Why Your Articles Fail On Medium and How to Make Them Succeed

If you don’t follow the proper formatting rules, the curators will disregard your work no matter how good it is

Hello Everyone,

For the last few years, I’ve been pestering my friend and co-author Dan Woll to join Medium. Dan’s written an impressive number of books and his work has appeared in a variety of print and online publications. He’s a very talented writer and I’m confident he can carve out a lucrative niche for himself on Medium.

Dan has posted his first few stories on Medium, and he’s graciously agreed to allow me to critique one of them. Hopefully, this critique will drive a lot of new followers to his profile!

Writers who are new to medium routinely make the same kind of mistakes as Dan. The writing is excellent, but the formatting disqualifies the article from being seen. In this article, I want to create a style guide you can follow in order to give your work the best chance of finding an audience.

I hate to see it when talented writers get frustrated and leave a platform. If you follow the guidelines I outline here, you’ll start to see positive results.

First things first

When I first started Medium, I set myself a goal of writing 1,000 articles. I hit that goal about a year ago. Here’s where I stand today.

In reality, you don’t have to write 1,000 articles to find your way. I’d say that you have a pretty good sense of Medium after 100 articles. At 1,500 words an article (which is the sweet spot), that’s 150,000 words. That’s more or less the equivalent of 2 paperback novels.

Yes, it’s an ambitious undertaking, but it’s worth it. I’ve written novels before, and I often make more on Medium in a week than my novels have made in their entire publication history (sometimes I make more in a day).

Medium is not a “get rich quick” scheme. You have to get into the habit of logging on daily to read other articles and leave comments. It’s not a “post and bolt” page, it’s a community page. Once you find your community, you can start having an influence as a writer.

The first thing you have to do is join the partner program. If you’re concerned about giving out your banking information, I suggest you open a new banking account for that purpose. Medium pays you through a platform called Stripe. It’s completely legitimate, but don’t take my word for it, look into it on your own. I can attest that I’ve had no issues with payments throughout the time I’ve worked on Medium.

Takeaway #1: Pay attention to Boost requirements

I’m a Boost nominator. That means I scan through a lot of articles every day to find something to nominate for further distribution. I’ve been doing this since April of 2023.

If I go through 100 articles, I’m not going to read them down to the last comma. I’m going to scan them until I find a disqualifying mistake. Even if there aren’t any major issues in an article, they don’t always get nominated, but it’s rare to find a perfectly formatted article.

If you get formatting right, you put yourself WAY ahead of the competition.

Since the Boost program began, I’ve had more than 50 of my stories receive a Boost, and I’ve nominated around 200 that were accepted. Short of the people who are actually pulling the strings behind the scenes, there are few people out there who know more about this program than I do.

Here’s the stats page for an article that recently received a Boost:

As you can see, this article made $239 in 3 days. Note that even if you follow all my advice and get a Boost you might not see those results. My numbers are where they are because I’ve been working on this Platform for 5 years and I’ve developed a following.

That being said, I made $800 in Medium in my 3^rd month and that was before the Boost program. I feel that today there is a huge potential for a new writer to start earning immediately... but you have to get the formatting right!

Takeaway #2: Title, subtitle, featured image

Here’s a screen shot of the same article (readers have highlighted the article in case you were wondering):

I want you to note the positioning of the elements. Here’s a checklist for you to print out and put next to your monitor:

• Title at the top—Title is in title case and in “Big T” format

• Next comes the subtitle—Subtitle is in sentence case and “Little T” format

• Next comes a quality featured image—the featured image is in landscape orientation, is at least 1,200 pixels wide, and includes a citation (note, I didn’t cite the images in the article you’re reading now because this is Substack)

When I say “Big T” and “Little T” I’m talking about the menu that pops up when you highlight your text in a draft:

You’ll note that there are other options on the menu, but don’t worry about those for now. Just make sure you have the right format for title and subtitle.

Make sure you have a quality title that’s optimized for the internet (that’s a whole subject in itself—try to score at least 70 using this tool).

I like to draw cartoons in a sort of act of rebellion against AI generated images. You don’t have to do that. If you don’t have quality images of your own, you can download something from Unsplash. Make sure to copy and paste the citation that Unsplash provides. As a Boost nominator, I’ll disqualify an article if the images aren’t cited.

Takeaway #3: Eliminate disqualifying format errors

Here’s a screen shot of Dan’s article. Honestly, this breaks my heart because Dan is a fantastic writer and he’s doomed this article to oblivion:

First, the good:

• The article has a read time of 7 minutes. That’s perfect. That’s the sweet spot! As a Boost nominator, I perk up when I see that. Also, the writing is excellent.

Now, the disqualifying mistakes:

• The title is not at the top of the page. This needs to be taken care of in draft. Make sure the first thing you type on a draft is a title, and put it in “Big T” format.

• There is no subtitle.

• The image is in portrait rather than landscape orientation.

• I like the image, but it’s not good enough quality. This is a file that could potentially be improved with image editing software like Lightroom, but as it is, it’s not good enough.

• The image has no citation. If it’s your image put “Image courtesy of the author” or “Photo by Dan Woll”

• The title is beneath the quote and it’s not an internet optimized title

Any one of those mistakes might be enough to cause a Boost nominator to disqualify the article. All of them together means that the Boost nominator doesn’t even read a word of the article, which is a shame because it’s a great article. Go and read it.

I think you might also be disqualified from Boost if you’re not in the partnership program (I have to verify that), so that’s another reason to join. Dan is a Medium member, but you really don’t get full advantage of the platform until you sign up for the partnership program.

Speaking of that, after you join the partnership program, make sure the little green box is lit up next to the “paywall your story” option when you submit:

Every now and then, this box gets unchecked. You need it checked, that’s how you get paid.

Takeaway #4: Send me a draft link

If you’re reading this, then you’re likely somebody I want to cultivate into a writer I can nominate for a Boost. The more good writers I know, the easier my life becomes.

If you have questions, please email me (walterrhein@gmail.com) a draft link before you hit publish. You get the draft link by clicking on the three buttons and selecting from the drop down menu:

Sending me this link allows me to tell you what you need to fix before you publish. It saves a lot of time and tears.

The good news

Everybody lets the occasional formatting mistake slip through. The good news is that formatting is easy to correct. If you’re a good writer, I’m happy to work with you on formatting. I can teach you that a lot easier than I can teach you how to write.

I know that a lot of great writers get frustrated with Medium before they really give it a chance. I did the same thing. I published an article there around 2016, didn’t see any results, and hit the road. Then I wasted a year on Vocal before I finally came back.

My work has been published in a lot of places and Medium offers by far the best publishing opportunity I’ve found. It takes a little time to learn your way around, but it’s worth it.

Plus, you have the advantage of asking me if you have any questions. As always, leave your comments below!