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e the cut with the readers most likely to be interested in these stories.</p><figure id="2bfa"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/0*z2cqqXQ5svMTLq3-.gif"><figcaption>tenor</figcaption></figure><p id="74dc">Medium’s algorithms weight those stories for extra distribution across Medium.</p><p id="27ef">In regard to boosted stories…</p><blockquote id="cd70"><p>“(i)nstead of being the judge of what’s good, the algorithm will play more of a matchmaking role between what humans think is good and what readers like to read.”</p></blockquote><p id="aa32">Plus, almost all articles will continue to get distributed by the recommendation algorithm.</p><p id="6306">However, “engagement” (the old gold standard of curation) is not the same thing as providing satisfying reads.</p><p id="b098">This is what the algorithm is looking for:</p><ul><li>what topics a reader follows</li><li>what they read</li><li>who they follow</li><li>what people they follow read and clap for</li></ul><p id="3f52">Let’s dig a bit deeper now into the role of publications.</p><h1 id="a8b5">The impact of Community Curators and Publications</h1><p id="e337">Before I get into the FAQ section, I think it’s worth speaking about the role of publications.</p><p id="fe52">Publications will become important curators.</p><p id="df5c">At the moment there are <b>15 Medium publications </b>that are testing the Boost button and are having a major say in what gets boosted.</p><p id="3b39">In the near future, it can be any high-quality publication.</p><p id="1ae1">The owners and editors know “so much better than (Medium) what is an important read and why”.</p><p id="e7a4">For becoming a trustworthy partner, Medium will pay editors based on the number of stories they successfully recommend for boosting.</p><p id="ff37">Medium is looking for taste: “taste comes down to having the experience to know what is true, what matters, and where there is debate”, <a href="https://blog.medium.com/a-new-boost-for-top-stories-541884654fdb">Tony shared.</a></p><p id="07a4">Medium’s wish is to spark an influx of new publications.</p><h1 id="74ea">FAQ</h1><p id="ba42">These new changes are raising a lot of questions.</p><p id="a1fc">I aggregated the most popular questions from the comments, stories and official announcement:</p><h2 id="92ac">Who qualifies for this Boost?</h2><p id="dc92">Everyone.</p><h2 id="621d">Does my story have to be in a publication to be Boosted?</h2><p id="ee92">No, but it does help a little.</p><h2 id="c5e5">Which publications are curating?</h2><p id="02b4">Medium isn’t telling us yet who the 15 publications are.</p><p id="f0ed">Here’s the reason:</p><blockquote id="6304"><p>“The first is that it’s the job of these curators to find you. The second is that listing them now has a tendency to stick when we expect it to shortly be many or most publications.”</p></blockquote><h2 id="5baa">What should I write about to get boosted?</h2><p id="8178">Tony’s #1 tip: “write what you want to write.”</p><p id="3728">Since there are a lot of meta stories about Medium that are totally misguiding.</p><p id="b2b6">Here’s what Tony recommends:</p><h2 id="bfb5">Tips from Tony Stubblebine to get boosted:</h2><ul><li>writing can’t move you in any substantial way unless it can first move you to click and read.</li><li>Medium wants to reward you for writing your best stuff, but only you know what that is.</li><li>the top-performing stories had the most engaging titles, the most compelling intros, and the most entertaining writing.</li><li>attention-grabbing is not the same as useful or valuable or entertaining.</li><li>often the tricks of engagement lead directly to disappointment.</li><li>Authors who promote their articles through social media, email, to their followers, and publications are now more likely to get their articles picked up for a boost.</li><li>Medium wants to boost great writing, not great growth hackers.</li></ul><h2 id="d26a">Which posts are Medium boosting and why?</h2><p id="975d">These are the types of stories Medium is looking for:</p><ul><li>constructive</li><li>original</li><li>written from relevant experience</li><li>well-crafted</li><li>memorable.</li></ul><p id="650c"><a href="https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006362473">Click here to read the updated Distribution Standards.</a></p><h2 id="ba86">Is the Boost big enough?</h2><p id="5920">In the test period, Medium has seen boosts between 5

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00 views and 100,000 views.</p><p id="f473">Medium’s goal: every Boosted story should get at least 500 extra views within 7 days!</p><p id="70b0">Why?</p><blockquote id="a11f"><p>“In practice, that’s usually enough to tip a story over to a much, much wider audience.”</p></blockquote><p id="50fa">According to Medium, it’s the highest-level boost ever.</p><h2 id="edb4">Is traffic shared evenly across all authors?</h2><p id="78fb">No.</p><p id="a6da">Plus, what gets boosted changes as new readers and authors join.</p><h2 id="4f3d">How many recommendations does Medium make per month?</h2><p id="c0a4">In total, Medium makes several billion recommendations each month.</p><h2 id="9030">Can other people Boost?</h2><p id="9ff2">No other people than publication editors and owners.</p><h2 id="6f0e">Why is a Boost necessary?</h2><p id="8dff">Often authors join Medium because they want their stories to get more views and reads and to (finally) feel rewarded and recognized.</p><blockquote id="1b0d"><p>“Often, the best writing comes from people who don’t want to be audience builders. With the rise of the creator economy, these doers are often left out. Our goal is to find the best individual stories, regardless of who wrote them, and give those stories to a wider audience.”</p></blockquote><h2 id="01cc">How did Medium give the highest quality recommendations in the past?</h2><p id="cdbe">Medium had many ways to boost a story on Medium…</p><ul><li>via the recommendation algorithm</li><li>tags</li><li>newsletters</li><li>publications.</li></ul><blockquote id="518a"><p>“To give readers the highest quality recommendations, we’ve seesawed between two primary heuristics. The original model was mostly human curation, with a bias towards well-written, well-constructed, and well-supported stories. Then we swung to a heuristic that was dominated by machine learning algorithms biased toward engagement.”</p></blockquote><h2 id="fa9e">What about evergreen stories?</h2><p id="1987">Medium has already other mechanisms for boosting stories in the works.</p><p id="8e8d">Medium has started several projects to organize the best of Medium as a form of boosting.</p><p id="8310">“Evergreen writing should get boosted well beyond the day it publishes.” <a href="https://blog.medium.com/boosting-the-boost-d983f0552ab9">Tony shared.</a></p><h2 id="bcd3">What about canonical stories?</h2><p id="b7b7">Medium has already other mechanisms for boosting stories in the works.</p><p id="23d0">Canonical stories are part of it.</p><h1 id="03e9">What’s next?</h1><p id="bbcd">Getting Boosted on Medium definitely takes some effort and strategy, but it can pay off in terms of more readership and engagement.</p><p id="2b0d">Follow the tips shared above to optimize your stories for distribution and visibility on Medium’s network.</p><p id="5159">Although Medium doesn’t publish any income reports anymore, I bet a lot of writers will share how many views/reads they got and how much money they earned thanks to getting the Boost!</p><figure id="c399"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/0*Vzcb3tiIB5cKOJ5Z.gif"><figcaption>tenor</figcaption></figure><p id="0bf2">If you’re one of them… feel free to share your insights in the comments or send me a screenshot to [email protected]</p><p id="5bf6">Last but not least, I hope my story helped you to have the breath and no excuse to not execute and get Boosted!</p><h2 id="fd7a">Found it valuable? Want to see and know more?</h2><p id="0dc8">Sure thing!</p><p id="d2b0"><a href="https://kristinagod.substack.com/">Why not join my Substack newsletter </a>and tell me what you think?</p><div id="3262" class="link-block"> <a href="https://kristinagod.substack.com/"> <div> <div> <h2>Kristina's Newsletter | Kristina God | Substack</h2> <div><h3>Medium Blogging Tips and Tricks. Click to read Kristina's Newsletter, by Kristina God, a Substack publication with…</h3></div> <div><p>kristinagod.substack.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*1y2gGHnpmOCPEBwH)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="341f"><b>P.S.</b> I hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, please give it a clap👏 or share it with someone who might find it useful😊</p></article></body>

The Mystery of the Crying Woman

And the curse of Puesta del Sol Canyon

(A Lucas Winslow Story — Episode 8)

Like an idiot, Lucas Winslow was wearing tennis shoes when he took a short hike into the little canyon to the west of his property. He had recently purchased brand new expensive hiking boots but out of habit he just put on the tennis shoes. The hiking boots sat on the floor of his closet right next to the tennis shoes but Lucas grabbed the tennis shoes and did not even notice the hiking boots which still had yet to be worn.

Following the creek, Lucas realized that very soon after leaving his property the land turned very rocky and wild. There was no path to follow. It was a matter of climbing over rocks and logs, jumping from rock to rock, climbing up then down then up again, while carefully avoiding cacti and keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes. It was not far into the canyon when Lucas remembered the hiking boots.

Lucas was filled with joy. He had not experienced any of this kind of hiking in over eight years. Back in the very, very, very flat land from which Lucas had recently moved from, hiking was not a real thing. Since everything is so flat it is really cannot be called hiking. It is just walking.

But Lucas did plenty of desert hiking and mountain hiking when he was younger. It all started when he was in the Cub Scouts and went on a hike with his troop up to a real abandoned gold mine in the mountains. While all the rest of the boys were busy glancing down for rattlesnakes, Lucas searched for gold nuggets. Nature hikes, some solitary, continued unabated for the rest of his childhood well into his adult years. But now he was in his sixties and had been only walking on flat land for eight years. The excitement he felt descending into the canyon came with extra carefulness as his body began remembering how to hike.

Before setting off into the canyon Lucas had done a little bit of research online and found a map that showed the name of the little canyon. It is the same name attached to the little creek than ran along the southern edge of his property and then emptied into the canyon. It is a Spanish name, Puesta del Sol, which in English means ‘sunset.’ He was hiking along Sunset Creek heading into Sunset Canyon. It felt nice that the place had a name.

The canyon had been called Puesta del Sol Canyon for almost four hundred years. Lucas wondered what it was called by the people before the Spaniards arrived…

… and the people before them.

About thirty minutes into the hike Lucas came upon the first stone circle. Most of its original stones seemed to be intact. The flat ground in the middle of the circle was sand with no plants.

Lucas stepped into the circle and stood in the very middle. Facing west, he closed his eyes and used the Spinning White Light Hands Technique to get centered. Slowly, he began turning in a clockwise direction. He made one full rotation and to his surprise he was overcome with nausea and a sharp stabbing pain in his neck.

Once again facing west, he opened his eyes to see the crying woman that he had seen earlier. She was standing on a rock about twenty-five paces ahead. The rock was slightly higher than the circle.

Incredibly intense waves of sorrow poured out from the woman. She was crying profusely and she was looking right into Lucas’ eyes.

“Hello?” Lucas was filled with very strong emotions as he looked at the woman’s face. It was like feeling the entire spectrum of emotions all at once.

As a tear rolled down his cheek, Lucas began walking towards the woman but as soon as he stepped out of the stone circle the woman disappeared into thin air.

He turned around and stepped back into the circle but turning around he saw that she was still gone. The nausea was coming back and when Lucas stepped back out of the circle the nausea abated.

But he still felt disoriented and at unease. He stood for several minutes staring in the direction where the crying woman had stood and tried to understand what had just happened.

And his neck kept hurting. What was that all about?

Abruptly, Lucas decided he needed to get out of there. He turned around and headed back up the canyon to his property. He walked quickly, his thoughts in complete disarray.

About three-fourths of the way back Lucas came to a rise and stopped. He turned around and saw that the sun was setting over the canyon. All the hillside rocks seemed to turn orange. From this point he could see above and beyond the canyon at the tall mountains in the distance. Wisps of clouds highlighted the light show at the western edge of the sky.

“Thank you for this day,” said Lucas as he stared into the sun as it was slipping behind the horizon. The canyon was beautiful in the horizontal sunset light. Lucas tried to fully immerse himself in the beauty. He suddenly realized why the canyon was called Sunset Canyon. The view was breathtaking.

While the neck pain had completely vanished, there was still a knot in Lucas’ stomach. He could still feel the crying woman’s sorrow.

Taking a deep breath, he turned around and resumed his hike home. Once there, he took a long, hot shower.

Previous Lucas Winslow Stories:

Episode One: The Silent Teacher Episode Two: A Place To Live and Die Episode Three: The First Time Steve Showed Up Episode Four: The Lay of the Land Episode Five: Lunch at the Rattlesnake Diner Episode Six: The Day the Park Benches Arrived Episode Seven: The Day the Solar Panels Arrived

Next: See Episode 9 Here