What it Truly Feels Like to be Chosen and Accepted
My experience in the Medium curation jail and finally breaking free from it
In this four-month journey of transitioning from writing full time on my blog to writing only on Medium, I have published 23 posts (yes, I know this number should be higher but procrastination is scary). I dived into writing on Medium without much research (yes, this is indeed another case of my bad judgement) and was not aware of the curation jail situation here at Medium. If I did my thorough research, I would have constantly reset my account until I was curated. However, after writing 15 posts and being accepted as a writer in a few publications that I love and look up to, it seemed like a waste to simply leave everything behind again and redo everything.
Out of 22 articles, 17 were not even considered for curation and I was only provided this: “Our curators were not able to review this story for distribution in topics due to high volume” as a reason for not being able to be curated. What does high volume even mean? Does it mean that all the articles I wrote had too many submissions? Even though I wrote some in niche areas that didn’t have many published articles? Even the other 5 articles didn’t paint a clearer image for me. The simply stated, “Our curators did not select this story for distribution”. No other reason was needed. The ‘guidelines’ that Medium constantly links us to also provided vague answers as to what they were truly looking for. As such, I was sent on a huge wild goose chase in an attempt to find the ‘holy grail’ to be curated by Medium. This confusion made me a ‘statistics addict’ and I would constantly find myself checking the statistics page of every new article in an attempt to see if I have finally cracked the enigmatic code and finally received the highest honour of being curated on the Medium platform.
Finally, after many hours of work and writing and creating, I managed to get my first curated article: “Why I Masked My Identity (Disclaimer: Not Due to Privacy Concerns)”. I felt exhilarated and all kinds of joy and happiness celebrating the fact that I have finally been accepted as part of the Medium circle (one might have thought that I was a writer celebrating a Booker Prize or a Pulitzer Prize). I scrutinised the article from start to end to figure out what I have done right to replicate my success. Then it struck me. All the 5 articles that were read by curators were published in publications that were known to many people. It might be a coincidence but I strongly believe that this might be a way for your work to minimally reach the desks of these Shark Tank judges. For all the aspiring knights fighting for recognition, this might be the holy sword that ends the darkness and brings light to you. Or it might not work, who truly knows when it comes to Medium.
But for all the experiences that I have been through chasing the dream, what I realised was that being curated wasn’t all that special in the end. Yes, my article did indeed attract more readers. But the number of earnings from that one article was not astronomically different from what I would have otherwise earnt from my other pieces of work. What I’d like to truly offer to the writers reading this is: stop worrying so much about curation. Put more effort into writing pieces you are passionate about and spend some time spreading the word about your articles. And maybe publish them in a publication. Because who knows, your next article may be the one that earns you your knighthood in the Medium circle.
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