Don’t lower the self-worth of your inner writer. Instead, focus on improving yourself.

(Originally published in Medium)

When I started writing on Medium, I wasn’t much aware of the stats page. I was just feeling good, gratifying, and satisfying when I post something and share it to my acquaintances.

Fast forward to present…

I’m taking pressure. Pressure to stand at par with unknown peers at Medium.

This is what I do regularly:

Write, publish and immediately hit stats, and refresh it like the button pops out. Maybe my subconscious mind expects I would go Medium-viral in a moment… Or it would be a super-curated story… Or my stats spike like hell. Who knows? It can become true. That is why I check my stats once in five minutes.

I know writing isn’t easy, and we want recognition to keep us encouraged, and moving ahead. And hence why we check stats. But the problem is with excessive checking and expecting magics.

Lets be honest. Is it really required to check stats more than once in a day? A bold NO. Are you deciding your worth with your latest story? It’s only if you’re gonna stop writing from today.

You still have a great Medium-career ahead. The only thing is that you need utilise resources in a proper way. And the most important resource tool you have is – Stats.

My definition of stats:
Numbers in a webpage that tell you how wonderfully you managed to drag the attention of people scrolling in the website.

If the numbers are bigger, Congrats! You dragged many random readers towards your story within their average attention span of 8.25 seconds! If the numbers are smaller, Uh oh! Nothing to worry. There’s always something you could learn from that.

How you could improve yourself? In turn improving your stats.

Introspect:

Ask yourself few questions:

“Why haven’t I reached my expectations this time? What’s the problem with? Title? Subtitle? Publication? Bad vocabulary? Link bombing? Excessive explanation?”

Take your most received (viewed, clapped, read) article as reference. What’s there in that piece that isn’t there this time?

Imitate great authors:

Analyse popular authors’ articles, know their style (because that’s what people on Medium are liking obviously…). Imitate them. Heyy!! This doesn’t mean plagiarism or putting on their mask on you!! Try implementing their ways itsy-bitsy in your next article. Publish it. Now check your stats.

Any improvement? Yes? Bravo! No? Still there’s something lacking. Now it’s a chance to improve yourself again.

You always need to maintain your unique writing style, while still taking inspiration from others.

Create interesting headlines:

If you feel you’re weak in creating catchy headlines, use a high quality analyser tool. It scores your title on how ‘clickbaity’ it is. Now, don’t write ‘This is the best article you’ll ever read!!’

You can make click-baits, but on one condition:

If you’re planning for a clickbait, make sure you keep up your promise. Please don’t write ‘The Seven-day Guide to Become the World’s Richest Man!’, and ‘It’s impossible. Work hard’ inside. Once a reader finds your articles lame, he doesn’t like to read your articles again.

Stats aren’t for your self worth. They’re for your self improvement.

Off topic:

This green dot seems very suspenseful to me, until I open it and realise that it’s my mom who has clapped for my 3rd story on Medium.

On to topic again:

One of the best advices I’ve read regarding publishing is ‘Write today, edit tomorrow’, as given by Giorgos Pantsios in one of his articles. Just as you complete an article, your mind feels it has worked very hard, and has written a perfect masterpiece. When you submit it to publications, you face the same rejection again.

It’s only after you go for a walk, spend time with people, have a shower, your mind gets refreshed. And you’ll get to know disguised flaws in your so-thought masterpiece. Try it, you’ll feel better, and so your articles too.

Beginners, this is for you:

Don’t write success stories in the early days:

A major setback for newbie writers is — They figure out writing Medium-success stories gives them more success. They start writing them, but their pieces end up so miserably *****.

Writing success stories on Medium needs a lot of experience and knowledge, along with the art of crafting them interesting and clap-worthy. So new people, First write, improve constantly, get success, write it as a story. — An advice by a person little experienced than a newbie.

Maintain the same mood:

Many new writers, without their notice, take their articles off the mood. It feels like a comedy movie with an action ending, or a horror movie with a comedy ending.

It’s an art. Art of taking your reader deeper and deeper into your mood, while he scrolls down. And not letting him come out from the mood at any point. Also, it’s an art of making your reader so deeply hooked that he doesn’t look away unless he finishes reading your article.

Beautiful stock photos aren’t only for making your article visually striking, but also to take your reader into the mood. So, ensure you only put relevant photos.

Off topic:

❗❗❗ Attention ‘people new to Medium’!
If you don’t know what stock photos exactly mean, and you’ve been putting photos directly from Google images, or licensed photos, or YouTube screenshots, your account may be under risk. Let me tell you which photos you could use.
Photos from pixabay, unsplash, pixy, pxhere… are free to use. You could observe this point — ‘Free for use’. Attribution may or may not be required. If it’s required, don’t forget to give attribution or credit.

Another way — Search for your required image in Google images. Go to Tools<Usage Rights<Creative Commons licenses. Now, you’re free to use any image you could see there.

On to topic again:

Many ‘New to Medium? Read this first’ articles suggest you to choose your specific niche for better readership and identification. I don’t agree with that. There are many writers who are remarkably successful on Medium with no specific niche. Your works would be getting their specific niche by the pubs you publish in.

If you don’t know correct title case i.e., not sure of which words to consider for first-letter capitalisation, try this online tool.

#PublicationsMatter

If you’ve worked very hard for your piece, and you feel it’s really gonna be a great work and deserves much attention, publish in greater publications. They take time to scrutinise your piece. But it’s worth it.

Previously, I didn’t know how important it was to publish in larger pubs, and I published many of my articles in smaller ones. And they missed much recognition, though they deserved. So, write, submit, wait.

If they reject your masterpiece, don’t worry. It means they missed something really valuable. This article of mine was rejected by The Startup and was accepted by Data Driven Investor, and it’s curated!

You could also link your articles to your previous articles, as they increase readership of your older pieces too. But only if they’re relevant, and don’t link-bomb! (Too many links).

Use your mobile to edit:

When you make a draft, revise it yourself in your mobile only. Because, that’s where most of Medium readers read. So, check if your article perfectly optimises to mobile screen. Many times, smaller paragraphs in PC look bigger in mobile, and bigger paragraphs bore the reader.

If you get an article idea, write it down somewhere immediately. Forgetting an idea is as frustrating as it can be.

Quality over quantity

Beginners are often suggested , “If you’re new to Medium, publish one post a day. Only then, you gain followers and maximum attention.” Just imagine:

You’re new to Medium, and you publish one post a day. Do you promise quality? Or you compromise quality? They’d most probably be of less perfection, because you don’t have prior experience in writing blogs.

So, start slow. Prefer quality over quantity. Improve your standards constantly. Don’t squeeze your brain for ideas. Unless you’re full time Medium writer, there’s no need to publish everyday.

Conclusion:

Hope this post serves you as a guide for what could you do more productively than just refreshing stats every now and then. The basic intent of me writing this article is to remind you that, “Refreshing stats don’t give you anything. Improve yourself constantly. And your stats, along with your self-esteem bump.”

Always remember — Top writers didn’t make it being obsessed over stats.