Articles of Mine That Received Medium’s Boost in August

Examples of how to succeed within the new publishing guidelines

There has been a lot of discussion about the changes to Medium’s partnership program in August. As with any change, there is a certain amount of frustration. For example, I recently read an article from a Medium writer with 60K followers who elected to leave the platform.

I’m not sure what to make of an article like that. In my experience, change always happens fast in writing. Some months you’re up, some months you’re down. In the months where my earnings are up, I’m walking on sunbeams. In the months where my earnings are down, I also get frustrated. So, I want to try and refrain from being judgmental. Still, I don’t think abandoning the platform after a drop in earnings is the way to go.

Adapt, change, improve

Even if my earnings completely tanked, I think I’d be disinclined to leave. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see myself writing a “Why I’m leaving X platform” article anytime soon. There are some platforms where I have large followings where I haven’t posted in a while. I like to keep those accounts active just in case there’s an internal “house cleaning,” and somebody with power in the company says, “Here’s a great writer, how can we provide him with an incentive to publish with us again?”

I have received emails like that. Sometimes those emails have led to phone calls which have led to bigger opportunities. Sometimes those emails have led to phone calls that have lead to nothing. Look, not every exploratory meeting has a pot of gold at the end, but if you’re not sitting down for those meetings, you’re selling yourself short.

It’s never going back to “how it was”

That statement applies both to publishing platforms and everything else about your life. Even your relationship with your parents will be different today than it was yesterday, that’s just life. Everything changes. Always.

It’s interesting to read articles with the theme: “The new changes have made it impossible for good writers to succeed,” or “Why can’t they go back to the way it was,” or “They’re making the same mistakes they made a year ago.”

None of these assessments are scientific. None of these assessments make any consideration of the quality, for better or for worse, of the writing that’s under consideration. It’s just, “I made X amount of money last month, why am I not making 1.1X this month?”

Turn the critical eye inward

With anything writing related, there always, always, always has to be a baseline. This baseline is that writers aren’t very good at assessing the quality of their own work. The same director that produced Raiders of the Lost Ark also produced 1941. Presumably Steven Spielberg thought both of those films were good (actually, I do secretly have a soft spot for 1941, but don’t let that confuse you).

The point is, the creative process isn’t consistent. Some stuff works and some stuff doesn’t. Heck, I’ll often produce something I think is good only to see it completely tank. Then other stories will soar beyond anything I had a right to expect.

That’s just the way it is.

What is the platform looking for?

The good news is that, lately, I do feel like I’ve developed a better sense of what Medium is looking for. This is my sixth month in the Boost nominator program. My first month I had an acceptance rate of 12/20. Last month, I was 18/20. So, I think I’ve improved in my understanding of “the formula” even if it’s still a “I know it when I see it” type of arrangement.

I also had my best ever earnings month on Medium in August of 2023. I just about doubled my previous best month, so that got my attention. I don’t expect to double my earnings for September. I don’t even expect to equal my August earnings. For me, it’s good enough that I’ve seen a gradual increase in followers and earnings throughout all of 2023 (dramatic in the last few months). I think August will be an outlier on the data graph, but as long as the trend is up for the year, there’s nothing to panic about.

My Boosted stories

I think that the biggest contributing factor to my rise in earnings for August was that I had seven articles chosen to be boosted. Here they are in order of their popularity:

1. Cycling Through the Heart of Rural American Fascism

2. The Platform That Offers the Most Innovative Tools Will Attract the Best Writers

3. 15 Years Ago, I Wouldn’t Have Liked the Barbie Movie

4. Apologies and Reparations Aren’t Enough

5. America Is Drunk on Racism

6. The Wolf Who Protects Little Girls

7. Writers Once Had a Muse, Now They Have AI Tools

These articles appeared in the following publications:

1. The Writing Cooperative (2)

2. Ellemeno

3. Fanfare

4. AfroSapiophile

5. On Reflection

6. Our Human Family

The earnings I received for these articles ranged from $51 to $1,882. That’s very important because it shows that even receiving a Boost is no guarantee of major earnings. Some of my best earners in August were not Boosted:

1. There Is No Respect in the United States ($117)

2. It’s Easier to Ask For Free Money Than to Sell A Book ($79)

3. Confederates Are American Nazis ($54)

Those three would be good candidates for a Boost going forward. They’ve shown they’re quality articles that have generated a lot of attention. Two of those were published in An Injustice. I think it’s interesting that the articles I get published on An Injustice always perform well even without a Boost (and a few have also been Boosted on that pub).

What’s my assessment?

I’ve seen some writers lament that they don’t feel they can write “whatever they want” on Medium anymore. First of all, that’s not true. You can still write whatever you want, it’s just that anything you write is not likely to be shown to a large audience unless it is likely to be perceived as exceptional.

That’s a tricky concept. Medium is taking steps to ensure quality content by relying on human curators (like me). Now, I already mentioned that writers are sometimes bad at recognizing quality in their own work, but there’s evidence they’re much better at it when it comes to evaluating the work of other people. As the old saying goes, “Everybody is a critic.”

Here’s what I suggest you keep in mind in order to have success on Medium:

1. Be mindful of the Boost requirements

2. Submit to quality publications

I’ve noticed that my production has slowed a little bit. In August I published 22 articles, in July it was 25. For most of the last few years, I’ve been more in the 28-30 range. Perhaps I’ve naturally adopted a process where I slow down a little in order to polish off my writing a bit more. Then again, I’ve also been doing these Substack newsletters, so maybe that’s been eating into my Medium time (Sunday used to be my time for writing a relationship article, I haven’t done that in a while).

My advice is to have a look at the articles I’ve shared here so you get a better idea as to the type of content that gets Boosted. If you follow good practices, you will succeed, it just might not happen overnight (but nothing ever does).