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How To Unearth Fascinating Stories And Support New Writers
The secret to finding the hidden gems on Medium that most readers never see
By the end of my second week as a writer on Medium, I was ready to give up. I had poured my heart and soul into my first four stories, yet only a handful of people had looked at them. I earned a grand total of 6 cents the first week, and 7 cents the second.
“Curation is everything,” screamed the experienced writers, the ones offering Medium writing courses. “With curation, you get two to three times more visibility, sometimes even more.”
Well, the problem was, all four of my stories were still marked, “We are processing this story. Hang tight!” Nearly fourteen days gone by and the curators hadn’t even bothered to look at my work!
“Try to get in large publications,” the experts said. “You need to be in publications to get in people’s feeds, to get eyeballs on your stories who otherwise would never be aware of them. So shoot for the moon! But, only submit your best work!”
Well, the trouble was, how did I even know what was my best work, when curators had not yet looked at even one of my stories? I wanted at least a little experience, a little feedback, under my belt before I started aiming high.
