Where Did All My Average Reading Time Go?

Did I become a cr*p writer overnight or is Medium messing with the algorithm again?

I chose this image of a sinking hourglass because that’s what seems to have happened to my average read time. Can you relate?

I don’t claim to be the best writer on the planet or the most successful writer on Medium. But I have a few moves.

I joined Medium to make money and stayed for the fellowship. Surprisingly, my stats did well enough that, by the middle of the pandemic, I was earning a good chunk of income with my articles.

And then, you know, the pandemic.

I’ve kept a pretty serious quarantine. I live alone and remained closeted in my small apartment for four months, writing, exercising, being positive like I was in the finals for the Pandemic Coping Olympics.

Then I found out they weren’t giving out gold medals this year; we just had to suck it up and continue continuing for god knows how long. At that point, something inside me started hurling F-bombs at the TV.

I turned off the computer, stowed my Fitbit, and fell into a sulk, which soon destroyed my nice daily stats on Medium, among other outcomes of this self-destructive behavior.

As I now climb out of my funk and attempt to write with more regularity, not an easy task, I find that Medium has been monkeying with the sauce.

When I started publishing again, I wasn’t getting as many reads. Understandable, since my followers had moved on to writers who filled their inboxes with more regularity. But regardless of how often I posted, my average read times remained basically the same, between 1 and 3+ minutes per article, give or take.

And then come November, when I was starting to wrack up the daily postings, something strange happened. Either I’d completely lost my mojo and people couldn’t stomach more than 16 seconds of a post, or something was rotten in Den — er Medium.

How could all my articles fall into the 16–45 second range of Average Reading Time when I was writing the same claptrap as usual, same poor formatting, and non-attention grabbing headlines?

Were people were just catching on to me? Or was Medium’s algorithm to blame?

A highly scientific study of three friends in a Facebook group revealed they had observed the same results on their dashboards. Only difference, they are much better writers than I am, and so a sudden failure of talent can’t be the cause.

It would seem that Medium’s changes to the format of the daily feed could be the culprit. Now, instead of just giving potential readers an intriguing title to suck them in, Medium is offering the first two paragraphs of our articles. Is that what they are counting as the Average Reading Time, ignoring whether people click on the Read More link?

And how valuable is that anyway? Isn’t it easier to just read to the end of an article instead of risking a shiny object falling from the sky while you’re waiting for Medium to load up the rest of the piece? That’s how you lose readers who go chasing after squirrels instead of a good story.

Let’s face it. Writers have always had a love-hate relationship with Medium. We love it when our stories go viral and earn the big bucks; we hate it when they tinker with the works and readers can’t find our articles.

Last year’s shift to reading time instead of claps as a measure to assign income was a serious blow to poets and creators of short content.

So far, it hasn’t been fully addressed. But it seems to me this latest glitch affects all writers, or is Medium discriminating? I’ve seen other writers complain that their stats have tanked, so I know it’s not just me whining into the wind.

I may not bring in 30k followers who will plunk down five bucks just to read my words, but I am part of a very large pool of writers with just enough readers to help keep Medium‘s lights on. I’m wondering how long we can work for hours on a five-minute story for a 16-second average read time as the norm and not the exception?.

Medium is a big part of my life. But I need Medium to show me some love, too, or I’m going to wonder if I’m in an abusive relationship. And newsflash: I have a history of ditching them.

I’m not issuing threats, and I’m not asking for special attention. If my articles suck and that’s why my earnings have dropped, I shouldn’t ask for a big piece of the pie. But if this is a systemic issue, then Medium, we have a problem.

I’m an editor and writer on Medium with Top Writer status. I’m also an editor for the publication, Rogues Gallery. I’ve published 55 titles on Amazon and edit for private clients. If you’d like to hire me as your editor for fiction, non-fiction, or business writing, please contact me here. If you’d like to read more of my work on Medium, click here to sign up for my newsletter. Thank you for reading and stay safe.