My Vanity Publication Is Killing My Stats
I make a lot of noise about being a soul blogger, but just because I am a soul blogger doesn’t mean that I am not willing to grovel for views, reads, and recommends. I’m not proud of the fact that I am a green heart addict, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I have a recommend jones. Compared to other past and potential addictions, though, twitching for stats is kind of mild. I mean it’s not like I’m eating a candy bar in my truck so I don’t have to carry the wrapper into the house, or using only one ice cube to hide the amount of scotch I’m drinking, or, for that matter, sitting in my truck eating a candy bar and drinking scotch while checking my Medium stats… WHICH IS WHAT I DO TO CELEBRATE MY BIRTHDAY NOWADAYS.
Where was I? Yes, obsessing about stats. Imagine my horror when I saw this:
Let me explain this to you. “Idelwild South”, an article I had labored over for 12 hours, had 193 fewer views than a one sentence plug I did for Deadspin. How did they know?
What? You read the Idelwild South article and can’t believe I spent 12 hours on it? I‘m exaggerating? OK, I admit that I watched Allman Brother videos for 11 hours and 15 minutes, then stitched together my infantile thoughts with a wide array of comma splices, mispellings, and awkward sentence constructions in about a half hour, but if you were the client and I was the contractor, I promise you’d be getting billed for 12 hours. Dig?
So, how is it that A PLUG FOR FUCKING DEADSPIN managed to get more views than my artisanal dreck?
I think I know the answer: my vanity publication is killing me.
There was a time when I thought that Medium was favoring publications in the algorithm, so I started what I called a “vanity publication” in which I could publish dreck. The purpose was to gain views. Whether it ever worked or not is questionable. For most of its history, the Medium Athenaeum has been my literary junk drawer, a place to stuff things so that I “have them” somewhere.
I tricked Augustkhalilibrahim into joining as an editor. She is really the only editor. Technically, I’m listed as an editor, but “editing” means getting things ready for publication, and I don’t do that. When I work on things they get less correct.
Augustkhalilibrahim also lends the Athenaeum an air of respectability (it’s not really a vanity publication if there are two people working on it), and, more importantly, provides me with someone to blame when things get fucked up. I mean, what’s a white guy to do without a smart woman to do the work and take the fall? She also makes The Athenaeum an international publication. We have offices in Copenhagen. It doesn’t matter that I often confuse Denmark with the Netherlands, because, as she has explained, the excuse “I can’t do that because I’m too busy sanding my shoes” sounds stupid wherever you are.
So, despite the beauty, staff, and prestige of The Athenaeum (we’ve been nominated for a Medes¹ Award), our raison d’être has been undermined by the plumbers at Medium. Including articles in a vanity publication seems to hurt, rather than help, views.
Who knew?
¹ The “Medes” are the annual summer literary awards given out on Medium by the male editorial staff of The Athenaeum. There are many categories and a very complicated voting procedure. We gather at the Mill wearing… at least shoes and a shirt (pants are not required)… and text while people make acceptance speeches. There is a chance that this year’s “goody bag” will have a fidget spinner in it… not the good kind of fidget spinner, the kind you get at the dollar store. It should be fun!
