Why You Should Read the Top 10 Stories Every Day

If you read the top 10 stories, your engagement times will increase

I am going to prove that reading the top 10 stories will not waste your time in any way.

Dr Mehmet Yildiz encouraged us to highlight the best stories at the start of October— to help the readers reach the pieces. But I procrastinated till late November — and I am sorry for that.

As the Top 10 series is growing popular, the selection process and ranking system is becoming more important. In the absence of curation hints and lack of algorithm support, the new — and old — good writers are getting ignored.

As the big publications ignore new writers, Dr Mehmet Yildiz decided to promote the new writers — the continuous support is the reason why Illumination and Illumination-Curated are growing at a fast pace.

Due to the support provided by Dr Mehmet Yildiz, the new writers love to write for Illumination and Illumination-Curated.

Dr Mehmet Yildiz also guided me to provide some writing tips and helpful research before presenting the lists. If you read the 2-minute tips daily, you’ll feel inspired to write more.

Here are the six reasons why you should read the daily top 10 listings:

1. If you read these writers, they’ll reciprocate

Because these are serious writers.

When you read a story, you are not sure if the writer of that story will reciprocate.

People often ask for reciprocal reads on Facebook. Some writers like it, and some don’t.

Except for the writers with more than 5K followers, most of the selected stories are written by new to new-ish writers.

These writers want to say the ‘Medium Hello.’ They like to read comments, they enjoy claps, and they love more reading times — like most of us.

The writers of the top 10 stories are your safest bet. Instead of quitting, these writers are going to grow. Some of them are established journalists who are new to Medium; they love to read and make new friends.

If you read the less-serious writers, they are not going to develop a relationship with you. Because they are here only to see if they can make big bucks in a month or two. They are looking for a short cut and they are not interested in writing and reading high-quality stuff.

2. Selection process ensures quality

Why am I sure that these writers are serious?

It is because our selection of top 10 stories is transparent. All of these stories are distributed by Medium into different topics. Out of these chosen stories, only ten are selected every day.

The primary reason for selecting curated stories as part of the top 10 series is to help these stories go viral. A non-curated story — that has not been chosen for further distribution — can never go viral on the Medium platform.

If a non-curated story gets more views, the algorithm ignores it. But if a chosen story gets more views, the algorithm helps it to get thousands of more views.

For this reason, only very high-quality stories are selected.

3. Engagement times of the publication

When a story goes viral, it gets thousands of views. New readers follow the publication and explore stories written by other writers as well.

When the engagement times of a publication increase into millions of minutes, all of the stories — curated and non-curated — get more views.

It means that even if your story is not included in the top 10 stories, you should read them to push them towards greater chances of going viral.

4. When stories go viral, all of the stories of a publication get more views

If a story goes viral, it increases the member reading times of every writer of the publication.

Viral stories make a publication more discoverable for search engines like Google or Bing.

5. Think of a reading circle of friends

Remember that a good writer is always a voracious reader. Illumination and Illumination-Curated has 6000 writers —judging by the number of drafts we get, perhaps the most active of the 50,000 writers Medium has.

Most of the writers share their stories in Facebook groups. You can read the top 10 stories and leave helpful comments for at least 10 writers. This means that in one month you’ll reach 300 top writers.

Here I would ask the top writers to reciprocate and connect with your loyal readers just like you do in Facebook groups.

Illumination writers are active on Slack as well. You are welcome to join the Illumination Writer’s Private Group on Facebook.

6. Your subconscious will learn to write good stories

When you read ten high-quality stories every day, your subconscious mind learns to write the way these writers tackle their tough writing decisions.

I purposefully choose two or three pieces daily that are essentially writing advice. I provide serious writing advice through research, writing-guides, and TED talks delivered by established creative writers like Elizabeth Gilbert and Seth Godin.

Especially if you are a new writer, you have to read the top 10.

It is tough to assign rank. I admit that I spend so much time deciding which piece is the best, but I seldom reach a definite answer.

I hope I have convinced you to read the top 10 stories every day. If you are still not convinced, please leave your questions as comments. If the top writers don’t get more views from now on, I’ll write more pieces to convince our 6000 writers to help each other.

Here is the list of all top lists:

Top 100 Stories of 2020 — Use These Best Practices for Writing on Medium

Creative Writing Is About Stealing From Others

Can YouTube Make You a Dull Writer

Two Minutes to Improve Your Writing Forever

Be Emotionally Creative to Make Your Writing

Trickster Writer vs. Martyr Writer in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Book

A Perfect Writing Style Is Not Possible

Two Principles to Overcome Writing Fears by Seth Godin

Be the Creative Genius You Dream About

Good Things Will Definitely Happen to You

To Be a Top Writer You Must Write

How to Make This Day Your Perfect Workday

The Hostile Reader Who Disturbs Your Writing

Your Writing Energy Is Key to Better Productivity

Writer’s Block and How to Use Its Power to Be Prolific

A Craftsman Who Writes Is Better Than a Professor Who Doesn’t

How to Break Writing Rules With Grace

Short-Form Writing Is the Toughest Thing to Do

Editor’s Faves — Top 10: Why Coding Knowledge Is the Future of Literacy

Never Write Personal Opinions in Your Stories

Differentiate Yourself From the Ordinary Now

The Worst Enemy to Creativity Is Self-Doubt

How Much Money 1000 Views Earn You on Medium

No Matter How Little You Write, Write Something That Matters

How to Approach Tough Decisions in Your Writing

Smart Thinking in Smart Sentences Makes You a Good Writer

Write One Sentence in One Minute to Be a Writer

What Is Your Turnaround Time?

Write Even When Nobody Is Reading

Seek Rejection to Be a Better Writer

A Good Writer Doesn’t Pretend to Be a Writer

How to Balance Quality and Quantity of Your Content

Your Life and Hopes Are the GPS of Your Writing

Writing Is a Habit, Not an Art

Five Things People Think Before Reading Your Story

If You Are a Writer, Act Like One

Stay Faithful to the Stories in Your Head

Express Yourself, Don’t Depress Yourself

Do Not Hurry, Do Not Rest

Blogging Is Literature in a Hurry

Well-Written Stories Take Less Time to Read

If You Read Only One Story Today, Read One of These

The Stories You Must Read

The Stories You Must Not Ignore

Final Thoughts

If your story was selected as one of the Top 10, please share another one of your stories in the comments with a brief introduction and a short review that can convince a reader to read your piece. (Please write the review in the third person and start it with your name.)

I must have missed something today. I cannot read every story on Illumination and Illumination-Curated. Dr Mehmet Yildiz, the Chief Editor and Founder of Illumination and Illumination-Curated, read, highlighted, and applauded every good story when he started his publications. He still reads almost all of the good ones. I try — and fail daily — to read all of the masterpieces.

So, help me. Help me to find and rank the best work of the writers of Illumination and Illumination-Curated.

Happy reading.

To improve your chances of success as a writer, read these highly recommended curation guidelines:

You can read my curated stories here.