3 Simple Tips That Actually Improved My Writing — My First Month on Medium

A Month of Writing on Medium

3 Simple Tips That Actually Improved My Writing — My First Month on Medium

People reach Medium for various reasons — some in search of advice, others to share their ideas, or sometimes to make a living. But what keeps them here, in my view, is the community. Without readers, there’s no motivation to write; without readers, there’s no one to write for. And if there’s no exchange of ideas, it’ll be just a random website.

I initially joined Medium for the articles relevant to my field. Over time, however, I started enjoying different things, from one’s personal stories and technical discussions to another’s humorous pieces. However, among all these interesting pieces, it’s hard for one’s story to get noticed. Here are the three lessons that have shifted the way I approach my writing on medium.

1. Persuasion and writing styles are important. But Value matters more.

What we’ve learned is that readers pay for quality, and the Boost is one of the ways we’ve delivered that. — Tony’s keynote, 2024.

Many articles on medium gain traction not because the story is engaging or has some flow. It’s only because the author has provided the reader with something valuable. There are many articles out there that say, “Write for yourself, the audience will follow”. Persuasion and flow, despite being important, are useless if your article doesn’t provide any value.

Fiction helps people feel refreshed; Tragedy helps people feel more gratitude about their lives, and non-fiction helps them view the world differently. There’s no need to discuss what the technical articles provide. Ultimately, all these are different forms of value that a reader finds. This is not something I’m saying; rather, it’s something the CEO of Medium, Tony Stubblebine, shared.

…we found that there is a giant gap between what someone is willing to read and what someone wants to pay to read. — Tony’s Keynote, 2023.

2. Quantity helps earnings, but it is not sustainable.

Many articles recently shared that Medium has transformed from a quality to a quantity game. Quantity does indeed help you earn. However, this grind will ultimately end in burnout.

I recently interacted with a writer who started writing on August 5th. He published 2–6 articles a day. And through this grind, he crossed the payout limit of $10 by Aug 28. But he felt burnt out. This is the actual message I got on Reddit from him:

Earnings are a good measure of the things that Medium values. You get more money if people read your articles. However, for me, this is not the right metric. It’s good if I can earn some while writing, but I want to keep writing in the long term, and my nature wouldn’t let me focus on writing if I’d solely focus on earnings.

3. Followers are overrated; Earnings are complicated. What is better?

I gained 51 followers in these three weeks of writing. I am happy about it. But there’s a catch for it. Some of these followers didn’t come because of my content; they followed me so their account would appear in the notification box. Medium is still trying to tackle these kinds of accounts. It’s an ongoing battle. Other than this, Medium provides a ton of metrics. These are the ones I found useful.

1. Views: These represent the potential reach of your article. For new writers like me, publications are the place to get more reach as their own reader’s network is small.
2. % of readers → Medium gives this metric on our stats page. It helps us understand how likely people are to read our articles once it reaches them. I believe this to be the most important metric.
3. Claps, Responses, and highlights → These metrics help us understand how valuable our readers found the content. This is what I have to optimise my writing style for.

For now, I want to focus on these three metrics to improve my writing style.

These are the main lessons I’ve learned so far. Medium is a wonderful place for someone to grow and learn. So I might find an article that is far more valuable tomorrow. I’ll keep experimenting and learning more. If I find something interesting, I’ll share them here.

I hope you found some value in this. If you did and would like more interesting stories, subscribe to The Story Taste to get notified.

Thanks for reading till the end. Until next time — happy reading!