Is It Time To Kill Your Old Stories?
The kindest cut
I was looking at my Medium stats earlier this week. Partly to get a thrill from the fact that real humans are actually prepared to pay to read something I wrote, but also to wonder at the unfathomable randomness of Medium’s Partner Program.
Why did that story earn me $65 while this other one fell into a gaping void? How come this one got only one view on Saturday and zero reading time, but still earned me $3.70? None of it makes sense.
But setting aside the weirdness, it struck me that several of my previously most successful stories no longer contribute anything to my needy coffers.
Medium is a ruthless warzone. Stories flare and die in an incredibly short space of time. Here’s a typical example.
These stats are from one of my middling successful articles. I published it on April 21 and as you can see, by May 1st, it was effectively dead in the water.
Medium’s algorithm relentlessly surfaces only the latest and greatest, which is why we have to keep churning out fresh fodder, just to stay ahead of the game. Most articles reach their sell by date within a week…
