Why Write For Medium?
The basics on what Medium is and why you should post your work there
I’ve had a couple interesting email conversations lately and it made me realize I need to back up and establish some basics. Let me give you a quick overview of what Medium is and why you should care.
To put it simply, Medium is:
A blog
A publication
A social media platform
A side hustle
The advantage of writing on Medium is that they have a large internal distribution capacity and a good web ranking. Therefore, you can publish on Medium and, once established, expect to receive greater visibility than you would on a personal blog.
They also have a program called “boost” that gives selected stories a distribution advantage. What does all of this mean?
Your stories have a better chance of being seen
Your stories will immediately start making you money
I’m not going to lie, at first you’ll only see pennies trickle in, but that’s okay. Think of writing for medium like watering your plants every day. After a few months, you’ll see growth.
Who is Medium for?
Medium has historically been a lot of things, but the boost program is an incentive for quality writing. They want stories that:
Are written by experts
Have a personal element
Provide an insight or “teach” something
Are engaging and well-written
Essentially, they’re making a deliberate effort to get away from listicles (Exp: “3 things the Kardashians did this weekend”) and other garbage that AI could create. They’re trying to create a haven on the world wide web to elevate stories written by actual human beings.
I just reached out to a friend of mine who is a cross country skier and who has pictures from all over the world. That’s another thing Medium likes, interesting personal images (not AI generated crap). If you’ve got a great picture and a decent ability to spin a yarn, you will do well on Medium.
Think about it this way, Medium is a chance to write down all the best stories you’ve been telling at parties over the years.
The stories that perform best on the platform are personal and take about 7 minutes to read (Medium provides a read time for all stories). If you’ve got longer stories, that’s fine, but most of the time those longer stories can be broken down into smaller segments.
This is where the social media part starts entering in. As you become a regular contributor, people will start to follow and develop a connection with you. When that happens, there’s no need to write “Walter’s interesting anecdote part 1.” Instead, think of it like any time you meet a compelling person.
You know, when Darth Vader first marched onto the screen, you didn’t get all this annoying backstory. He just came stomping into the room and you thought, “Who’s that guy? Why is he breathing like that? Why is he so angry?”
Again, just be the interesting guy at the party. People will hear the tail end of one story and kind of walk over to listen to the next. You don’t even really have to introduce yourself.
What I suggest you do
It takes a little while to sign up for the platform and start writing. This process is no different than signing up for an email account or something. You have to familiarize yourself with the interface and I don’t think it’s necessary for me to walk you through that.
Get an account (you know, select user name, put in a profile pic, etc. Write a bio that highlights your professional qualifications)
Connect your account to a payment option
Join the partner program
Send me a draft link so I can give you some tips on formatting
I believe you have to get to 100 followers before you’re monetized and once you have a good story posted, I can help you with that. There are various Medium groups on places like Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, and Discord. I can also mention you in a story the next time I write something about Substack.
The point is, I can help get you to 100 followers fast. Actually, writing the “About Me” story might be a good place to start. The other way you get followers is by reading, liking, commenting and highlighting other stories. There’s a social element here, it’s not all about you.
Don’t worry about “wasting” your best story in your first post. As you continue to write for the platform, you can always come back to your best story and write it in a way that’s more tailored to succeed on the platform. You’ll pick that up as you get going.
I write about the same subject over and over. I think differently about the things that happen in my life from year to year. My perspective changes as I gain more experience and (hopefully) wisdom. In fact, it’s valuable for you to revisit the critical moments in your life. Those are the moments that define you.
A place on the internet for human stories
I’ve been writing for a long time and Medium is by far the best place I’ve found to provide the maximum amount of visibility and the minimum amount of interference. You can just publish and start gathering a following.
One of the best things to do is to start reading Medium stories. For example, here’s one that I recently nominated for a boost:
What It’s Like to Survive a Drive-By Shooting
I worked with this author to make some changes and provided some necessary edits and I was pleased to see it accepted. Not everything I nominate gets accepted, but that’s fine.
When you become comfortable with the platform, I’d appreciate it if you’d sign up for a membership with my referral link (some of the proceeds support my work).
Medium is a really fun platform. It’s a great way to break yourself of the habit of toxic social media platforms. I find that there’s a larger percentage of educated, intelligent, compassionate, and kind writers on Medium. If you’ve got interesting stories to tell (and you do), Medium is among the best places to put them.