Why You Need a Medium Mentor

Working with an experienced Medium writer is the best way to start your writing journey

I felt like banging my head against the wall. It can’t be this hard, surely.

I have always enjoyed writing, both personally and professionally, from travel blogs and comedy sketches to advertisements, brochures, and websites.

Now with plenty of free time on my hands, I turned to Medium. This would be the chance to combine my top two skills — writing and marketing. I’d become a Top Writer, big earner, all-round guru, and expert.

It couldn’t have been further from the truth.

The Beginning — A Frustrating Process

Eager to jump into it, I wrote a few pieces and published them. I promoted them on my Facebook posts and got lots of friends reading them. Waiting for the dollars to roll in was deflating: a few cents here and there, but mainly donuts.

As for curation, I was either stuck in Limbo Land with “Hold tight, we are processing” or received the dreaded “Not selected in topics.” What was I doing wrong?

I read a million articles on “how to be successful in Medium,” “how to make $20,000 in your first week,” and so on. Lots of good tips, but none seemed to work. My feed and emails were full of good articles, but I thought mine were at least on par.

After a couple of weeks, I realized I needed to change my marketing strategy. I found a writer on Medium, Kelly Eden, who was kindly offering to work with writers who wanted help. Swallowing my pride, I reached out to her, and she accepted me as her student. I thought Kelly, as a professional writer for 11 years, would provide guidance.

The Medium Mentor

I sent Kelly a few ideas and drafts I had, and she selected one to assist me with.

She reviewed my draft and added private notes to it. This is a great Medium feature — similar to Google Docs — that I wasn’t aware of. This allowed for quick exchanges and invaluable advice. Kelly went through line by line and made comments:

“Haha great line” (I must admit I felt like a proud child when I saw some of those. More please!)

“Delete. You need to keep things tight.”

“Change the headline. This headline won’t work for Medium.”

We bounced ideas off each other. It was great to have a sounding board from an experienced Medium writer. I was learning that writing for Medium is very different from the writing I had done elsewhere.

Having tailored individual feedback was 10,000 times better than reading a broad article. It’s like the difference between playing tennis with Roger Federer versus watching a YouTube video on how to play tennis. We were getting to the finer points and drilling down. One on one. Mentor, mentee.

This was invaluable.

After several hours (and a few beers on my end, sorry Kelly) we had something we were both happy with. Time to publish.

Things I Learned From My Medium Mentor

• Subtitles are important, and you can’t be curated without one. The subtitle needs to provide a concise summary of the article, or the main takeaway. I was either omitting subtitles or just using them as an introductory line to my article. No wonder the curators were ignoring them. To add a subtitle, highlight, and use the small t subtitle tool. It should change color.
• Consider which tags to use. I was using tags that tied in best with my story, rather than popular tags that Medium readers use.
• When changing your title or subtitle, check that it is also changed under settings. Go to the three dots and select “Change display title/subtitle.”
• You can also alter what Google sees. Go to the three dots and select “More settings.” Find the SEO section. Changing the description can help with SEO, and more people will find your article.
• Hit the dash key twice to make an em dash ( — ). By the way, em dash sounds like the name of a rapper.
• Keep it short and sharp. Most articles are read on the phone and people don’t like big chunks of text. Short, sweet bites work.
• Writing for a Medium audience is very different. Certain topics appeal and articles need to targeted.
• Cut down on brackets. (I love using brackets.) (It’s a weird obsession.)
• Use subheadings. This not only breaks up the article but also provides a framework you can work within.
• Use the end to provide a takeaway. Readers want to know what’s in it for them. What are they learning?

In retrospect, a few of these are obvious. But some are unique to Medium, and I was oblivious.

I wanted to be a Shannon Ashley, Ayodeji Awosika, or a Niklas Göke. Worthy ambitions, but I needed help — and to not be embarrassed about it.

Comparing the article we worked on to my others was like chalk and cheese. The writing was not only better, but the format, tone, and layout were also a big improvement. And I honestly don’t believe I would have learned that — at least not so quickly — without all these tips.

I love the idea of a Medium mentor program, getting an expert to work with new members. And I thank Kelly for giving up her time to be my mentor.

One day I hope to be a mentor myself.