The ‘Hang Tight’ Message is Gone for Medium Writers

And I have mixed thoughts about that

“We are processing this story. Hang tight!”

This is a familiar phrase to writers on the Medium platform. After submitting a story behind the paywall, we would wait to find out if it was curated and distributed, or if we would get the dreaded “Not distributed in topics.”

But nothing stays the same, including Medium, and this process is now gone. There is no message telling you that your story is going to be reviewed for curation. And there is no message to inform you that your story was reviewed, but not distributed.

Curation still exists. But it’s a bit more hidden and behind the scenes. Now you have to click on the stats of your story to see if it’s been curated. If curated, you will see the following message under your headline in the stats view, “Chosen for further distribution.”

If you want to find out which topics your article was curated under, you must dig a bit deeper. You will need to view your story and go into the settings to find the topics.

As with any change, there are both pros and cons.

I know some people have ironclad willpower, but I do not. I would submit my story and then check it multiple times per day to see if it had been reviewed for curation. It was best when I was busy and forgot to check, only finding out the news when I saw the email notification.

Now, the email notification is gone. The “hang tight” message is also gone. When we check our stats to see if our story was curated, we won’t know where we are in the process. Was the article reviewed and rejected, or has it not been reviewed at all? We won’t know unless we see the “chosen for further distribution” message.

This is both good and bad. I want closure. I want to know if I’m still waiting, or if the wait is over. But there is no closure to be found in the new process.

And here’s the silver lining to that. It is neither helpful nor productive to neurotically check stats for news of curation. I would tell myself, stop checking your stats. And then, I would check anyway.

It is both healthier and more productive to do our best work, send it out into the world, and move on.

We are better served to look at reads, views, and comments than to worry about curation. It used to be an instant boost in readership. However, for several months now, my curated stories aren’t getting that many more views than the ones that were not distributed.

The big difference, and the bonus to curation, is that curated stories have a longer life span. And sometimes, they have spikes in reads even months later. I’ve never seen that in an article that wasn’t distributed.

I still want my stories to be distributed. I’m still going to put out my best work and follow the curation guidelines. But, maybe these changes mean I’ll stop obsessing so much after clicking ‘Publish.’ And that means more time for writing.

If you want more on my take on the latest Medium updates, you can check out this article.