I Miss the Way Medium Was 5 Months Ago
I used to challenge myself to submit quality stories to a variety of excellent editors and publications
Hello friends!
It’s Monday, that means it’s time for another assessment of what’s going on in the writing world. I’ve had some successes this month on Medium, but it’s still shaping up to be my poorest month on the platform since February of 2023.
Part of that is because I only published 13 stories, but that’s a consequence of how much less articles are making these days. More and more I’m finding myself drawn to Substack.
I still feel it’s worth your effort to get a story Boosted on Medium. Last month 7 of the 21 stories I nominated were accepted for a Boost. That’s a lower acceptance rate than I’m used to, but there shouldn’t be any danger of me getting kicked out of the program. However, I think it’s unlikely that I’ll be selected as a “super nominator” next month.
I continue to be hopeful that things will rebound, but the current state of things makes me feel sad. As recently as 5 months ago, I was in a nice rhythm. I had a good group of publications that I submitted to regularly. These included
’s The Narrative Arc, Justin Cox’s The Writing Cooperative, ’s Thought Thinkers, ’s Minds Without Borders, ’s Bouncin’ and Behavin’ Blogs, ’s On Reflection, and ’s Thirty over Fifty.One thing that’s always been true about writers is that they don’t make enough money. It felt really good to write a quality story because I knew that in addition to helping me, it would also help the editor I sent the story to. I tried to spread my submissions around so that they’d all have 3-4 quality stories to nominate every month.
I’ve been in the Boost program since about the second month of the program. I recognize that throughout the years Medium has featured a lot of writers who are more prominent than I am. However, it was during the months of the Boost program that the platform finally became profitable. I think it’s fair to say that I’ve been one of the more prominent writers on the platform during that time.
I mention this because I am extremely grateful to Medium. I deeply appreciate the friendships I’ve made through the platform. Medium was also the first platform to give me a voice. I will have nothing but love and gratitude for Medium for as long as I live.
But, I’m also really sad to see how much it has changed.
I sincerely hope that it’s working out for them and that they’re adopting a sustainable strategy. I appreciate that new writers can still use Medium to get started on what will, hopefully, become an important career in writing. Based on what I’m seeing on Substack, a lot of writers are “leaving.” I put that in quotes because I’m guessing if the good earnings return, they’ll dust off their old accounts.
Still, I expect it will never again be like it was 5 months ago.
I feel very fortunate to be sitting on a treasure trove of approximately 1,500 articles. I’ve had 160 articles Boosted, but everything I’ve written since I’ve been in the Boost program is at a similar level of quality. I’ve shared quite a few already, and I expect I’ll share the rest of them over the next year or so.
I’m grateful for those articles. But I’ll also miss the camaraderie of writing for those editors. To some extent, they’re all still available, but the energy just isn’t the same. Editors used to be really happy to see a submission from me because it was likely to get Boosted. Now, almost nothing gets Boosted so the life has been sucked out of us.
Rather than sending 4-5 articles to all my editor friends per month, these days I’m lucky to get 1.
Yes, a lot of them are here on Substack, and I’ve moved on to doing some video chats with them. Perhaps the next thing will be to simply interview them all. That way we can grow our respective followings and share each other with all our readers.
I like that.
But I still feel a fond nostalgia for being in the trenches with these editors, getting them quality work, adopting their revisions, and doing it all at a breakneck pace. It was fun, exciting, and inspirational. I learned a LOT about writing.
This month, I had some success with a featured article.
Featured is the… well, feature that allows publication editors to get more attention for a story. I am an editor of Cultured, so I gave this one the featured tag. I’ve only used one other featured tag and that was on a story that was also Boosted. I’m not sure doubling up like that does anything. I think I’d recommend that publication editors only used the featured tag on non-Boosted stories.
I also had one story Boosted last month:
It has performed decently, but you can see that all but one of my Boosted stories in September earned more.
Still, I want to emphasize that $136.92 remains an excellent payout for a 1,500 word story. In fact, if Medium guaranteed $100 per story, I’d happily submit 20 stories a month (at least).
But this is what we’re getting lately:
So, unless your stories are Featured or Boosted, you aren’t making much even if you have 50k subscribers. I don’t know what it’s like for people who have only a few hundred subscribers. Maybe they’re seeing $5 earnings on Boosted and Featured stories? That would be disheartening.
I’ll continue to submit to Medium. I’ll continue to chase the Boost and nominate the quality stories that are submitted to my publication. I really wish you could expect to get $50 on a non-Boosted story like you used to.
That’s the state of Medium as of today. Remember, the writing world always changes fast! If I start seeing rockstar earnings again, I’ll let you know! In the meantime, please consider sponsoring me here on Substack (I need it!).
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I have a huge number of pieces on Medium and a good following. I hate to see that go. Like you, I’m pondering my next steps. There are a lot of options. I have just about given up on Medium’s survival at this point. The ONLY bright spot for me there is that my viral story from last July continues to pay. If not for that, my earnings would be nearly nothing.
I didn’t think I’d get rich on Medium, but it was a real joy to write there and earn enough to make my life easier.
There is no platform we can trust to always be there.
The problem I have with Medium now is they expect way too much work for little payout. My time is worth more than the $12 I got last month. It's the least I've made ever. I'm probably gonna bounce from there soon. Medium is dead, imo.