The Reason Why Your Writing Gets Overlooked

We all dream of earning thousands of dollars a month as a writer.

But on Medium, only 0.2% of users have published a story, and just 6% of them make over $100 a month. Why?

Because getting readers is tough. Many quit because their first article that they poured their heart and soul on gets zero reads.

Starting is easy — keeping the momentum is difficult. But I want to change that. Here are four f*cking weird strategies to get more eyes on your work.

Tip #1: Write With Weird Formatting

People read articles all day. Why should they listen to you? If you have the same type of formatting, your article will blend into millions of others.

Make some body text into headings to show anger or something similar of that nature.

Make some parts bold or use drop caps to stop your reader’s attention and make them more keen to read. Formatting doesn’t only look good, but is amazing to keep your reader’s attention.

And this isn’t just with formatting.

Add white space in some areas and make entire paragraphs in others.

This also catches your reader’s attention. Add as much difference as possible from other articles. Continue that style in all of your articles. This will give your readers a sense of how you write.

not only that, you can choose to make some headings all in lowercase

Everyone sees title case everywhere. Why not switch it up? You might get rejected by some publications, but who cares?

Tip #2: Add Easter Eggs

This is truly the only weird tip out of them all. Make a few words bold. Make readers read your entire article and put all the bold words together.

Know that not everyone will care about it, but it could be a useful tip.

Tell them that there is a secret message and that they have to read the entire article again in order to find that sentence.

Just be sure not to murder the flow of your writing just to add another word.

Why the hell does this work so well?

People like working on stuff, and like finishing it even more. So, adding a small little easter egg will want to make your reader re-read the writing again.

They don’t want to be left hanging. They want to read that exclusive sentence that not everyone is bothered to read.

And that’s what’s so good about it.

Tip #3: Make an Entire Paragraph Out of Alliteration

It’s very difficult, but people will appreciate the creativity (this is not an easter egg.) In fact, let me try it myself.

When writing variety, willingness wowing weasels will wield variety.

What the hell did I write? I’m sure you can do better. What I meant to say was “when writing differently, you’ll need to make the reader willing to click on it and be wowed by it. This holds the key to variety.”

But it’s so good. It’s creative and people appreciate that. They want something different, and even if the paragraph is shit, they’ll understand why it sucks.

Tip #4: Controversy

Don’t overuse this one. Please.

Add a controversial statement at the start of your article. This could be something like “why you’ll never make a full-time income from writing.”

People are naturally going to be mad and continue reading to see how you justify it.

Don’t overuse this. Your reputation will go to shit if you say something too shocking. People don’t like you just going against all their opinions. But whatever it is, just be glad that it isn’t Twitter.

Here’s why it works so well:

• It goes against what readers have been taught. If they’ve been writing for six years, and they hear someone say their writing is below average, they’re going to want to listen more. Same with this.

• They’re going to comment. This will increase your engagement.

• If they end up agreeing with you, they’re going to like you because of how real you are.

So, yeah.

Please. Just don’t overuse this.

Substack: Writing for Absolute Idiots | Kushagra Thapliyal | Substack