Prior to embarking on an intense hiking and road trip back in June, I was packing up everything and getting my affairs in order — I often don’t check my phone when traveling. Upon rifling through my Gmail account, I noticed a curious little email from Medium in my inbox, titled: “Congrats, you’re a top writer in Travel on Medium.”
Which made pretty much zero sense to me, so I laughed it off and put it aside — because how was that possible, when I had only written 5 stories total on the platform, and only 3 about travel?
But hooray, I became a Top Travel Writer on Medium! Cue the celebration, and a bit of confusion as well!
As a newcomer to the Medium scene, I was now the Top Travel Writer with the least number of followers. I think I had about 3 at the time, which is astoundingly low, considering the other top Travel writers had up to 25K followers; I still find my obvious follower gap a bit hilarious. And, I almost certainly had the fewest number of stories as well. I started writing on Medium by publishing a research paper I’d done on ethics and social media mining, which was scouted and featured by The Startup — a huge honor, but not exactly travel-related. Then, a few stories later, I was a top writer in Travel.
How’d I do it?
Here are a few key secrets to what drove me to Medium stardom.
1. Write what you care about…but also what other people care about.
Yes, passion is something that you need when writing — otherwise you’re not going to last very long, trying to churn out articles that you don’t actually care for. But it’s not just about you. This writing should at least be as much about your audience as it is about you, if not more. Provide value to your audience.
My first travel article was about the plausibility (or lack thereof) of sustainable travel, because as much as I love traveling, I also care deeply about the environment and not destroying the world for the future generations. Climate change has become a much more urgent topic in the last few years, and I know that many other people have the same worries and feel the same guilt as I do when it comes to air travel.
My second article was about an experience in Paris. While this one was more loosely related to travel, it still captured many of the feelings and sentiments I had about Paris. The city of love has always been a hot topic even amongst non-travelers, and I wanted to share a moment that showed that Paris isn’t all dreams and romance, either.
My third article that boosted me to Top Writer status was about the feeling of empowerment that travel gave me. As a woman, many of us suffer from being shut up in work situations, taught by society and from birth that we need to be quiet, drilled into fear. Travel was the one thing that gave me liberation from my imposter syndrome and anxiety, and I wanted to share how I felt it could help other women, too.
(Note: These links are to my stories on the Medium platform. The native version of these, on my website, can be found here: 1 2 3)
Case in point — make your stories worth your while, but also worth your reader’s while.
2. Submit to publications — and get featured!
The key to submitting to publications is getting accepted and featured, of course. By writing for publications, you can take advantage of the audience and subscribers that Medium has already gathered for you, plus your content will be geared more towards what they wanted to read in the first place. All the articles I have submitted to publications have gotten accepted, including the 3 that gave me my claim to fame. I was published and featured by Age of Awareness, P.S. I Love You, and Her Vision respectively.
There’s a little bit of research required to apply as a writer to publications and find which ones accept articles that are related to travel, but it’s often fairly simple and the owners of the publications are so kind. Most of them have simple online forms to fill out and they’ll automatically add you as a writer. A couple others need a bit more, but a cold pitch can go a long way! Between these strategies, I’m already a writer for The Startup, Age of Awareness, The Post-Grad Survival Guide, Her Vision, P.S. I Love You, Curious, and The Ascent. (And, uh, I haven’t submitted anything to a couple of them yet.)
3. Title, title, title.
Spend careful time cultivating your title and subtitle. Along with your cover image, these are the three things that prospective readers see on the Medium page, so essentially, they are your elevator pitch. They are what determine if a reader clicks on your article or not! I revise my titles usually two or three times before settling on one that I think balances information while also being interesting and eye-catching. A great way to pick an optimal title is to draft three versions, and then ask a couple friends which one they prefer the most. Sometimes, we stare too much at our writing and need a fresh set of eyes!
And of course, the beautiful subtitle. I love putting in a bit of my personal voice in the subtitle, because it’s a great place to show your style — whether you prefer funny, witty, or scathingly sarcastic remarks, the subtitle is a perfect opportunity to draw your readers in a step closer.
4. Formatting, grammar, and a pretty picture go a long way.
You already know this one. Don’t put out articles that don’t have at least a semblance of professionalism. Spell-check, add in a couple nice photos with appropriate credit, and don’t use any improper grammar that you can’t get away with. (I say this, having just ended a sentence with a preposition — haha!)
What you don’t need to become a Top Travel Writer on Medium:
1. Tons of followers, views, or fans.
As I already mentioned, when I became a Top Travel Writer, I had maybe 3 followers. I also didn’t even get that many views on my articles — these are the stats for the stories I wrote! I can’t say why I was granted that status for sure, but I firmly believe that value comes before popularity. Even if you don’t have a huge audience or a lot of followers, people will appreciate the value in a good piece of writing.
2. To be in the Medium Partner program.
Medium has been focusing a lot on members-only content, which is great! I didn’t know much about it beforehand and was not in the Partner program when I wrote these articles, so it’s certainly not a requirement. However, I still think it’s great that Medium allows writers to get paid for their work, so by all means, sign up!
I’m still new to my Medium journey, and I’m excited to continue writing about travel in the future. I’m sure some of these tips seem like no-brainers, but simple and straightforward work can get you a long way. Funnily enough, I lost my top title after going on a two-month hiatus because of the aforementioned road trip, but it’s not like I could have expected anything else after being gone for so long!
Don’t worry — I’m coming back for it.
Interested in following me on Medium? Find my page here.
