How to get curated on Medium?

As I’ve been explaining so far, there are some guidelines, but the whole process is still very mysterious, and highly subjective. There are some red flags you can avoid, but Medium Curators are just humans.

As unfair as it may sound, Curators will choose stories they like, and those they believe Medium Readers will, too.

A mistake you should avoid is to try to fabricate a story to fit whatever structure you believe is the right one, as I have.

After I received my first curation, I spent hours analyzing it to try to crack the formula. Then, I put together a story that followed the same structure, giving it the same elements, in the same spots.

You can guess — it wasn’t curated, and it hasn’t performed that well since. It did teach me a thing or two, though.

Format your articles properly

The title is usually assigned the right format by default, so many writers don’t bother formatting the subtitle. See what I wrote under the title for this story: do that; your subtitle should look like that.

The headings and subheadings you use throughout your text should also follow some logic. The “big T” and “small T” title formatting options are also known as H1 and H2 respectively.

Now, you have two options here: either you assume the title of your article is H1 so all the headings will be formatted as H2, or you split your article into sections and each has its own H1 title. If you want to further break your sections into subsections, then you use H2, as I did for this part, Formatting is very important.

Lastly, the featured image you choose needs to be of high quality, and you must have the right to use it. Remember that you are selling your writing on Medium, and you can’t profit using something you don’t own.

Choose an adequate headline

In our efforts to attract readers, we sometimes try to be too clever about our headlines; we want something creative and intriguing, without being too clickbait-y.

I recently wrote an article that I knew provided great value to my audience. Based on past experiences, I was certain it was going to be curated; it wasn’t, but I didn’t give up.

I took the story down, changed the only headline, and guess what happened: my story was curated in three different topics. Crazy, right?

This isn’t a practice I recommend you use, though. Medium has a policy against duplicate content which can lead to your account being suspended.

However, this is a great example of how choosing a great headline matters.

Your headline should intrigue the reader, but it should also clearly state what the article is about; your content should be the answer to the promise your headline makes.

If you strongly believe your article should’ve been curated but might’ve suffered because of its headline, I suggest you rework it.

Adding or removing sections from your story, rearrange the order, and rewriting can help you increase the quality of your work.

Write from personal experiences

When growing a following online these days, you probably know the key is authenticity. Audiences have evolved and they can tell when someone is trying to fool them.

As you may remember, Medium Curators are people, too. Since they’re professionals, I’m assuming they are even better at detecting fakeness and pretention.

Don’t try to be something you’re not; writing from your personal experiences will only help you be a better writer, and it will help your audience see you’re just like them.

People don’t need role models with lives so phenomenal they feel like their whole lives won’t be long enough to catch up. They need stories of people just like them, people who somehow managed to succeed.

You don’t want to be the next Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, or Tony Robbins. Yes, they all had their humble beginnings, but their origin stories aren’t applicable today anymore.

You want to be the next average person who is achieving greatness today.

Provide real value to your readers

Nowadays, we are all attacked by waves of information all the time, from all channels. This means we are selective about how we choose to spend our days.

Naturally, readers won’t want to read a story they can’t get anything out of, and neither do I. Value in writing, however, is a subjective term and it varies based on personal experiences and expectations.

Value can mean you teach your reader a lesson, you entertain them, you excite them, you connect with them on an emotional level. This will depend on the audience you write for.

Follow Medium’s Curation Guidelines

This one seems obvious, but it’s still worth mentioning. If you think you know them, read them again.

Very often, I see writers disregarding the importance of proofreading which is unthinkable for me, as a non-native English speaker. Regardless of your origins, every writer should be using Grammarly or a similar service, and I’m even referring to the free version.

Using text-checking software doesn’t mean you don’t know how to write, it just means you’re making sure your work is as close to perfection as possible.

Lastly, articles about Medium are immediately passed on, but you should check the rest, and pay special attention to the points regarding your Profile and Copyright violations.