The Most Important Writing Lesson You’ll Learn Today

“A person types on a vintage typewriter at a desk” by rawpixel.com on Unsplash

This weekend I decided to look back on all my old posts from 2016, 2017, and early 2018.

This journey into the cob-webby Medium archives was like opening up one of my Mom’s old scrapbooks.

I used to write about the darndest things..

But that’s not why you’re here.

Let me just illustrate something for you really quick..

The article beneath “My 2,500 Mile Journey” was an article I re-published from the Huffington Post. It went viral on that platform, actually. It was my first-ever viral article ever.

It got 12 views on Medium.

But it got 5 recommends (us old Medium folk remember what they were) and had a 75% read rate which is pretty damn good if you asked me.

I point these out because I’ll reference them in a few minutes..

NOW, here is a picture of that exact same article (slightly altered) published nearly a year and a half later on the same platform..

4,000 views. 377 fans.

This proves a VERY CRUCIAL, VERY HOPEFUL point to all you writers out there who want to make a platform for yourself..

Content is NOT always king.

And, a slightly more interesting lesson..

Platforms do not always promote the best stories.

There’s A Deeper Story, Though

I looked at this old story with wonder at first. I know this story better than any other I’d ever written.

That’s why when I saw its abysmal numbers I was shell-shocked and decided to write a whole Medium story about it while juxtaposing it against the newer version.

Why did one succeed while the other didn’t?

What can this tell us about blogging as a whole?

These were tantalizing questions, the stuff that makes my fingers tingle with excitement to type.

So type I shall.

If A Post Looks Crappy, It Won’t Do Well

The biggest reason the August 2016 version didn’t do as well as the later version was that it looks like shit.

Here, I’ll show you.

UGH, this is hard to look at.

Like, I didn’t even BOLD THE TITLE PEOPLE. 😠

I didn’t even include a cover image.

No doubt this turned a heck of a lot of people off, right?

The answer is right.

Now let’s look at the later version..

Ahh, my eyes are pleased. I’m happy. All is right in the (Medium) world.

This looks glorious and weirdly makes me want to get up and make a cup of coffee while reading.

You didn’t feel that way?

Oh.

But seriously people, structure is a lot of the pie. Style is a lot of the pie.

It takes me about 4 minutes to go back and pull quotes, add images, and create titles. This is absolutely 1,000% needed if you want your posts having any sort of a shot at taking off.

Follower Counts Matter

Obviously back in August of 2016 I had maybe 2 and a half followers.

Later, in September of 2017 when I published the new article, I had 10,000 plus followers.

This stuff matters.

The amount of followers is sort of like an archery competition.

The people with the most followers are (metaphorically) standing 10 feet away from the bullseye while those with little to no followers are standing 100 yards away. Metaphorically.

It’s much easier for those who are already popular to remain popular because they’re already popular!

My articles now never do bad. Like, ever.

There’s a lot of reasons for this, but a good portion of it is because I have so many followers now.

So take this part away, okay?

Just because your article isn’t doing well doesn’t mean it’s not good.

I guarantee you that a good portion of forgotten-about articles would do 100 times better if they were published by someone who has 10,000 followers.

But don’t get it twisted..

Your Stuff Still Has To Be Good

It’s not like blogging is some sort of roulette wheel. It’s not like everything is up to chance and the reason your post didn’t do well is because the Medium gods just didn’t want it to do well..

But there is another side of the coin..

The fact is you do have a much higher chance of going “viral” if you have more followers — but the stories that go viral are already good stories.

If your story is good, chances are you’ll get a little bit of traction regardless, okay?

Maybe it’s 10 fans. Maybe it’s 20 fans.

Make no mistake, though, if you have less than 1,000 followers and write a story that gets 100 fans, THAT’S SAYING SOMETHING.

You did well. You struck content gold. Now analyze the crap out of that post to figure out why it did well and work those strategies into future articles.

You all should be analyzing the best writing on Medium anyway to figure out why things do well.

If You’re A Fledgling Writer, Have Hope

I wanted to show statistics from my posts from 5+ years ago because it’s super surprising. I’d be lucky to get more than 100 views on an article back then.

But you see, I thought that was awesome.

Perhaps the reason I’ve stuck with this writing thing for so long is the fact that I thought 200 views was something remarkable back then. Like, wow.

Perspective. Be grateful.

I posted every day to my own publication for almost a year and that stunted my growth in the process because The Post-Grad Survival Guide only had 4,000–5,000 followers.

My stories would get 200 views and 30+ fans even in August of 2017.

It took me a while to realize that because these articles weren’t published on bigger publications, their reach would fizzle out within hours of me publishing.

After I started writing at The Mission three times a week, all of this changed.

Platforms are everything.

Sometimes the most popular writing isn’t the best writing. It doesn’t mean that writing still isn’t good — it’s just not the best.

And honestly this is unfair, but it’s also the way it has to be. But just remember that. Keep faith when an article of yours doesn’t do well.

Many times it would absolutely take off under the wing of someone with 10,000 followers, and this should help inspire you to realize you’re doing the right things — you just haven’t been doing them long enough yet.

Press on.