100 Followers in 28 days
How I Got Here & What’s Ahead
On the 17th of April, 2023 I wrote my first Medium story. I was pretty sure no one was going to care about it.
I wrote it only because I wanted to talk about it for a very long time.
For the first week or so, I was just tapping away from my lonely corner of the internet. It took a few days for people, in small numbers, to find and appreciate my writing.
The top 3 things that kept me going and helped me serve value to 100 awesome people!
Write regularly
If not every day, then at least 5 days a week. There will be days when you won’t chance upon anything publish-worthy but do it. Writing every day builds you as a writer. Keep showing up. a
To not run out of topics, I recommend you try this out*
Read about writing better
I’ve come across some really good writers** here, whose articles have helped me better my writing immensely.
Only jotting down your thoughts isn’t enough. If you want people to read and get value out of your stories, make your stories pleasing to the eye.
Structure it well, use small sentences and simple words. If you make readers work hard, most of them will hop off.
Join publications
A few days and some 30 followers later, I started writing for publications like The Shortform and Illumination***
Medium publications are groups that publish stories on a particular topic or an umbrella of topics. They usually have an existing follower base which you can leverage once you join them
This clearly helped a lot more readers find work and then find value in it.
5 things I plan to do, going forward:
- Keep publishing regularly ( I’m still in a tiny corner of the world of online writing.)
- So far, I’ve mostly written about writing and self-improvement. I want to start writing about other things too, like Art and Travel
- Looking forward to creating content on a few other platforms too
- To do that, I’m preparing a weekly content calendar for myself (I’ll write about that too, once I get fully started with following it)****
- Free-write every day.
Resources
* Running out of topics is outdated, say goodbye to writer’s block. Here’s something that might help
** Benjamin Watkins and Biliz Maharjan offer the BEST writing tips.
***To join The Shortform, email theshortformpublication.writers@gmail.com, asking to become a writer along with your medium username.
To join Illumination, click on this and scroll down till you find the application form
****I’ll soon write about creating a practical and doable content calendar, once I design and get started with mine. Follow me if you’d want an update on that.
Personal tip (something I’m really thankful I did):
Sticky note the top 3 things that I mentioned in the first part of the story. Put it right at your writing desk/ corner. Practice doing all 3 every day.
-Sanchari
