Stop Writing About Yourself
Learn from the biggest mistake I made in my first week on Medium
Have you ever written a story that you thought was a home run, but didn’t gain any traction? Allowed yourself to show some vulnerability with your readers, only for it to fly under the radar? Poured your heart into a piece only for it to go pretty much unnoticed? For the most part, that sums up my first week on Medium.
I published my first piece on the same day that I decided to sign-up for the Medium Partner Program. The story took me about an hour to write, I proof read it twice, and I hit publish.
Not even three hours later, I got my first notification.
“Medium’s curators selected How I Saved $50k in Two Years”
That’s it? This is the elusive curation that writers are chasing? Could it really be this easy? This number is modest for many writers, but to have a story receive almost 300 views in one day was exhilarating.
So I started working on my second story, and this time I wrote about my near death experience and how it changed my life. I bared my soul in it, sharing details that I had never shared with anyone else. I gave what I thought was a really valuable perspective and couldn’t wait to see how my readers would respond. But that story didn’t gain the amount of engagement that I anticipated. At the time of writing this piece, it has around 10 internal views.
What was the difference between those two stories? One story was all about helping the reader, the other was all about me.
Here’s What Went Wrong
I don’t feel qualified to give you any advice yet, but I will share the most helpful advice I’ve received so far.
Stop Writing About Yourself
Turns out, writing about yourself is kind of like breaking a cardinal rule because you’re narrating from a perspective that no one is interested in. At face value that sounds harsh, but once you figure out what it really means your writing will change for the better. Yes, Medium is a great platform for you to share your story and talk about your experiences. But the more you use terms like ‘I’ and ‘me’ and ‘my’, the less engaged your reader is going to be. Your stories need to cater to your reader; they need to captivate your audience and make them feel like they are getting value out of spending their time reading your stories. The more time they engage with your story, the more successful your story will be.
However, this does not mean that you cannot write about you and your own experiences. On the contrary, this means that your personal experiences can serve as a really great learning tool for your readers. You just have to learn how to phrase your experiences in a way that makes your reader feel like you are teaching them something, rather than just telling them about what happened to you.
For example, instead of writing “I learned ‘xyz’ when ‘abc’ happened to me” you can rephrase it to read, “When someone experiences ‘abc’, they often realize ‘xyz’.” These two sentences mean the same thing, but the first example is all about you and your experience, while the second is drawing in a reader that can already relate to your experience and is likely to keep engaging.
Another example would be to rewrite “I did ‘xyz’ and made these mistakes…” to “Many people find themselves doing ‘xyz’ and forget they are susceptible to making these mistakes.” While the first example lays out what you did and what you shouldn’t have done, the second example draws in a reader that has a shared experience and is now likely to keep reading to learn what mistakes they should avoid.
These simple changes will open the door for you to share your personal experience in a way that relates to your reader, giving more opportunity for personal connection and interaction.
Now when I re-read my story about my near death experience, this piece of advice makes so much sense. Of course I think this is a great story, because it’s my story. Why would a reader, a perfect stranger, be interested in something so personal to my life when it has nothing to do with theirs? I’ve thought about rewriting the piece, but I think it can serve as a good example for others who may need to learn the same writing lesson. Perhaps I’ll keep that piece published and write the same story from a different perspective as a way to compare the two.
Don’t Forget the Little Guys
At the end of the day, it is less about views and more about engagement. Experiment with different publications; just because a publication has a large following does not mean that your story is going to get a lot of love. Take this example of my work:
Article 1 (5-minute read): Views 51| Reads 35| Fans 3 | Earnings $1.06
Article 2 (5-minute read): Views 23| Reads 16| Fans 11| Earnings $0.60
Article 2 was published to a smaller publication and hasn’t been viewed by as many people, but it’s drawing readers that are actually enjoying my story. That’s what this platform is all about; people reading and appreciating your stories. Not only does that give you the “warm & fuzzies”, it also brings in more money per reader.
Be a Reader Before You Are a Writer
The best thing about Medium is this: it is all about the community. We as readers have a lot of control over what is successful. Yes, you should spend a lot of time writing and publishing your work. But don’t forget about being a reader. For every article you publish, you should be reading and clapping for 10, 15, 20 more stories from other writers. When you write, do it from the perspective of a reader and think about how your writing can serve them. In the end, your success is dependent on the community around you, just as their success is fueled by your support.
My Numbers
People are curious, and I love transparency. Here are my stats (excluding responses) from my first week of writing on Medium.
Articles published: 4 Views: 698 Reads: 399 Fans: 58 Earnings: $20.12
Here’s to striving for that top 8%