When Writers Take a Leap of Faith It Puts Pressure on the Editor

My thoughts on how Medium's boost program is evolving

Hello Everyone!

I’ve received a couple emails recently that contained interesting questions about Medium’s boost program. In this article, I’d like to share the approach I’m currently using both as a writer and an editor. Remember that my information is based on what I’ve learned through my own work, not “insider” information.

I’ve talked to both editors and writers who feel that it’s becoming more difficult to receive a boost. It’s natural to feel frustrated when the process you’ve employed in the past doesn’t bring you the same results. As for me, I’ve found I’ve gone through hot and cold stretches. If I have a dry spell, I experiment with my process until I start having success again.

This is actually a good thing because it stops you from becoming complacent, but it can be stressful until you figure out how to “crack the code.”

Over the last month, I’ve spent a lot more time editing articles that I feel are close but not quite what Medium is looking for. I received an email from a writer who had gone about 30 stories without a boost. I knew him as an excellent writer, and I had nominated his stories in the past, so I felt honored that he’d turned to me for advice.

His email came at a good time because I was in the middle of a slow nomination month. I’ve been in Medium’s boost nomination program since April of 2023, and in that time I’ve nominated 217 stories. In some months, my acceptance rate has been as high as 95%. In other months, it has been as low as 60%. Again, nominators do not have the power to choose what gets boosted. All we can do is nominate a story. Ultimately, Medium decides the content that qualifies for the program and nominators must conform to Medium’s guidelines.

I had a 60% acceptance rate in my first month and in my last month. Actually, December was challenging for me. I nominated 40 stories. I had 18 accepted, 12 rejected, 4 duplicate boosts and 6 duplicate rejections. My last 5 stories were accepted, so I got back to 60% approval (duplicates don’t factor in), but before that I was sitting at 52%.

What all this adds up to is that I was really, really pleased to receive an email from a quality writer (I’ll refer to him as writer A) who was willing to work on a story to ensure it wouldn’t be passed over. I couldn’t afford to have any more of my nominations passed over either.

We worked hard on that story.

I don’t like to think of myself as a demanding editor, but I’ve never had to deal with myself in that capacity so I don’t really know. I do try to be mindful of my words and indicate areas that I think need to be improved using language that’s positive rather than critical. There’s always a strong emotional connection between writers and their work, and even when you’re really nice as an editor, criticism can sting.

There have been times when I’ve let little things go and nominated a story that I thought could be a little better. Sometimes the featured image isn’t all that good, or the title could have a better score, or the section headings could be more impactful, the list goes on. In almost all cases, I could tinker on a story until the author begins to suspect I’m messing with them.

There is a point of diminishing returns where the frustration you inflict as an editor isn’t worth the minor gains to the article. Also, I prefer to get approval for changes rather than roll up my sleeves and start sanding away at the text.

In the case of writer A’s story, I asked him to send me the copy via Google Docs. That way I could make changes he could see and approve all at once. The notes feature on Medium really slows the process down, but I expect it would be too much to ask them to implement a “track changes” feature (actually, come to think of it, I might as well ask... stranger things have happened).

I think we went back and forth on this story for a week and writer A was super patient. It was a productive meeting of minds, and we were both so committed to getting a boost that it helped us put the natural frustration aside.

Finally, I was able to publish the article and nominate it. Then I held my breath as I waited.

I realized that I’d set myself up for failure. Here was this excellent writer who had come to me for advice. He’d graciously listened to my suggestions, put up with my tinkering, and now the article had been polished with every trick I could think of.

It dawned on me that if this article wasn’t accepted, I was going to look like a jerk. It would mean that I’d put him through that demanding ringer for nothing.

Sometimes an approval can take a long time. Also, whenever I get a response from Medium on my phone, it seems to take forever for it to load up. The result of this is that I have to look at “Medium Support: Story Nomination...” for what feels like a really long time before I can scroll down and find out whether it was a yes or no.

In the case of Writer A, it was a yes.

Writers take the biggest leap of faith with their editors when they drop all their defenses and commit themselves to your advice. Almost always, there’s something held back either by the writer or the editor. The downside of that is if the article fails, the editor blames the writer and the writer blames the editor. That’s ultimately unproductive for both.

Following a process of accountability is the only way to succeed.

A few weeks later, Writer A submitted another story that showed he had adopted a lot of the good practices I’d mentioned, but not all of them. There were a few things about it that made me pause, but I felt it had a good chance of being accepted and I didn’t want to run him through the ringer again. I nominated it, and it was accepted as it was.

That second example was a lesson for me that maybe some of my speculation isn’t quite on the mark. Then again, this game doesn’t end at boost, you must also consider how the article performs after publication whether or not it’s boosted. I’ve had non-boosted stories do very, very well.

My thought process on what constitutes “good practice” is always adapting, and I want to keep you up to date so you have the best chance of success. It feels as if I have to make significant changes to my approach on a weekly basis. Both writers and nominators see their acceptance rate fluctuate and sometimes that can be disconcerting. I think it’s important to take a step back and remind yourself that this is an evolving program.

If you run into a cold spell, make some changes to your approach. They don’t have to be radical changes, but if you don’t do anything different you don’t harvest any new information. You don’t need to keep confirming it once you figure out what doesn’t work.