Photo by the author.
As of today, my top story has 5,509 views, 2,948 reads, and has earned $160.88. So why is it so popular?
That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I have a theory, but let’s g over some more stats first.
I’d like to think it’s done so well because of my awesome writing, but that would just be deluding myself.
For a start, the story has 4,564 claps and 303 fans. That means that each fan only clapped 15 times. That’s not exactly a massive endorsement. Maybe some readers don’t know that they can give 5 claps, so that must distort the figures a little. But still, an average of 15 doesn’t sound great.
My top story. Screenshot by author.
There are two reasons I think this story has done so well. The first is that the story is about earning money from writing.
Writing seems to be one of the most popular topics on Medium. This isn’t surprising given that there are so many writers here. It’s also about earning money. And who doesn’t want to earn some extra money from their writing?
It’s probably this combination in the title that makes readers compelled to click.
Someone wrote 8 Kindle books and earned money. Is that something you’re going to skip over? Surely you want to know how much money was made. After all, you may also be able to make money from writing a Kindle book.
The second reason I think this took off is that it was published in Writers’ Blokke.
The stories I’ve self-published haven’t done as well as those I’ve published in places like Writers’ Blokke, Illumination, and other pubs.
Stories in publications get more initial views and that can help get a story off the ground. I’ve only published in a few pubs so far, so am still learning which ones work best for my writing. I need to do a lot more experimenting.
If you want to take a look at my story, you can see it below.
It was some time after I wrote this story that I took Tim Denning’s writing course. The first day is all about headlines, so you might want to check that out as well.
I wrote an article about 14 Key Takeaways From Tim Denning’s 3-Day Writing Course. The link to his course is at the top of that post.
Funnily enough, it was also published in Writers’ Blokke. In fact, 3 of my top 4 stories were published there. The other one was self-published. Those don’t usually do well, but the one about making $550K from my ecommerce store is one that stands out.
I hope this story soars much higher. Next stop 10,000 views.
What do you think are the main reasons your top-performing story has been a success. It would be interesting to compare what works.
