To Write Listicles, Or Not
That is the question from a new Medium writer
I am either old or out of the loop because I had never heard of the word listicle until I started writing on Medium a few weeks ago. When I first heard of the word, I thought it was a joke. Why would you call something a listicle when it clearly rhymes with testicle?
Anyway, I found out soon enough that listicle is commonly used in the blogging world to mean an article made up of lists. On Medium, there seems to be two camps of people— those who are in favor of listicles and those who aren’t. It doesn’t go unnoticed that some of the top writers on Medium do use listicles quite often. In fact, every day Medium seems to crank out numerous listicles and I do enjoy reading them if I say so myself. Here is my 2 cents on listicles.
Disclaimer: This is not advice by any means. I am no expert writer. This is just my personal opinion about listicles.
Listicles can be fun to read and write
The best thing about listicles is how much fun they are. As I scroll through my Medium feed, sometimes I don’t feel like reading anything that might seem too complicated. A listicle sounds like just the right sort of article to select at that point. I am drawn to lists because I don’t have to search for the information or have to skim through the passages trying to pick out the key points. Listicles simply make reading easier. In fact, I might even spend more time reading listicles than conventional articles with pages of texts. Since Medium uses reading time to determine payments, this can be an advantage for the listicle writer.
Writing listicles are just as much fun as reading listicles. It’s a no- brainer that they are much easier to write than full length articles. You don’t really have to write in depth on any one subject. You touch the surface and provide just enough information to keep the reader interested. I don’t even think you need to be an expert in the topic to write listicles.
Listicles are potential money-makers
I have only written a total of 9 articles (7 regular articles and 2 listicles) to date as I just started out on Medium this month. Out of the 9 articles, one of my listicles is the biggest money-maker and accounts for almost 50% of my pay this month. Do check it out if you are in the mood for horror this Halloween season. It is called 5 Terrifying Books Without the Gore.
I also looked at trending articles on the Medium homepage and lo and behold, there is a listicle. Then I looked at the profile of the most famous and prolific writer on Medium and he has a couple of listicles too. Surely, he wouldn’t be wasting his time on listicles if there weren’t any monetary benefits to be had.
I guess the key is to balance listicles with regular articles. You don’t want to go 100% listicle or you could lose all your followers. I wonder if a ratio of 1:4 would work. That is 1 listicle for every 4 regular articles.
Listicles are the only option for specific topics
Obviously, I can’t write listicles for every topic under the sun. However, it might be the only option for certain topics. For example, I write about books more than any other topic. The topic of books and reading is definitely going to be one of my niches on Medium.
When it comes to the subject of books, people love reading and writing about book recommendations. It makes sense then that listicles would make the best type of articles for book recommendations especially if you want to discuss more than one book. Listicles can provide valuable information about different books in a single article.
Finally
I think I am going to keep writing listicles. It doesn’t mean I am going to be a lazy writer as that seems to be the stereotypical view of people who write listicles. I will try to aim for quality and I will spend just as much time on my listicles as any of my regular articles. I will also make sure that I don’t resort to relying on listicles for most of my writing. So, what do you think? Write listicles or not?
For more from Anita Durairaj about being a brand new writer on Medium-