Sorry to intrude, but if you’re interested in gory details, I’ve almost written a book:
#1: Quality of writing has nothing to do with success — it’s about having thousands of followers and continuously marketing your work to them.
#2: Successful content marketers dominate the Medium feed and act as get-rich-quick cheerleaders (shovel salesmen to prospectors) to build on their popularity.
#3: One of their main tools is the dark art of writing clickbait headlines.
#4: I did the research to prove the following:
- Medium is uninterested in the topics (Sports, Music, Humor, Art, TV & Movies, Fiction) the vast majority of regular people like.
- As of August, only articles appearing in Medium-owned publications are pimped as the site’s prestigious “Featured” articles:
#5: The endorsement of a social media influencer has more effect on an article’s success than reader engagement or curation. The curation process is arbitrary and sometimes useless (unless you have a Somalian Pirate fan club). Also, positive attitudes and inspirational messages sell better than telling people the truth (see article on shovel salesmen).
#6: As of September, the curation process has taken a back seat to the pimping of articles appearing in Medium-owned publications. For computer users, Medium’s nav bar, and featured section now offer less choice than Pravda.
Even the feed is now dominated by Medium-owned publications, and a series of “based on your reading history” selections that is a euphemism for “topics that are loosely related to someone you read that we want you to read.” Only 2 of the 26 articles I scrolled through were tagged as one of my “customized” selections of favorite topics.
#7: If you want an article to be curated there are hacks to improve your chances (for the little that is now worth). However the process of becoming a better writer should never stop, regardless of one’s inability to make headway against the current system.
