NOOSTED: how to cope when your nominated story doesn’t get Boosted

Advice for tender writers, from the tender writer who managed the Boost Nomination Program

[UPDATE NOV 2024: This post was written during what I didn’t realize were the final weeks of my Medium employment. I’m leaving it up for posterity, but with the understanding that I don’t have any current takes on the BNP, because (duh!) I’m no longer working on the program.]

Hey, friends! 👋 Most of you know that I’m the Medium Product Manager who’s been running the Boost Nomination Program for the past year and a half. But I’m also a writer myself, one who’s been publishing stuff on the internet since the mid-’90s, and doing it as my fulltime gig since the mid-’00s.

So today, I’m here to talk to my tender fellow writers who might be dealing with tender feelings around having their writing nominated for Boost (amazing!), but then not having that story be selected for Boost (disappointing!).

First, let’s talk about this concept of getting NOOSTED

Rodrigo S-C, a longtime nominator in the Boost Nomination Program, recently wrote a great story about turning a typo into a term that’s both cute AND useful: