I definitely feel you on the whole Medium front. It's been a steady decline for me. I still post the occasional article that are reposts from substack and make a few dollars with it. Still more than what my membership costs so it's something. And I do agree, if I would write a more scholarly article I think I'd still have more of a chance to earn a bit more.
I think it's been a few years since I have read anything on Medium. I loved it for quite a while until they completely changed the format and then I hated it. My favorite writers got hard to find. I don't remember everything, but it drove me away. I'm a recent Substack reader. I'm liking it so far. I see what you mean about style differences, though. Medium seems (seemed) to have stories and articles; Substack seems more like news and letters to readers. I wish you success, wherever you publish.
In January, I had the best month on Medium since June (~700USD) and thanks to another boost this month, I am having a good February. I have had a few non-boosted stories also do better than normal ( > 2000 views) and with really high read ratios. And they're what I would consider fairly "standard" technical articles that I write.
So I'm on a bit of an upward mental trend on this platform over the past few months.
Except... on a shitty note (for a Medium writer like me), one of the largest publications Towards Data Science (800,000 followers) officially jumped off the Medium ship. As of this week, their site is now independent. Do you have any insight/thoughts on how a huge loss like this may affect Medium in the bigger picture?
And I've never understood the "subscribed to my stories" thing on Medium. It doesn't seem to produce any initial spike of activity (I have ~200 "subscribers").
That's interesting. I hadn't heard that Towards Data Science is leaving Medium. I don't think it takes the followers with it, and actually the follower count on Medium doesn't seem to mean much. My work regularly appears on the Writing Cooperative which has around 250k followers (I think) and those stories don't perform better than any other stories. I'm glad that you had a good month last month. Maybe my perspective will change if one of the two stories I have waiting to be published gets Boosted :) Thanks John!
Thx for the insight. And to support your analysis on follower count, my last story on TDS (with those 800,000 followers) has made a whopping $3.04. Maybe my article was the last straw for them. :-)
One more question about the Boosts - in your experience, what's the longest you have had to wait before a story gets boosted? I ask because I have an article that's been out there for 5 days and the read ratios have been way higher than they normally are, even for my boosted tech articles. I have no idea who is boosting my articles - it seems to be completely random to me - across a bunch of different publications.
And PS: in my very humble opinion - if I was in your current state of mind about the election (and I kind of am) - I would go out and do that race just to spite the bastard.
I just checked your link. It was nominated, so either they're still thinking about it, or it has been declined. I expect since it's been a few days they probably didn't take it. The same was true of the article of mine that was published with The Writing Cooperative today.
I skied a long time yesterday, so I have to feel I'm physically capable of finishing the event. The organizers are going to announce their plan for the race this evening, so I'll decide based on what they say and how I feel on Wednesday.
And ya, I get the "physically capable" part - I checked out the course - if it's the Birkie course then it's not the kind of conditions you want to bonk hard in. I hope you recover from your workout and feel better about your fitness.
I published two stories in January on Medium and then stopped. I have published none in February. I miss it. But I respect my work too much to throw it down a rathole on Medium. I plan to publish something as a test this week. Sticking a toe into the water.
Could Tony not at least explain whether he thinks they have a problem they’re trying to fix or if he’s given up?
Yes. I've never felt a lack of transparency is a good business model. There are a lot of really smart people who work and write for Medium. We can tell that something is going on. I mean, Medium should be applauded for bringing so many intelligent people to the same place. They shouldn't then turn around and forget the brain power of their readers.
Hi Walter, I usually read your articles inside my email and I'm not sure that counts towards opening. As a matter of fact I read this entire article and there was a place to click in the email to leave a comment but I don't think it counts as reading it on Medium.
Ah! Now that's an excellent insight! I wonder how often that's the case on Medium? We'll see what happens over there. I still love the community, but I have to put my energy in the places where I get paid :) Thanks for the feedback!
I definitely feel you on the whole Medium front. It's been a steady decline for me. I still post the occasional article that are reposts from substack and make a few dollars with it. Still more than what my membership costs so it's something. And I do agree, if I would write a more scholarly article I think I'd still have more of a chance to earn a bit more.
I think it's been a few years since I have read anything on Medium. I loved it for quite a while until they completely changed the format and then I hated it. My favorite writers got hard to find. I don't remember everything, but it drove me away. I'm a recent Substack reader. I'm liking it so far. I see what you mean about style differences, though. Medium seems (seemed) to have stories and articles; Substack seems more like news and letters to readers. I wish you success, wherever you publish.
Thank you Cindy!
Hey Walter,
In January, I had the best month on Medium since June (~700USD) and thanks to another boost this month, I am having a good February. I have had a few non-boosted stories also do better than normal ( > 2000 views) and with really high read ratios. And they're what I would consider fairly "standard" technical articles that I write.
So I'm on a bit of an upward mental trend on this platform over the past few months.
Except... on a shitty note (for a Medium writer like me), one of the largest publications Towards Data Science (800,000 followers) officially jumped off the Medium ship. As of this week, their site is now independent. Do you have any insight/thoughts on how a huge loss like this may affect Medium in the bigger picture?
And I've never understood the "subscribed to my stories" thing on Medium. It doesn't seem to produce any initial spike of activity (I have ~200 "subscribers").
That's interesting. I hadn't heard that Towards Data Science is leaving Medium. I don't think it takes the followers with it, and actually the follower count on Medium doesn't seem to mean much. My work regularly appears on the Writing Cooperative which has around 250k followers (I think) and those stories don't perform better than any other stories. I'm glad that you had a good month last month. Maybe my perspective will change if one of the two stories I have waiting to be published gets Boosted :) Thanks John!
Thx for the insight. And to support your analysis on follower count, my last story on TDS (with those 800,000 followers) has made a whopping $3.04. Maybe my article was the last straw for them. :-)
One more question about the Boosts - in your experience, what's the longest you have had to wait before a story gets boosted? I ask because I have an article that's been out there for 5 days and the read ratios have been way higher than they normally are, even for my boosted tech articles. I have no idea who is boosting my articles - it seems to be completely random to me - across a bunch of different publications.
You could send me the link and I can see if it has been nominated. If nobody nominated it, it won't have been considered yet.
Wow, you have Medium super powers! Here's the link:
https://pub.towardsai.net/which-python-dashboard-is-better-dash-panel-and-streamlit-showdown-8d4f8bf744f9
Thank you!
And PS: in my very humble opinion - if I was in your current state of mind about the election (and I kind of am) - I would go out and do that race just to spite the bastard.
I just checked your link. It was nominated, so either they're still thinking about it, or it has been declined. I expect since it's been a few days they probably didn't take it. The same was true of the article of mine that was published with The Writing Cooperative today.
I skied a long time yesterday, so I have to feel I'm physically capable of finishing the event. The organizers are going to announce their plan for the race this evening, so I'll decide based on what they say and how I feel on Wednesday.
Thank you for checking, much appreciated.
And ya, I get the "physically capable" part - I checked out the course - if it's the Birkie course then it's not the kind of conditions you want to bonk hard in. I hope you recover from your workout and feel better about your fitness.
I published two stories in January on Medium and then stopped. I have published none in February. I miss it. But I respect my work too much to throw it down a rathole on Medium. I plan to publish something as a test this week. Sticking a toe into the water.
Could Tony not at least explain whether he thinks they have a problem they’re trying to fix or if he’s given up?
Yes. I've never felt a lack of transparency is a good business model. There are a lot of really smart people who work and write for Medium. We can tell that something is going on. I mean, Medium should be applauded for bringing so many intelligent people to the same place. They shouldn't then turn around and forget the brain power of their readers.
Hi Walter, I usually read your articles inside my email and I'm not sure that counts towards opening. As a matter of fact I read this entire article and there was a place to click in the email to leave a comment but I don't think it counts as reading it on Medium.
Ah! Now that's an excellent insight! I wonder how often that's the case on Medium? We'll see what happens over there. I still love the community, but I have to put my energy in the places where I get paid :) Thanks for the feedback!