Banned Books, Bogeymen and The Medium Boost Bust

Three things for Medium writers going into October

Sep 29, 2023

How is it October on Sunday, and where did summer go? I don’t know if time flies faster as we get older, but sometimes it sure feels like it.

Slightly different format today because there’s three things I want to tell you about, especially if you write on Medium.

October 1-7 is banned books week

Some parents want to ban Charlotte’s Web. Know why? It’s so stupid I can’t wrap my brain around it. Because there’s talking animals in it and apparently to some parents, that “ain’t natural” so they don’t want kids reading it.

I don’t need to tell you a lot of the books people want to ban are about someone else’s lived experience. The Color Purple by Alice Walker, and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou for example. Because omg, they talk about sexual assault and heaven forbid we should let anyone read about that.

Pretty much every book about being LGBTQ has been challenged by someone, somewhere, and a fair number of books that depict poverty or mental illness. I wrote about The Glass Castle, a beautiful and poignant memoir of a girl who grew up in poverty with mentally ill parents. Yup. Parents want to ban that one, too.

So, if you write for The Book Café, there’s a fun writing prompt for you. Write a book review about a banned book you loved. But do me a favor. Don’t start by explaining that you’re following a writing prompt. Just writer a killer piece.

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Bats, Beasts and Bogeymen

If you love scary Halloween stories, Medium has you covered this year. They’ve introduced a new topic/tag just for Halloween stories. Just use the topic/tag GhostStories23 as one of your five tags so they can find your stories.

I’m thinking there might be some kind of compilation. I don’t know for sure, of course, but can’t imagine why they’d create a specific tag and send it out by email to all Medium members if they don’t plan to use it to find stories using that tag.

Here’s what they said:

October is upon us, and as the seasons change, it's time to huddle up and share good old-fashioned supernatural tales. Plenty of us over at Medium are fans of the genre, so add the GhostStories23 topic to your story and we'll find it. (Please exercise good taste, of course, and reconsider the usage of unnecessary gore.)

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The Boost Bust?

I’ve been a member of Medium’s Boost Beta program for half a year now. Time flies, hey? October will be my seventh month in the program. I’ve written about the good aspects of it. I believe in the potential of human intervention to improve the quality of what readers see over the power of an algorithm to do the same.

I like that I see less “how to make money on Medium” posts on the homepage. I like that much of what I see when I go to Medium is just good writing by good writers.

Here’s one aspect I am not liking.

It feels like stories that don’t get boosted are getting less views than they should.

According to Medium’s documentation, they say posts that don’t get boosted will still be shown to the writer’s following and the publication’s following. That has not been my experience.

In my experience, a story that doesn’t get boosted is not getting the views it should based on the following of the writer or publication and if that’s the case, it’s not right and it’s not fair. When I follow someone, I want and expect to see their writing.

I don’t know if my experience is affected by being in the Boost Beta program. I tend to hunt for new writers to nominate, so it’s possible that what I see could be affected by what I’m searching, clicking and reading. What about you?

Are you finding the same? Let me know in the comments.