When Your Luck Is On A Downward-Spiral — How Can You Keep Yourself Alive As A Writer on Medium
… little touches can keep your presence afloat
Almost 3 months ago I churned out my first semi-viral piece of text here on Medium.
The article made me almost 50 SGD. You guess, I was damn proud of my breakthrough experience. The money also arrived in time on my bank account. It was real. No matter the deductions.
Anyway, what is money compared to satisfaction?
I was carried away by my 5000 cent success, only to wake up 3 months down the road that my readers disappeared, and reading time and earnings gradually vanished.
The initial success spiraled downwards from, 50 USD to 30 USD to 15 USD a month. Back to where I belong as a newbee.
I would not even know why my semi-viral piece of writing would be read and responded to, again and again. As if someone put it repeatedly in front of the reader’s noses.
And more likely than not, the readers must have sidetracked to one or two of my other articles, those articles profiteered from the high-runner as well.
It is a bit like when a bakery is known for the best Black-Forest-Cake in town. People are streaming from far and near and grab not only the best Black-Forest-Cake but some other pastries as well. If the cake is good, very likely the rest of the bakes can not be bad.
Once the champ got out of sight, the other babies got neglected as well. Seems I was purely dependent on my masterpiece. I had nothing else in my sleeves. No sustainability. Just luck that one of my writings brought me some stardom.
My initial Medium-Writers-Enthusiasm disappeared as much as my readers disappeared.
Did you face such a situation as well?
If you are not going to do something about it, the plane will drop and your “career” on Medium will stop.
Once you got a bit famous do not forget about your fellow readers and writers. They want to live a life as well.
They had a reasons why they clapped, responded and applauded for your articles. Give and take rules everywhere.
Do what is the best thing to do, if you can’t go full force, bridge the unforeseen writers-winter-break. Recover and mantle all the lost connections.
There are only 2 ways to make yourself a name on a virtual platform as Medium is.
- either you write articles, which makes readers thirsty and hungry for more or
- you make yourself part of the community and create everlasting connections
Socializing on Medium means reading, clapping, responding, dialoguing and applauding.
On a side note, till today I have not found the applaud button. Can you enlighten me?
After socialising try to re-introduce your older articles. Go and write and whine that your best articles did not find the audience they deserved and put them as a list of links in your new article.
Promote the best articles of your closest writer-friends. They will thank you with their reading time, their claps and their responses.
Touch everything a little bit like a hoola hoop, which needs from time to time a slight stroke to prevent from falling down.
In my upcoming e-book “Life and Death of a viral piece of text” you can learn more about how to recover when you see that your success on Medium is declining by the day.
My one and only one success story.
https://readmedium.com/a-top-writer-blocked-me-cf7f4db12ccc
Read, Write and Earn.
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It will change your life.
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