This is one of those questions that crops up frequently on Medium. Which is more important: to turn out the occasional (hopefully) very high-quality article, perhaps in the hope of getting into a publication, or even better, of gaining the mythical unicorn known as the Boost. Or publish frequently to keep a profile on the platform.

One of the things I have noticed on Medium, you may have observed this as well, is how quickly articles disappear down a vortex, never to be seen again. If you are lucky, they may burst like a firework in the sky for a few hours of glory, perhaps register in the awareness of a few readers, but then rapidly fade away into darkness once more. There is a huge novelty factor. It is partly this feature of the platform which makes it so difficult to gain any traction.

When I first joined Medium, I assumed that momentum would gradually build as I published more articles, that a body of work would accumulate, and eventually earnings might do the same. NO! The novelty factor means that what you published a few weeks or months ago might as well not exist.

Of course, there are a few tips and tricks to try and fight back against the algorithm. Such as "pinning" one's best articles: you can pin up to five, perhaps even rotate them to let other articles come up for air occasionally, to have a brief glimpse of the Medium sun.

However, pinning is only a partial remedy. It seems that articles must be churned out endlessly. Many of the top writers on Medium are producing one or even two articles a day. The challenge with such output is to maintain quality. Some of these seem to be rather stream-of-consciousness type articles, complete with formatting or other deficiencies, and giving the impression that sometimes they are turned out just to keep a visible presence in the crowded space in our Medium feeds.

To answer the question, quality or quantity, my rather unsatisfactory answer is probably a bit of both. It is important to maintain the quality of articles published, but given the strictures of Medium's fickle algorithm, with its huge reward for novelty, it is important to maintain regular and frequent output as well.

It would be interesting to know your view on this dilemma in the comments section!