When Your Work Gets a Distribution Boost You Never Saw Coming

I thought I knew the rules... I guess not

I wear a variety of hats. Some days I’m a writer, some days I’m an editor, and some days I nominate stories for Medium’s distribution advantage program (boost).

The weird thing about putting on these different hats is that it kind of changes your personality. As an editor I will tell writers not to do certain things. Then, when I turn around and put on my “writer” hat, I find myself doing all the things I just told everyone not to do.

It’s annoying.

It’s also confusing for the people who go and read my work after having to endure me as an editor. “Wait a minute, I thought you told me not to do that!”

“Er...”

I guess a way I can explain this is that I used to work as a teacher. As a teacher, I’d tell my students when to use “they’re/their/there.” However, as a writer, I still mess that up every now and then. It’s not because I don’t know the rules, it’s because I get in a hurry sometimes and my fingers can’t be bothered to type an apostrophe.

Anyway, what I’m getting to in my roundabout way is that on Friday Medium boosted one of my stories that I never in my dreams thought would ever be selected. When I got the notification, I thought to myself, “Really... that one?”

So, now I have to go back and reassess what I know about the program. When you’re a person who gives advice on how to get your work seen, it’s embarrassing when something happens that completely blindsides you. Sigh... I guess it’s all a learning experience.

The article in question

I’ve just returned from a much needed trip to Peru with my family. My wife is from there and my kids haven’t seen their grandparents since before the pandemic. That’s been stressful.

Many things happened to me over the course of a few weeks in Peru. I had a lot of thoughts that need to be explored and turned into articles. Some of these thoughts have been jotted down in my little notebook. As I wrote them, I fully expected that many of these ideas would draw the attention of Medium’s distribution advantage.

However, before I got to any of those ideas, I thought I’d just do a kind of “overview” article about the trip. It was sort of an exercise in free writing. I threw a bunch of ideas out there, added in some photos from the trip (though the photos don’t really apply to the sections where they’re included), and sent it to the Bouncin’ and Behavin’ publication where I fully expected it to get less than 100 views.

Much to my surprise, the article was immediately Boosted and traffic has been consistent. Here’s the article in case you want to pause and get a better idea what I’m talking about:

I’m Seriously Considering Leaving the United States Again

I do my best work when I tap into the feels

The trend I’m noticing lately is that when I write an article based on an emotional response I’ve had to something, it tends to strike a chord. The useful thing about this is that I’ve been having a lot more emotional responses to things lately. I think part of it is just getting older. Part of it is just my personal chemistry. Heck, part of it might be because I quit drinking a few months back.

I’m finding it’s vital for me to embrace the good emotions just to keep myself level. Sometimes I feel like I’m being self-indulgent in the things I write, but if people like those articles more than my other work... I guess not.

My ‘Leaving the US’ article did not follow the format I’m on the lookout for when I’m wearing my “boost nominator” hat. I think this is a concept that’s worth exploring.

I’ve been nominating stories for the last three months and I think I’ve developed a pretty good sense of Medium’s expectations. However, it’s important to note that the form of quality writing I’m able to identify differs from the form of quality writing I’m able to produce.

I don’t exactly know why that is. Maybe if I deliberately approached it as an object of study for the next few months I could come up with some answers. I don’t intend to do that however.

I think the important thing to takeaway is that even though the work of mine that has been boosted does not conform to what I nominate, that doesn’t mean that my nomination parameters are wrong. My nominations do get accepted. All it means is that when I bring up my work as an example, the people who have read my other articles become confused.

Four of my stories were Boosted last month

Here they are:

A Year Ago We Lost a Child, and I Was Among Those That Found Her

Moral Bankruptcy Due to the Hidden Cost of Privilege

How Long Is the Present?

I’m Seriously Considering Leaving the United States Again

I’m very proud of all these stories. They use more of a narrative style than the kind of academic style I tend to nominate. But that’s the interesting part, I wouldn’t have nominated any of them. This is good though because it means there’s more at work than I fully understand. I particularly like the potential for good stories to get noticed.

Almost everything I write is composed with the intention of receiving Medium’s distribution advantage (I generally do a few reviews of independently published books and I don’t expect those to get boosted). In the end, 4 of the 21 stories I wrote last month were boosted. These came from the stories where I was less deliberate about following the boost requirements as I understand them.

Hands in the air in confusion…

I guess it’s just the thing about the hats. Maybe it’s easier for me to see the boost requirements in the work of others than my own. I don’t know for sure.

I went back and looked

I ended up going back and rereading the story trying to figure out what they saw in it. I don’t know if other readers have this experience, but sometimes I’m really surprised by the content of my own articles. I often write on a kind of auto-pilot. I was teasing my kids the other day about how I’m just a conduit, I don’t compose anything. There is a little bit of truth to that.

I came to the realization that my “Leaving” article was better than I’d given it credit for. Sometimes things just magically fall into place. Maybe that can be called “writing with a light hand.” You just let it happen rather than try to direct it too much.

Apparently I tapped into something because I’ve been getting a lot of comments. Then again, maybe it was just the title. You never know for sure. I thought my “How Long Is the Present?” was a better title, but it might be a little too cute. It doesn’t exactly stop you in your tracks when scrolling. Oh well.

Mix it up

I guess the best advice I can give is that you should listen to me, but not always. Sometimes there is value in disregarding the rules. If you do four or five articles where you try to conform to the standard I present, it might benefit you to do one where you deliberately try to do the opposite.

But don’t be too surprised if I look at that one and say, “Yes! You finally did exactly what I was asking for!”

Maybe it’s a lack of communication. Maybe your subconscious mind is working against you. Maybe you’re listening to the advice, but you’re stopping yourself from implementing it and you have to trick yourself into doing so.

Writing is like that. Sometimes you work really hard and produce trash. Sometimes you crank something out and it’s really great. Just mix up your process. The more you write, the better chance you have of getting a hit.