Insane! How I Got Boosted 85+Times on Medium

12 tips to thrive on Medium (earning $2,000), and why it’s great to be a contrarian, nerd and deep thinker

Ben Ulansey, guest essay

I’m far from a Medium old timer, but I’ve been there long enough to remember the bygone days of “curation” and those humble times when a subtle gray text would surface on our stat page to inform us that our piece had been “chosen for further distribution.” Sadly, the difference that amounted to tended to be negligible.

In most regards, those distributed articles were little more than badges of honor. They meant that some anonymous curator had scoured the platform and deemed our work worthy of what rarely amounted to much more than 20–50 extra views — in my own experience, at least.

I had a fair amount of luck with that prior system before its discontinuation. There was a three week period where it seemed as though each piece that I published was given a default review from curation. There was even a stretch of time when I had nine consecutive articles selected on subjects that varied from fiction and satire to memoir and opinion writing. But in each case, the difference never amounted to much more than a few additional dollars of pay and the vague notion that more people were reading my work.

$2000 and 100,000 views for my (first) Boosted story

I knew only that the last system was gone. But as the article began soaring into the tens of thousands of views within only the first couple of days after I received that email informing me my piece had been selected, it was clear that Stubblebine had meant it when he said Boost with a “capital ‘B.’”

It was chosen at the end of February of 2023, and in March alone, it received just shy of $2000 and 100,000 views.

Screenshot by author of stat page from March, 2023

To date, the piece has received over 200,000 views in total and earned nearly $4000. It’s surged on and off in popularity in the months since it was written and is among my highest sources of residual income on the platform. Despite the article being written on the fast-moving subject of AI, I’ve been surprised at how relevant much of my core message has remained.

What Medium’s curation team (doesn’t) look for

What curation often looks for is

• those subjects that are “evergreen,” or

• pertinent to readers regardless of the social climate.

• When covering political terrain, things tend to move too quickly for any one piece of journalism to feel applicable for very long. And as a result, politics has fallen out of favor with curation in recent months as the subject has become oversaturated.

Truth to be told about the reach of my stories

Following the heights of that first piece that was selected, subsequent Boosts were anti-climactic. After 5 or 6 pieces were chosen, I’d begun to realize that first one was the exception rather than the rule. That first article Boosted was the rare piece to soar beyond the additional 500–100,000 views that Stubblebine explained we could generally expect to see on chosen articles when he first announced the program to users.

Each of the articles that I’ve had Boosted since have veered far closer to that lower estimate

Oftentimes, pieces selected within the world of entertainment haven’t performed particularly well unless they’ve been on new movies or TV shows, timeless classics, or if they’ve tapped into timely social issues. Likewise, those articles I’ve written explicitly on politics and social issues have tended to perform the best. Articles written on language and writing also seem to be a particularly significant curiosity for writers on Medium.

At first, my pieces weren’t selected often at all. Part of the reason that my work has ended up on curators’ desks with a greater frequency as time has gone on is that more and more nominators have been willing to advocate for my work.

That took a lot of time and practice on my part. I don’t think that it’s a product of nepotism, as some might believe. A couple of the nominators who ultimately began to argue for my writing were the same ones who, a few months prior, didn’t believe I deserved to be a part of their respective publications at all.

But behind almost every Boost is a nominator’s pitch, and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to everyone who’s had enough faith in what I write to promote it on my behalf. Many of those people have remained anonymous to me.

Like so much in life, writing is a growth process

Tip #1 Practice, practice, practice

And among the best bits of advice I can give to writers hoping to grow on Medium hearkens back to a motivational poster on the wall of my high school band room. The precise wording eludes me now, but it read something to the effect of:

“The more I practice, the more people tell me how talented I am.”

If only I’d had the patience to properly apply those words to music.

From ninth grade on, I realized that I had a more natural inclination toward language. And as much as I practiced the saxophone, it seemed that a music career would forever hover out of reach. I loved to play and in my most committed months I practiced each day, but those efforts never quite felt like they culminated in the same sort of improvements as my time spent at a keyboard. In that regard, I think there’s a degree of success that I owe to innate talent. My father is the musician in the family, and my mother is the one who’s gifted with her art.

I knew from a young age that I wanted to follow in their creative footsteps, but it wasn’t until high school that I began to find footing with my affinity for words. My dreams of leading my father’s band in his name may fade with him, and that’s okay. Notes never flowed from my fingers in quite that same way.

Tip #2 Follow your joy

Another bit of advice is simply to cherish what you do and create. If you lose sight of the love for your craft, it won’t be hard for readers to tell that your words are hollow. Of the 600 articles I’ve written on Medium, there have been a couple that felt a bit more like soulless chores than they did an extension of my love for language. But in each other case, putting together my pieces is something I’ve enjoyed for nearly every minute that I’ve been immersed in the process.

There are occasional times when I’ll struggle, and when the words just fail to queue themselves onto my computer screen. But generally, I feel more inundated with ideas than I do blocked in my ability to get them out. Even my pieces that cover subjects that have been customarily hard to enjoy as a reader (politics, grammar, and film reviews), I’ve found ways to have fun.

Sometimes, the pleasure I take in writing feels almost opportunistic. When I envision other writers covering conflicts and heavy political topics, I rarely see them enjoying themselves. I always assumed that addressing those weightier subjects was an unfortunate burden of their occupation. But the truth is, even when I’ve written on subjects like the war in Gaza and our fraught political moment, I’ve found an unexpected ability to get lost in my words all the same.

Tip #3 Love the words

Sometimes phrasing my thoughts on the subjects will trigger cathartic responses and I’ll cry as I type. Yet I still derive a strange pleasure from how words work together in a sentence, and how some synonyms seem to hold a greater rhetorical value than other routes most might consider essentially the same. I love the way that words’ seemingly inconsequential swapping of places will leave a sentence feeling more cogent.

It’s been a recurrent theme that even my ideas for articles that feel the very dullest elicit a surprising enthusiasm from me as I begin to type the words out. I never expected it would be such a blast writing about the way that titles tend to leave out periods, or why I value alliteration, or the amazing utility of the em dash, nor that they’d amount to some of my most successful articles on the platform.

Tip #4 It’s great to be an outcast, contrarian, and “out of the box” thinker

I think that some of the success I’ve found with the Boost program owes to my preexisting proclivities as a writer and a person. Often to the annoyance of others, I was always outspoken in my classes growing up. I’ve been labeled an iconoclast and a contrarian. I got into a few too many Facebook arguments, much to the chagrin of my family and friends.

Tip #5 Check out the Boost guidelines

I didn’t feel that the guidelines Medium introduced for the Boost were day and night different in nature from what had existed previously with curation, but the net result is certainly different. I believe it’s worked to my advantage that the guidelines felt directly aligned with what I most hoped to offer with my writing when I first opened my account. It’s not every piece I write that falls within that scope; I often write articles I know will be disqualified for the Boost entirely.

Tip #6 Let the world know your thoughts

But more often, stretching back to the days of Facebook screeds, I’ve hoped that my rants were pointed toward a greater end. I hoped that I could articulate an opinion that I hadn’t read elsewhere and bring enough of my personality and experience to the table to make it worth readers’ while. I hoped I could find an outlet to channel my love of words into and maybe one day make a living doing it.

Tip #7 Writing about a (nerdy) niche topic can be your superpower

For quite a while after the Boost program first began, I feared that film and entertainment were topics I’d just need to cover for the joy of writing alone. I thought those subjects weren’t what Medium was looking for. I assumed that the standard review of a movie, TV show, or video game didn’t quite fall within the “adds value to peoples’ lives” criteria that Medium had laid out.

I’ve been surprised by the success that I’ve ultimately found in that niche. It’s amounted to one of the topics with which I’ve had the most luck of all. Sometimes, I’ve been confused by the amount of milestones I’ve hit in that genre.

I like to believe that I’ve infused enough life and personality into the topic that Medium’s curation has been willing to stretch its standards a bit. But I think there are a fair amount of pieces I’ve written on the subject of cinema and entertainment that may not have fallen as squarely within that Boost purview as they could have.

Tip #8 The Boost program is evolving - all the time

One of the interesting things about trying to keep up with the Boost program, as both a writer and a recently appointed nominator, is that it’s an evolving program. Articles that may be a good fit one month may not be the next month. Curators’ tastes are subjective, and sometimes subjects become over-saturated. Excellence within political writing may be hard to assess evenly when there are 10,000 daily articles written on the subject of the 2024 election.

Tip #9 Topics fall in and out of favor

It’s a difficult task to cater this program around the way that topics may fall in and out of favor. Sometimes, it seems as though there might be a pronouncement made behind the scenes that there are too many personal memoirs being Boosted. They may fall out of favor for a time. Sometimes entertainment articles or humor writing appear to undergo the same effect. To approach such a wide array of subjects even-handedly can’t be easy. Monitoring which pieces perform well enough to earn their heightened distribution and adjusting the system around those findings in subsequent months must prove a harder task still.

Tip #10 The Boost is a mystery to me - although I’m a nominator

Even as a nominator, much of these inner workings are a mystery to me. On a few occasions, I’ve felt forced to pivot. But there are some tidbits of wisdom I can offer that remain fairly consistent.

The foremost of those is so trivial that it’s one of the reasons I was actually a tad reluctant to write this article in the first place. Other than practice, practice, practice, the primary way that each of us can improve our chances of being selected by curators is to study the Boost guidelines, and each piece of related literature posted on the subject since the program went into effect. All official information about the program can be found on The Medium Blog.

I never exactly read over the articles with a fine-toothed comb, but reviewing enough of the guidelines to know the sorts of tactics that are effective — and what habits should be avoided — can be integral.

Tip #11 Speechify & Grammarly = essentials

Speechify and Grammarly have also both become focal pillars of my editing routine. Speechify is integrated directly into Medium and by sharing a draft link with myself, I hear a read-back version of my articles. I catch many errors this way, as well as get a feel for the way that my articles sound when spoken. The different built-in voices each offer slightly different tones to our writing. Generally, I find that the standard voice speed is a little too slow and that 1.2–1.4 speed is where it most efficiently imitates a normal human sound and cadence.

Grammarly, I wrongly believed for a long time that I was above as a writer. But setting aside my pride, I’ve come to realize that it’s rare the software won’t have 10 corrections for me worth making (and 20 worth ignoring).

Tip #12 Be relentlessly versatile

Another recommendation I have for getting selected may be considered counterintuitive to growth — and retaining a happy list of email subscribers. And that recommendation is to be relentlessly versatile. It’s a bit of advice I’ve returned to often, and I think it’s been not only critical to my success in the program, but to finding my voice as a writer and learning to believe in myself when I address new subjects or approach new writing styles.

I’d never written either a film, music, or video game review before beginning to write on Medium, and attempting all three proved to be foreign territory. Learning to write about entertainment was not only a cause for growth, but a perpetual reason to keep writing when my fire would have otherwise started to fade. There’s always another show, movie, or game to cover, and there’s always another song to explain my affection for.

The same has been true of subjects like satire, politics, and astronomy. The Boost has served as validation that I have something to offer even when I brave unfamiliar waters. It’s been incredibly fulfilling to find these continual causes to explore new bounds. Of course, sometimes, I fall on my face.

I’ve still never managed to push past my poetry wall, despite a shameful few attempts at free verse. (I suppose practice might one day improve things.) And I suspect erotica may forever need to stay happily sidelined. But one of my favorite things about the Boost program has been finding a reason to explore areas that might pull something new from me or help me to further grow.

My heart is in it

Beginning to write on Medium was the first true step that I took in pursuing this passion. I had a job in journalism previously, but the assignments given were rarely ones that corresponded with my interests. Simply said, my heart wasn’t in it.

The successes I’ve found within the Boost program, though, have culminated in my first true experiences connecting with a broader audience. Seeing those view counts go up can seem like a superficial pleasure. But when I care so much about what I publish, it’s incredibly gratifying each time my words find that opportunity to connect with so many strangers worldwide.

🥳Ben Ulansey is a member of The Online Writing Club. You can meet him inside our exclusive writer’s group. He was introduced to me by our mutual friend

Robin Wilding

. Ben has grown from zero to almost 10,000 Medium followers. His list of Boosted stories is soooo amazing that I had to introduce him to you. You can follow his Medium blog or The Gen Z Report here. 🥳

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⭐⭐Calling all future Medium superstars⭐⭐

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I recently also featured

Untrickled by Michelle Teheux

who made more than $20,000 (coming from $15K) with one story, and bought a pool to enjoy some quality summertime with her hubby😊

Also, I shared a tribe member’s story about quitting his full-time job and going part-time—earning $2500/month with Medium, Substack, and services. You can join our Substack-Medium Bootcamp in November to learn the exact steps and strategies.

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🥳Ben Ulansey is a member of The Online Writing Club. You can meet him inside our membership experience. He was introduced to me by our mutual friend

Robin Wilding

. Ben has grown from zero to almost 10,000 Medium followers and his list of Boosted stories is soooo amazing that I had to introduce him to you. You can follow his Medium blog or The Gen Z Report here. 🥳

You can also watch our live workshop here. Your support makes a HUGE difference for Ben. He’s new to Substack and looking to build an email list from scratch🥰

Thanks, Ben, for this guest post filled with nuggets of wisdom, actionable tips and mindset shifts. Keep rocking Medium, my friend. I hope you’ll soon be able to make a living writing.

PS: My toddler is ill. He has croup. The first two days are usually the worst. Tomorrow is Halloween. I'm hoping he can go to his Halloween party that he's been waiting all year for (to get candy, of course) and meet his friends. So please bear with me if I need some time to answer your comments, re-stack and so on! Fingers crossed that the night goes well...the last two nights I almost didn't sleep because he was “barking” like a dog.