There Are 3 Big Misconceptions About Medium Going Around
By: Tesia Blake
Tags: Medium, Writing, Self, Creativity, Writing Tips

There Are 3 Big Misconceptions About Medium Going Around

Don’t let them confuse you.

I just wrote a piece about how each Medium writer should do their own legwork when it comes to finding their way on the platform. And it’s true, the more you learn by yourself, the better. There are, however, many misconceptions going around about Medium, especially on outside forums, which can seriously impede a writer’s progress on this journey.

And that’s not good. When it comes to using Medium to further your writing career, any misunderstanding can set you back a lot when not corrected in time. So let’s get into it.

A few Medium concepts a lot of people have been getting wrong

It’s time to stop the confusion once and for all.

1. Fans and followers are not the same thing

Sometimes you’ll see a successful Medium writer talking about how the stat she pays more attention to is her number of fans, so you think she must be obsessed with her follower count, right? Wrong!

On Medium, followers and fans are NOT the same thing. We don’t use those two words interchangeably because they are completely different concepts.

A follower is a person who went into your profile and clicked on the “follow” button. This person is more likely to receive your content on her feed because she is actively indicating to Medium that she likes your writing and would like to see more from you.

When you click on Follow, you become a follower

A fan is simply someone who claps for your story. Everyone who claps for one of your stories becomes a fan, it doesn’t matter if they gave you 1 clap or 50. It also doesn’t matter if they’re following you or not.

Clicking on the clap button makes you a fan.

Therefore, sometimes your followers will be your fans because they clapped for your story, but not every one of your fans will necessarily be a follower, they can be just people who came across your article and happened to like it.

You can go to your profile to see who follows you. To check your fans, go to your stats page. It will show you total fans for the month (nº of people who clapped for your stories) and number of fans per story.

2. Publications, Medium magazines, member features and curation are not the same thing

Publications

Anyone on Medium can create a publication. Just go on your round profile picture on the top right corner, click “publications,” then “create new.”

I’ve created one. It’s called Mariposa and it’s awesome.

There are Medium publications of all sizes, each with its own editors and catering to its own specific niche.

Each publication has its own submission guidelines and rules to accept writers. I haven’t yet come across a publication which doesn’t feature their “how to submit” page in a very obvious place on their homepage. If you wish to submit, read and follow the instructions carefully.

Medium Magazines (or Collections)

These are especially put together by Medium following a theme. Some of the most recent ones were: “Can we Talk?”; “For the Record”; “Office Politics” and “Reasonable Doubt.”

The good news is that Medium will occasionally send out emails to its Partner Program Members with specific calls for submissions, but unlike publications, these magazines or collections don’t have easily accessible guidelines or submissions open year-round. All you can do, really, is keep checking your inbox.

Member Feature Story

These are the stories Medium editors pick to feature at the homepage. When you click on one of them, it will have the nice “Member Feature Story” up there near the title. There’s no way to submit or apply for those. All you should do is to write and post a story as usual, then hope Medium editors will see it and like it enough to want to feature it. If they do, you’ll get a notification by email.

It never happened to me, but other writers who had their pieces featured have confirmed that this is the process.

Update: when I wrote this story, I was under the impression that Member Feature meant featured stories BY members, which meant you’d have to be a member to have a story features. As I have recently learned, Member Feature means the story is feature TO the members, which means the writer herself doesn’t have to be a member to be featured.

Curation (or Story Distributed by Curators)

Curation is the term for having your story picked by the Medium curators to be distributed under one or more tags. Getting a story curated means it will show up on thousands of people’s feeds, including those who don’t follow you.

Getting curated is also an endorsement of your story by Medium editors. It means they have read it and found it worthy of sharing. Medium now notifies writers when their stories are curated. You can also know if a story has been curated when you look at individual story stats and see something like this:

Medium makes it pretty obvious when you’re curated.

Any story posted behind the paywall can get curated, whether you post them on publications or just on your profile, just make sure you keep the box for the Partner Program checked when you publish. It looks like this:

For more detailed insights into curation, make sure to read Shannon Ashley’s piece on the subject here.

3. There’s no “normal” when it comes to Medium — each writer has her own journey

Another common misconception about Medium is the idea that you can predict how your experience is going to be like (or how much money you’re going to make) based on the experiences of others.

Because each voice here is unique, each writer is going to have a different experience.

You can ask however many questions you want.

Is it normal that I haven’t been curated yet? How much can I expect to make in my first week? Is it normal to only get 3 claps on your first story?

These questions don’t even make sense. Or they do, only they all have the same answer: when it comes to Medium, there is no normal.

Some writers sign up on Medium with Facebook, and bring along their friends as their first audience. Some writers sign up for Medium and start with a 0 follower count. Some will submit to publications, some won’t. Some will get accepted, some won’t. Some will have well-received stories, some won’t.

What’s normal? All of it is.

We’re all unique people, with unique voices and a particular way to experience the platform. There’s no way to predict how your experience is going to be like based on someone else’s. You can achieve similar results by taking similar steps, but please, don’t get attached to comparisons, and forget the idea that there is a “normal.”

You make your own Medium journey. You make your own normal.