The Care & Feeding Of New Writers On Medium

We were all new once.

One thing I have noticed on Medium is how there are two types of writers; one that wants to encourage new ones and the other who wants to tear them down. This is not limited to Medium of course. As a newbie writing this, here are some suggestions for the camp that wants to help new writers here.

Read the latest posts, not Medium’s recommendations for you.

Click one of your topics. Look at the latest posts. You’re as likely to see a newbie’s article as a seasoned Medium writer’s. I am not a fan of how Medium’s algorithms determine what I want to read anyway.

Read the articles that interest you.

Was an article good? See the author’s profile has virtually no followers? FFS follow them then! We should all want to encourage writers whose writing we like. This is doubly true if they haven’t hit 100 yet. Let them get paid for their work if they otherwise qualify for the Medium Partner Program.

Was an article terrible in the end? Move along. Refrain from criticism or negative feedback. It’s not useful here. Authors are quite capable of looking for feedback and ways to improve when they are ready. It’s also not useful to make up shit about how great an article is when you don’t honestly think that. You shouldn’t be bothered by bad writing unless that bad writing is yours.

If there’s something worth commenting on, do so! If you liked it but have nothing additional to say, clap. I try to comment when a particular part of the piece spoke to me. It has the bonus encouragement of letting the author know people actually read it and appreciated it. These actions take such little effort, but can mean so much to a new writer on the Medium platform.

The more new writers are excited about writing on Medium, the more they share their experiences. The more that happens, the more readers visit Medium and read other articles. Some may subscribe and become fans of yours!

Remind yourself what it was like when you posted that first article on Medium. Think about how awesome it was to get those first followers, first claps and first comments. Help new writers experience that too.