Member-only story
Real Spill: How my best article has earned over $500 across two publications
A snapshot into my most viral article to date
March 2017 is when I published my first article here on Medium. It received 3 views, 1 read, and 0 fans. I had no clue what I was doing then. Can’t even remember if I used hashtags. Medium hadn’t launched the Partner Program yet. And all my stories were self-published because it seemed impossible to get on with any publication at that time.
Regardless I kept writing, writing, and writing. Eventually I found a new publication to take me in. The result? A few new followers with each post and a rising confidence that I could write stories people would want to read and comment on.
After two years of writing consistently for two publications, not one article was close to going viral or curated. How some writers seemed to go viral after having been on the platform in a matter of months was mind boggling.
I never got the secret sauce to virality or curation on Medium. To be honest, it was never my focus for any of my stories.
Writing the words in my head and heart was my focus. Keeping an eye out for bigger publications to submit to and shooting my shot was my focus.
That was my secret sauce for curation.
