Intro

How to Increase Your Read Time By Padding Your Posts

Now that Medium writers are being paid for the amount of time readers spend with our work rather than on how good it is, poets and other writers of pithy posts are, to employ a bit of highly technical jargon, screwed.

You can write the world’s most brilliant Haiku, but if it takes a reader just a few seconds to read it?

You’ll be paid pennies.

What can you do about that? You can pad your posts!

Charles Dickens got paid by the word. More words meant more money.

The result? Epic works like the 1,000 page long Bleak House.

If it’s good enough for Dickens? It’s good enough for Medium.

Say you’ve written a brilliant Haiku.

In the Halcyon Days of the Clap Era, you’d have posted it, readers would have applauded the BeJesus out of it and you’d be handsomely rewarded financially. Game over!

But the game has changed.

Here’s what you have to do now if you don’t want your earnings to plummet.

Leave that brilliant Haiku alone. But? Add a long and winding intro.

For instance? There’s going to be a short poem in the middle of this post. In the Clap Era, I could have just posted the poem. But now?

You had to read a nice long intro to get to it. You’ve already been reading for at least 20 seconds!

The trick is to draw out the intro for as long as you possibly can….

Like this…

Okay, here comes the poem….

Here it is:

I think that I shall never see

A poem as lovely as

A Mammoth Medium Partner Program Payout.

Okay. That was the poem.

(So I’m no W.H. Auden. So sue me.)

But — we’re not quite done yet!

Next, you should include at least 20 seconds worth of sincere blather about what inspired this poem.

In my case? My poem was inspired by the amount of money I am not making this week and my sincere desire to make more money on Medium, even though I write very short posts.

Perhaps, in sharing the story of how your poem came to be, you can even link to one of your prior posts, thus insidiously luring the reader into spending even more time reading your work.

Ka-ching!

A Short Poem About the Fact That Writing Short Poems on Medium Doesn’t Pay

Even Good Ones

medium.com

Finally?

End with a bio.

very

long

bio.

I’ll just cut and paste my author’s bio from my website here:

Roz Warren ([email protected]) writes for everyone from the Funny Times to the New York Times and has appeared on both the Today Show and Morning Edition. Roz is the author of OUR BODIES, OUR SHELVES; A COLLECTION OF LIBRARY HUMOR and JUST ANOTHER DAY AT YOUR LOCAL PUBLIC LIBRARY, and the editor of the ground-breaking Womens’ Glib humor collections, including titles like WHEN CATS TALK BACK and MEN ARE FROM DETROIT, WOMEN ARE FROM PARIS. She also curates the LIBRARY LAUGHS page on Facebook. Her work has been included in 10 Chicken Soup for the Soul collections.

Did you actually need to know any of that to enjoy my poem?

Hell no. But?

It added another minute of reading time to this post!

In conclusion?

You have just read a 3 line poem, with a ton of extra verbiage tacked on in order to increase this post’s Read Time.

Did you enjoy it? Did you highlight? Will you clap?

Who cares? I just got paid for 5 minutes of your life that you’re never getting back.

The takeaway for you?

It’s time to channel your inner Dickens and start adding lots and lots of extra words to your posts.

You can practice by leaving me an interminable Comment.

(If you enjoyed this post by Roz Warren, you might enjoy this one too.)

I Will Not Read Your Post If It’s Going To Take Ten Minutes

Who Has That Kind of Time?

medium.com

Your Cat Does Not Belong On The Dining Room Table

But There He Is Anyway

medium.com