Medium Is Becoming an Even Better Landing Spot for Great Writing
An example of how to write a boost worthy story
Hello Substackers!
I’m writing this from LIma, Peru. My family managed to get away to visit the grandparents for the first time since before the pandemic. It’s not a vacation I can afford, but it’s one that was sorely needed. We’ve been here since the 8th and I’m only just beginning to decompress.
Yesterday, I sat down to play cards with a couple of my old friends. I used to spend a lot of days on what used to be known as “Pizza St.” (because every restaurant sold pizzas). They’ve given it a facelift and I don’t like the new look, but things change.
Anyway, we used to sit and drink beers and play cards. It was a little odd to sit there drinking Coke instead, but I’m dialed in to this new sobriety kick. I’m not a believer in testing myself, because I think that’s often nothing more than an excuse to allow yourself to fail. Still, I’m pleased to report that I was able to sit with my buddies for a few hours and not drink anything.
These friends of mine rode out the pandemic here in Peru, and I’ve been trying to encourage them to post their stories on Medium. The combination of their unique perspective plus the photos they could probably pull off their phones make them great candidates for a boost.
With or without a boost, it’s possible to write stories that can make $1,000 or more on Medium. In this article, I’ll walk you through what seems to work the best.
Boost
The boost program is evolving, which is why I keep coming back to it. The most basic definition is that it gives your stories an algorithm advantage. I am a boost curator, which means I can nominate stories, but I can’t approve them. Even though I’ve been doing this for 2.5 months, I still don’t have the program completely figured out.
Maybe part of it is that I’m stubborn and slow to adopt new ideas.
In the old days, the key to Medium was to write a huge amount of content. To this day, there are a lot of “how to succeed on Medium” type articles (I’ve written my fair share of those).
But now, Medium is making a concerted effort to get quality articles in front of eyeballs. The simple fact is that a web page that mainly features content about that web page isn’t going to captivate attention forever. They know that, and I applaud what they’re doing.
What works
Basically, write the story that you like to tell at parties. It’s as simple as that. Make it something impactful and something personal.
A friend of mine here in Peru told me about how there was a water shortage for a while. People were running down to fountains with plastic jugs. That’s the kind of impactful story that provides you with an awareness of the reality of the world.
The three most important elements for a story to succeed on Medium (and get a boost) are:
It has a personal element
You’re an expert
The story makes the reader level up
Let me walk you through an example of how to write a boost worthy story using the water shortage example.
Personal element
My friend’s experience walking the streets of Lima looking for a place where he might find some water is something you could approach from a variety of different angles.
“Have you ever been so thirsty that you considered drinking the water in a P-trap?”
That opening line might be too extreme, but you can see how it could drive home the point. A water shortage is cause for instant panic. So is a food shortage, but you’ve got a few more weeks to fix a food shortage. A water shortage has the potential to get really bad really fast.
My friend observed this in a number of ways. People push each other in the street. People run home with heavy jugs that end up splashing wastefully. My friend told me he was walking home with a jug of water and he had several people eye him up like they were going to take it.
Anyway, this is where you start your boost worthy story on Medium. Hook them in with a personal anecdote and make people start to wonder, “What would I do in that situation?”
You’re an expert
This is really important. Make sure you throw some lines in there that indicate you know what you’re talking about.
“In my 15 years of living in Lima, Peru, I’d never seen anything like this.”
That’s a good start, but try to put in a couple more. Tie in what you do professionally. Show your readers that they are not wasting their time getting information from you.
Level up
Perhaps the most important element of the boost worthy story is that it makes readers level up. But what does that mean? I define it as creating an “Ah-ha!” moment. The story breaks down one of your walls of resistance and allows you to recognize something you’d been in denial about (that’s one way to put it, level up can mean a lot of things).
In the water shortage story, I’d suggest making some comments about how climate change threatens the water supply of the whole world.
The “level up” element can be some reflections in the final section.
“We survived the Lima water shortage because the normal cycle resumed and we got some rainfall, but what if that hadn’t happened? The city is making an effort to be better prepared in the future, but my experience taught me it’s imperative that we look at global solutions for a problem that will soon affect everyone.”
Show your readers how your personal experience provides insight on a larger issue.
External and affiliate links
I go through a lot of articles and provide notes on how to polish them off to better perform on Medium. Here are some things to remember:
Lose the links at the end
Cite all your images
Hyperlink relevant statements to respected sources
You don’t need to write a research paper, but if you make a statement like “scientists expect X percent of the world’s population to experience a water shortage” then link to wherever you got that number from. It’s better to use a hyperlink than a works cited list at the end of the article.
Make sure you have the rights to use your images and you’ve cited where you got them from. I generally only use photos I’ve taken, pictures my kids have drawn, or images from Unsplash for my articles.
A lot of writers seem to think of Medium as a place to promote their books, courses, YouTube channel, or whatever. You can do that, just put the information in your bio rather than at the end of each article. If I come across an article with a bunch of superfluous links at the end, I won’t nominate it for a boost because they’re unlikely to take it.
That’s it for now. Get out there and write your articles. If you’ve got what you think is a boost worthy story, please send me a draft link and I’ll send you some notes.
I didn't even know what a boost was on Medium until you mentioned it on reading the story about my student who. had ten children. Thank you for writing this detailed outline.