There’s a reason for it…
Views seem to be down across the board. Boo. The good news is — it’s not your fault. Yay! The simple truth is this: it’s summer, it’s warm, and people went outside.
Screens are hard to read in the sunlight. They’re also hard to read when there are ‘funner’ things to do.
As I’m learning, views go down in the late spring and summer on Medium. This makes sense since the majority of readers here are from the northern hemisphere. If you’re as far north as I am (Canada), you just finished a cold winter and being stuck inside for months.
People are out enjoying summer. That’s all that’s happening. You didn’t start suddenly sucking, the algorithm didn’t put a voodoo curse on you — your audience is just taking a summer pause.
Don’t Worry
I have a number of (hopefully) helpful reasons why you shouldn’t worry, or worse — quit. And here they are:
- Stories can keep getting reads forever, so anything you’re creating now, you’re setting yourself up for success in the future still. Medium is a marathon, not a sprint.
- Stories can take off later, for no reason. A story you wrote months ago can suddenly get traction and start trending. You can’t plan it, it’s just the magic of the innernut. But it happens, so you may not get many views right now, but those stories could still spike in the future.
- Also, boosts can be awarded to stories at any time. So if you suddenly receive a boost to your story you’ll get a huge spike in views.
- What’s even more important to know, is that boosters can boost stories going back 6 months. So your stories could still become a mega-massive-stratospheric hits.
So, don’t fret — your stories can still get views, even if they aren’t performing like a rockstar right now.

What You Can Do About It
Short of tying people to chairs to keep them inside and reading (not recommended because…reasons) there’s not a lot that you can do. But you do have a few chair-free options:
1. Compete Using Attention-Grabbing Headlines
Views are down, but people are still reading. Even if not at the same volume. To compete for the reduced amount of views you can work on your headlines to capture more of the traffic that’s still around. As I always say, think clickbait — but deliver.
2. Enjoy Your Summer
You know those readers I said who went outside? Join them. This if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-em approach can help quell your sanity.
I wouldn’t recommend not writing anything all summer, otherwise come fall you’ll have to fight to get your audience back. But, maybe just relax your publishing schedule a little. Then come back fully restored — with great stories to tell!

3. Change Nothing
It’s not your fault views are down. But we do get wrapped up in them too much. Notice I said ‘we’ — I’m a stats junkie (I go to meetings, but they don’t help), and I get addicted to them.
While stats can help tell you things about your writing (like that low views means your headline sucked, or low reads means you didn’t hook the reader), them being down overall means nothing to you. So change nothing?
Writing is supposed to be fun, so just keep having fun and change nothing. Readers will return, and you’ll have some more writing practice under your belt and will be in a better place when they do.
That’s it. I’m going to go outside again now.