Don’t Neglect to Use the Unlisted Option
There are several options to consider when publishing on Medium
I wrote a piece in one of my niches which is Catholic journalism. It was a report on the Catholic Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan. He has a strong traditional style and a brash manner of addressing issues in the Church.
The defining point of a subject is whether or not it is man bites dog or dog bites man. This was clearly a man bites dog story. He has an approach that is quite traditional and undiplomatic which is unusual for many leaders in the Church to which he is highly critical. He also promotes the previous practices common before Vatican II.
I knew the story would not be a good fit for Medium and I knew that due to his style, no one would touch it in Catholic media. I did not want to let this article die on the vine. Therefore, I tried another option: I published it unlisted and connected it to Reddit, as a kind of sneak preview or limited release and it was effective for this subject matter.
This unlisted story had 104 views and 38% read stat within twenty-four hours. I had no fans, but the best comment I received on Reddit was from a reader who wrote: “Was this meant to be a hit piece or an advertisement? Lol”
Others embraced the report enthusiastically and one, a troll, trashed it.
Of course, the first comment illustrated that the piece was, as I intended, more of an objective report than something leaning one way or the other.
The point is that another option in publishing on Medium is to publish the unlisted piece. Rarely does any of my material get curated, now that the curation system has become virtually obsolete, it is not as much a factor anyway. However, I realized that by promoting my material on other sites — the most successful so far is Reddit — I do NOT use Facebook, I can target the audience I am looking for if I do not feel it is a good fit for Medium itself for whatever reason. This is especially in light of the more left leaning and secular style of the site.
I can target the audience I am looking for while still using the Medium platform. This also draws readers to Medium which is the platform that I not only use for writing, it replaced my morning newspaper as I eat my breakfast. I love to share my writing here, but I also greatly enjoy the writers and authors who do the same whether or not they are here for money, just readers or just to have a place to write. Medium is an outstanding platform.
There are many ways to put your material on Medium and many distribution settings, including sharing the link of an unpublished or not quite finished article, publishing unlisted and publishing an article in the mainstream on the platform.
In any case, Medium has many options for you to use your writing talents. They are there for you to make use of each one.