What I Learned Profiling 30 Different Writers in 30 Days

I learned an amazing amount, including the fact it would take me 35 days

Is it worth taking time away from writing to look closely at and highlight the work of other writers? Yes, absolutely yes, is my answer after taking a month to do so.

What the heck did you hope to accomplish and did you achieve any of it?

In my pledge post, I listed five goals for my project. I wanted to be entertained, learn more about how the Medium ecosystem functioned, improve as a writer, encourage other writers, and be more productive myself.

Entertaining?

Oh my yes! I read so many interesting stories on a wide variety of topics. I laughed, cried, thought deeply, and despaired of ever equalling the level of some of the fantastic writing hosted here. It was the good kind of despair though. You know the kind that makes you say, I’ll never equal this brilliance but I can use this energy to be my own kind of brilliant.

Decode the Medium Ecosystem?

Hoo baby, yup. I certainly came away with more than one or two insights. When you really try to explore the site and read deeply that will happen. I certainly don’t have all the answers especially since this is a place of constant change but I did learn some interesting lessons which I’ll come back to later in this story.

Become a better writer?

I’ll have to let y’all be the judge here, but I know I picked up a fair number of tips here and there. I tried to put those insights into the profiles I wrote so check them all out here. One characteristic I think every writer I profiled shared was clear, crisp writing that came from the heart. If there isn’t some emotion and passion underlying your words why should anyone bother to read? I’m trying to remember these lessons in everything I write going forward.

Encouraging other writers?

One thousand times this! Everyone seemed so surprised and appreciative. Some of the writers I profiled are trying very hard to make money or a name for themselves while others are more hobbyists, but everyone writes here because they want other people to read and appreciate their words.

Many writers responded to me with some version of, “you made my day!” This was a tough month for me personally. I brought my youngest back to college after a long Covid induced stretch at home. I’ve spent a lot of time with my middle child on the phone as she adjusts to adult life and a full-time job. It’s all good but emotionally taxing. It has been a gift to me to be able to lift up others.

More productive?

Ha, ha, ha, no. I don’t know what I was thinking. Yes, I wrote the actual profiles very quickly, but for each day’s story, I probably read ten to fifteen stories at least per writer. And I often looked at several writers before choosing one.

There are only so many hours in the day and while I did a fair bit of reading in times I would not have been able to focus enough to productively write, this project took time away from my writing. Despite this, I absolutely consider it time well spent and think on the whole it will more than pay off in the long term.

Tell me about the nuts and bolts. How did you choose writers?

This was the hardest part. I wanted writers who weren’t already Medium stars but if I couldn’t wholeheartedly and enthusiastically recommend the bulk of their writing, I wasn’t willing to profile them.

Finding

The new lists feature was extremely helpful. I created a private list and anytime I ran across a writer I thought might be a good fit I flagged them onto that list. Each day I’d either already have someone in mind or I’d go to the list and start looking.

I pulled people from my comment sections, stories Medium served up, people I was already following, and occasionally I went looking inside the trending line of tags to find someone entirely fresh to me.

Choosing

I decided not to profile anyone over about 2.5K followers. Most writers fell well below that standard. I figured these writers would appreciate the potential boost more. I also made sure a writer was still relatively active.

I’d go to a writer's profile and start scrolling down opening any titles that interested me into a new tab. Then I started reading. If I found myself skimming a bunch of stories or even worse failing to finish them, I’d close all the open tabs and move on to the next writer.

Once I’d found five or more great stories, I’d start my write-up.

Deal breakers

There are good writers who I passed over because of something offensive in either their writing or comments I noticed them making on someone else’s story. If I got even a whiff of racism or transphobia that writer was off my list.

For example, if you comment on a story that you can’t be bothered to use someone’s correct pronouns because you think that nonsense is silly, I’m not going to signal boost you. You are entitled to your opinion and entitled to express it, but I don’t have to go out of my way to support you.

I’ll probably still follow and even read and comment on your stories because I don’t want to live in an echo chamber and I value diverse voices. I also want you to be reading my stories and hopefully realizing in turn that some of these issues aren’t as clear-cut and one-sided as you imagined.

Why not me?

If you are one of my followers and I didn’t profile you does that mean I don’t like your writing? No. I have 1400 followers, I follow 800 people, and I profiled 30. I decided early on to try not to get too caught up in choosing the best or most deserving people. Choosing writers was hard enough as is.

What surprising things did you learn?

Spend a bit of time swimming around in the Medium pool and you can’t help coming up with some observations and theories.

Curation?

I figured this entire experiment would fall under the Medium meta articles never get distributed clause but 26 of the 30 profiles did get distributed. Which is great, but I can’t figure out what it was about those other four. I’m just happy most were selected.

I think writers supporting other writers is totally in line with Medium’s current editorial push which is why they gave most of my profiles the nod. That’s my theory anyway.

I will note there is little statistical difference so far between profiles that were curated and those that weren’t. In fact, looking at the number of reads shows me that both the story with the most reads so far, 40, and the story with the fewest, 6, were not distributed. It will be interesting to see if distribution makes more of a difference over the long haul or if all my profiles will fade away equally.

Does the number of followers equal quality writing?

No, but there is more correlation than I expected. One thing I learned early on when trying to choose a writer was to look at the amount of time on Medium and weigh that against the number of followers. If you’ve only been writing here a few months there is little connection between the quantity of followers and the quality of writing.

On the other hand, when someone has been around a while and writing regularly, low follower numbers have meaning. Some people are still learning to write and need to up their editing game. Others are making a deliberate choice to please themselves without regard for readership. More power to both these groups of writers. Medium is richer for your presence.

A third group is those who claim to write frequently but most of their stories are rants about how Medium is unfair to them. I wish it was easier to avoid these writers.

Then there are the good writers whose following takes time to grow because their writing doesn’t have immediate Medium mass-market appeal. These are the poets, the fiction writers, the lyrical geniuses, and others who have a niche appeal. I tried to seek these writers out.

Is Medium a wasteland of recycled self-help articles and writing about writing?

No, no, a thousand times no! There is so much incredible writing in a vast array of genres. Sure there’s loads of crap to wade through as well but take time to find writers and publications you can trust and you will have quality reading to fill any amount of time available in your day.

I’m stunned by how much excellent fiction writing there is here for example. Poetry isn’t particularly appealing to me personally but I’m thrilled so much of it exists here. Ditto, photo essays. And history? Oodles of interesting historical stories.

It doesn’t take long to click on an interesting title, decide the story isn’t for you and move on. Don’t let a few clunkers keep you from continuing to surf this amazing site for quality content. I plan to write a story soon about how to optimize your reading here for maximum enjoyment. Stay tuned.

What matters most to you as a reader?

I am grabbed first and foremost by emotion with humor a close second. If you can combine both you have a fan for life. I also appreciate people willing to open up their lives with transparency and purpose. Not just dumping thoughts on a page but sharing their vulnerabilities in a coherent, helpful fashion that draws empathy and understanding out of me and others.

No matter what you write if it isn’t clearly written and easy to follow, I’ll probably bail. The only exception is lyrical writing which plays and dances with words, but even then while I might slow down, savor, and even work to feel the impact, if you are too obtuse I’m going to bounce.

Should I try this challenge?

Yes! Anyone could benefit from a closer look at some of the vast riches of writing around these realms. If I was to do it all over again I would learn from my mistakes.

Daily is too time-consuming. I would recommend shooting for a less frequent profile, maybe every other day, weekly, monthly, or even just whenever you run across someone you want to highlight. Create a private list and save stories of people you might want to profile. When you have time pull one out and do a write up.

Profiles are also a great thing to write when you are struggling to write otherwise. During this month I didn’t always have the bandwidth to be creative, but I could still exercise those muscles by evaluating someone else’s creativity. Not only that, but the gratitude I received from the writers’ profiled fed my soul.

What challenge is next for you?

I do not have a new one in mind at the moment although I imagine that could change. What I have decided is not to let this one go. I won’t be profiling writers of publications on any kind of set schedule but I do intend to keep squirreling away writers into my private list and pulling one out from time to time to do a random profile.

Why don’t you join me? It has been one of the most rewarding things I have done on this platform. I even ended up creating a publication to host writers' recommendations of other writers and publications. You can find out more about it here.

You can read all my writer profiles here.