Should I Care if I’m a Top Writer on Medium?
By: Natalie Frank
Tags: Awards, Psychology, Advice, Ｍedium, Writing

Should I Care if I’m a Top Writer on Medium?

Given that it’s just about frequency does it really mean anything and what designation might mean more?

Photo by LongTimeLurkur on Imgur

I keep seeing these articles with people announcing that they are top writers on Medium in some area or another. They then purport to give everyone advice on how they too can become a top writer. You don’t need an entire article to answer that question, not to mention that it’s been answered dozens of times, if not more. Here’s the answer:

Pick something you like to write about that has a tag associated with it and write about it a lot using the tag.

Period. That’s all there is to it. It’s all about frequency.

Okay, so maybe there’s a little more to it, in that some tags are far more popular than others so there are more people using them for their posts. This means you have to write more posts for topics like, “Psychology” and “Writing” than you do for “2016 Election.”

There’s also maximum of 50 top writers per tag. So, if a tag has 50 top writers listed there isn’t room to be added unless you knock someone off the list by publishing more on the topic than they have and hope no one else has published more than both of you still leaving you off. Since you don’t know exactly how many articles this will take, and these are more popular tags meaning there’s more competition, these areas are harder to become a top writer in.

If you write on a topic that there aren’t very many top writers in, you will have a better shot at achieving this goal with fewer posts. For example, the tag “2016 Election” only has four top writers meaning there are 46 spots open. One post, and you’re in.

So the more detailed answer to the question is, all you have to do in order to become a Top Writer is to find topics that don’t have 50 top writers or that do but that have a low number of tag hits which you can find in the article by J.J. Pryor. This means they don’t have a lot of competition so have a better chance of knocking someone off the list and replacing them.

Of course, this also means a lower number of people that your article will be distributed to so you have to decide how much top writer status is worth to you. Personally, since it’s a frequently changing indication of writes more, I’m always going to go with distribution and let the chips fall where they may regarding becoming a top writer.

The other thing about top writer status, especially on topics that are the most competitive, is that they can change from day to day. You can be a top writer in an area for a couple of days, them wake up to find out that you aren’t any longer. It’s not like Medium does some kind of tally at the end of the year and then announces the top writers in the different areas over the past 12 months, a title you’d keep for the next year until the new list is announced. You can be top dog today, and not tomorrow.

What’s Top Writer’s Status Good For Then?

Top writer status on Medium can be useful as a way for writers to define themselves on the site. The tags show up in your “About” section so anyone looking for more information about you will see what you are a top writer in currently. This can be helpful in gaining followers interested in that area.

Since our list of articles are organized chronologically and not topically and many of us write about many different topics, it can be hard to gain a sense of our identity in terms of what we specialize in or the things we write about most. Top writer status helps with that.

Problems With Top Writer Status

One of the main problems with the top writer label is that since it’s just a frequency measure, not a quality one, you can do all of your writing on a topic but unless you are one of the 50 writers who publishes the most on that topic it won’t be reflected anywhere. You can write the best articles about a topic, hands down, but not write that often. Chances are if it’s a popular topic, you will never appear on the Top Writer list for that tag.

Also, since most readers probably don’t know what the top writer status refers to, they will likely assume it does refer to knowledge, high quality writing, background, expertise or the like. If they see you are ranked a top writer one day but when they come back you aren’t, they may assume the quality of your work has fallen or compared to others you don’t know as much or don’t write as well and go off in search of those with the Top Writer label.

What Other Metrics Might Mean More to Writers and Readers Alike?

I would propose something that would better indicate quality and how well received our work is. This would be providing awards of some kind. Some could be determined by Medium, some by Medium writers and others by Medium readers.

Other platforms do this and may even awards a small amount of money, special badge on the winner’s home page or profile, or swag. This would be a much better indicator of quality and popularity than a metric that can change from day to day. The Top Writer status could be changed to “Top 50 Most Frequent Writers in Psychology” or whatever.

For example, on Hubpages they give awards once a year to the winners in the following areas based on peer votes:

Best All-Around Article:

Best All-Around Hubber

HubPages Lifetime Achievement

Most Helpful Hubber

Rookie of the Year

Most Likely to be a HubPages Employee

Funniest Hubber

Biggest Grammar Snob

Most Trusted Hubber

Hubber with the Most Obscure Knowledge

(For some reason I keep winning “Most Obscure Knowledge, but have no idea why!)



There are often also awards given by the staff.

Medium could include awards like:

Best Overall Non-Medium Editor Group Publication

Best Newsletter

Most Diverse Writer

Best Poetry or Fiction Writer

Writer Most Likely to Make You Laugh Out loud

Best Citizen of Medium

And others that could be serious or funny.

In addition to motivating writers, getting writers across the platform even more invested in Medium, and being something that would draw in new readers and followers, there’s always the general feel good factor that happens whenever we win anything.

I know each year I win the “Most obscure knowledge” award, consciously I think, “Why does everyone seem to find my writing so obscure? Does that mean that it isn’t clear or I just write on fringe topics? I write on mainstream topics! What do they consider fringe or obscure, exactly?”

But subconsciously, I can hear a voice yelling, “I won, I won, I won!” I won’t say it isn’t a bit of a high to win even a category I don’t understand and which may mean something I’d prefer my writing wasn’t.

So perhaps instead of the Top Writer status giving writers a check when they’ve written a lot about a topic, we could come up with something that actually reflects something that indexes quality or other desirable attributes. It would be a fun way to celebrate each other and our writing.