The Problem for Small Authors identified?
by John Seeker
Most are aware that Small Authors complain about the lack of views/reads. I have yet to see a credible explication as to why this really is, though quite a bit of advice as to what to do about it, which usually boils down to keep plugging away and it will come. That’s not exactly encouraging to newbies. So what is the culprit?
For me, a root cause is the software structure called Publications. The first problem with this is that if the publication is owned by somebody else, then you have to submit your story for ACCEPTANCE APPROVAL. Whilst its normal practice in the real world, why should that extend to a site for publishing stories? I for one do not like that idea, so I don’t do it and neither do a lot of what are called small authors. Apart from anything else, it was not clear HOW to do it, though that appears to have changed very recently!
So, OK, we small authors can still publish stories without putting them in a publication. That’s fine apart from the fact that most follow publications or particular authors that they like. So who sees the Small Authors in their feed?? NOBODY, unless the author has tagged it with a tag somebody else follows. The fiction tag, for example, has a little over 2k followers. Sounds a lot, but how many are going to visit in a given 10 day period? Lets say 200. Now the longer that visit is from your publishing time, the less likely they are to see your fictional story, because there will be lots of other, more recent stuff in their feed, UNLESS they only follow the fiction tag.
Thus I submit that we have got to the real reason why Small Authors get few views/reads, namely for the simple reason hardly anybody who is likely to be interested in their work will actually see it. That is not helped at all by the fact that the vast majority of posts are of a non fiction kind.
There is also another aspect. To add a story to your own publication was not obvious either because it needed to be already PUBLISHED. OMG, that means that its already been viewed by those who are likely to have been interested, which boils down to very few. So, unless your own publication is being followed, you gain nothing by doing that, but you do create another problem! There are some who may well submit posts for your approval. That would be nice, but not when you are trying to get your own work published in a way that one hopes will increase its visibility.
So what is the solution to the Small Author problem. The one Medium recently proposed is given at https://medium.com/the-story/we-ve-changed-the-way-you-add-a-story-to-a-publication-ba4449ae6a03.
I have not been able to establish when this was actually posted, but its very recent. I can only assume that this is their solution to the Small Author problem. It certainly seems to be an improvement in terms of ease of publishing, but I’ve not tried it much yet. Has the help file been updated to correspond to it? No idea. That file says there are three ways to post to a publication!=
- Be the publication owner
- Be an editor of the publication
- Be an invited writer for the publication. Your story must first be accepted by the owner or an editor.
Whatever way you look at it, we are always looking at the publication as the main way of contributing that is likely to be well visible. That does not solve the Small Author problem for the reasons already outlined. I believe the best solution is the original one I proposed, make a separate root folder for fictional writers and create feeds drawn from both roots, so there is a composite.
That way, the fictional writers could promote the area for their work via other means, such as Twitter, whatever. I have sufficient material, quite a bit yet to be published, to make a fictional post a day. I’m not going to bother doing that if nobody is going to read it.
Personally, I think Medium should drop the fictional aspect all together, their site is better known for other things, but they backed themselves into a corner over it by using the word ‘Story’, for their posts, when they are not really stories, but posts. By definition stories require a narrative, the % of posts containing narrative is quite low.
If they go for dropping it, then most of the people who are griping would disappear and they could concentrate on developing what works for them, as clearly fiction does not. This is my last word on the subject, being as I have better things to do with my time! Medium will do as it wishes, it is not my concern anymore.
