$1908 From an Unboosted Story? How I Made the Impossible Come True

I thought you couldn’t make money unless you got Boosted. I was very, very wrong.

Yours truly stunned by the stats — Author’s Image

You ever get the feeling Medium’s Boost system destroyed your chances of writing success? Destroyed your second income? Your first income? Any income!?

I did, until I wrote a story that went UnBoosted yet made me $1908, got 150,000 Views, 112K Reads, and over 12K likes. Those results shattered every perception I’d held about Medium’s Boost system.

So let’s walk through it to see how it happened.

Back when things initially changed on Medium in August 2023 and the Boost system was adopted, I hated it. Earnings, reads, views, and engagement all plummeted overnight.

The Boost had instantly managed to boot writers to the kerb and set up a gatekeeping system that turned the UnBoosted into lepers.

Simply put, if a story got Boosted, you were in the money. Not boosted? In the shitter collecting dirt. The discrepancy between the two was an immense source of consternation and angst. I hated the gap and the power placed in the hands of Boost nominators and curators.