Hope squared: "there are excellent writers who are NOT getting the exposure they should. I know that. So do you. We all know that. It’s a damn shame. And I hope Medium doesn’t crush their hopes and dreams and aspirations."
What I learned years ago on Medium: don't tie your feelings of self worth as a Creative to Medium's response to what you create. Align yourself with so many Greats who struggled for recognition Write because you can't fathom NOT writing. Write for the one reader who reads you, or the few, or the many. NOT because Medium validates you.
Have you ever watched that old Saturday Night Live skit from the 70s. People go in to order some food - soup, a sandwich, meatloaf, whatever, but they actually only serve - Cheeseburger, Pepsi, Chips!! This is Medium. They say they want quality, well constructed, memorable and all that. But what do we see on the feeds, what gets boosted, what writers grow in views and reads - Cheeseburger, Pepsi, Chips! It just feels like as distraction.
It's like: "Honey, what do you want when Sana Claus comes this year? I want a bike, a car, a doll house the size of our house, I want to meet Miley Cyrus."
Yes, we all want cool things, who asks for lumps of coal and a six-pack of Coke? There are so many good writers on Medium that can do well and bring in new business if GIVEN THE CHANCE. But they don't measure up, apparently. Like the lobster fisherman measuring his catch and throwing back in all the "little" ones. That's what Medium does - throws back the little writers because they don't "measure" up. Sad really.
If writers got 5K reads in May and June why do they suddenly get 432 in July and 321 in August? Something changed. Medium says it's the writer, they didn't do anything different. They did, they changed the algorithm, they changed who sees what writers, they changed what they thought they needed and wanted to grow. It just didn't work.
Now they have those long silly tube-men fluttering in the wind out in front of Medium trying to attract new members.
"Now, all of that said — there are excellent writers who are NOT getting the exposure they should. I know that. So do you. We all know that. It’s a damn shame. And I hope Medium doesn’t crush their hopes and dreams and aspirations."
100% yes. And it /is/ a shame. I have a couple of writers whose work should get boosted every time. In my dream scenario, my pub has a stable of 20(ish) writers, and we publish longer form magazine-style stories to a wide audience.
That aside, so much of this post is relatable.
Bad titles...submissions that clearly haven't been edited...writers with odd demands...all of it.
Hey Linda, I help Prism & Pen with their first submissions emails. LOL a writer sent me a draft article about his views and reads on Medium. He also sent me another draft link about renting houses...Um, that has absolutely nothing to do with the LGBTQ+ community, LOL. Why do people do this??
On other things, you might have heard that Thomas Smith is one of the boosters? He started a new pub called The Generator, which is a pub for all things AI-related. I submitted an article titled: "The Controversy of AI Art in Book Cover Design." This is based on some astonishing personal experiences I've had. Thomas Smith added my article to his list of top picks on Generative AI! There are no guarantees for being boosted, but this was encouraging and validating to see, especially as Thomas works in the AI field himself.
I don't see a "boosted" notification on my graph, but it's slowly climbing in views. Currently at 90ish views. (I know that sounds very low, but it's very high by my standards, since most of my stuff only gets 50 or fewer views, LOL. And maybe half of that for fiction. 😆) Fingers crossed, but even if it doesn't get boosted, I already feel flattered to have made it onto Thomas's curated list!
A friend who primarily writes fiction just got his story boosted. It turns out it was a nonfiction article about fiction-writing, haha. It was an excellent article, but some of us other fiction writers wonder if Medium truly will exclude fiction from the boosting. Though at least nonfiction articles about the fiction writing craft count.
Hope squared: "there are excellent writers who are NOT getting the exposure they should. I know that. So do you. We all know that. It’s a damn shame. And I hope Medium doesn’t crush their hopes and dreams and aspirations."
What I learned years ago on Medium: don't tie your feelings of self worth as a Creative to Medium's response to what you create. Align yourself with so many Greats who struggled for recognition Write because you can't fathom NOT writing. Write for the one reader who reads you, or the few, or the many. NOT because Medium validates you.
Have you ever watched that old Saturday Night Live skit from the 70s. People go in to order some food - soup, a sandwich, meatloaf, whatever, but they actually only serve - Cheeseburger, Pepsi, Chips!! This is Medium. They say they want quality, well constructed, memorable and all that. But what do we see on the feeds, what gets boosted, what writers grow in views and reads - Cheeseburger, Pepsi, Chips! It just feels like as distraction.
It's like: "Honey, what do you want when Sana Claus comes this year? I want a bike, a car, a doll house the size of our house, I want to meet Miley Cyrus."
Yes, we all want cool things, who asks for lumps of coal and a six-pack of Coke? There are so many good writers on Medium that can do well and bring in new business if GIVEN THE CHANCE. But they don't measure up, apparently. Like the lobster fisherman measuring his catch and throwing back in all the "little" ones. That's what Medium does - throws back the little writers because they don't "measure" up. Sad really.
If writers got 5K reads in May and June why do they suddenly get 432 in July and 321 in August? Something changed. Medium says it's the writer, they didn't do anything different. They did, they changed the algorithm, they changed who sees what writers, they changed what they thought they needed and wanted to grow. It just didn't work.
Now they have those long silly tube-men fluttering in the wind out in front of Medium trying to attract new members.
Other than that - all is good. 🤗😜
Writing is like a child.
The idea is born.
Through baby steps, there are experiments.
There are falls. Most writers get up and try again until they get it write (oops, right).
Then for some reason, they become a recalcitrant child and think they know it all.
Do you know what I mean?
I can just imagine the trials and tribulations you encounter.
I would love to see more quality work get the exposure it deserves.
"Now, all of that said — there are excellent writers who are NOT getting the exposure they should. I know that. So do you. We all know that. It’s a damn shame. And I hope Medium doesn’t crush their hopes and dreams and aspirations."
100% yes. And it /is/ a shame. I have a couple of writers whose work should get boosted every time. In my dream scenario, my pub has a stable of 20(ish) writers, and we publish longer form magazine-style stories to a wide audience.
That aside, so much of this post is relatable.
Bad titles...submissions that clearly haven't been edited...writers with odd demands...all of it.
If I can find any new women who write history well, Linda, I will. The trouble is that my feed tends to be biased towards authors I support already...
And once again Medium give the big FU to creative writers. Not surprising though.
Hey Linda, I help Prism & Pen with their first submissions emails. LOL a writer sent me a draft article about his views and reads on Medium. He also sent me another draft link about renting houses...Um, that has absolutely nothing to do with the LGBTQ+ community, LOL. Why do people do this??
On other things, you might have heard that Thomas Smith is one of the boosters? He started a new pub called The Generator, which is a pub for all things AI-related. I submitted an article titled: "The Controversy of AI Art in Book Cover Design." This is based on some astonishing personal experiences I've had. Thomas Smith added my article to his list of top picks on Generative AI! There are no guarantees for being boosted, but this was encouraging and validating to see, especially as Thomas works in the AI field himself.
I don't see a "boosted" notification on my graph, but it's slowly climbing in views. Currently at 90ish views. (I know that sounds very low, but it's very high by my standards, since most of my stuff only gets 50 or fewer views, LOL. And maybe half of that for fiction. 😆) Fingers crossed, but even if it doesn't get boosted, I already feel flattered to have made it onto Thomas's curated list!
A friend who primarily writes fiction just got his story boosted. It turns out it was a nonfiction article about fiction-writing, haha. It was an excellent article, but some of us other fiction writers wonder if Medium truly will exclude fiction from the boosting. Though at least nonfiction articles about the fiction writing craft count.
...I know what you mean :)