What Are the Latest Trends in the World of Writing?
How my articles performed across various platforms in April of 2025
Hello Friends,
I’ve been writing for my whole life, and I promise you that things have never been as bonkers as they have for the last few months. I started offering writing advice on Substack two years ago. In the past, I trusted myself to make reasonable predictions.
Now?
Honestly, there are so many variables at work that the only thing I can tell you is to buckle up and be ready for anything.
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Realistically, we have to face the fact that we’re looking at an entire global collapse. For all we know, the US Dollar will be worthless in 3 months and we’ll all be trading in animal pelts.
You would have laughed if I’d said that 5 months ago. Now, you can’t tell if I’m joking or not. That’s the problem.
But you want to be a writer right? So, what I can tell you is this:
PERSIST!
Get those words on the page or out in the digital sphere. SCREAM! Collaborate! Write! Do whatever you can to fund the work and we’ll turn our energy back to a sustainable strategy for the future whenever we start feeling confident that there will be a future.
For now, think of yourself like a pirate captain staring into a maelstrom. All you can do is laugh.
A week in review from Medium
Here’s a little graphic that you might find interesting. It’s a summary of my top performing articles for last week. That top one seems impressive, but those were mostly external views (so I didn’t get paid for that).
Still, external views are good because they keep the platform afloat. It would be interesting to learn just how many new subscribers came to Medium because of my articles over the years.
Here’s the earnings graph for my top traffic getter last week:
Like I said, all those views were external. It had 14K total views for the month, and 171 member views.
Sigh….
Here’s my story statline for the whole month of April:
I mentioned that I changed my strategy a couple weeks into March and started publishing almost every day. The strategy worked great up until about April 15th, and then my views began to drop.
So… I guess that means I’ll go back to writing Boostable stories for a few weeks.
Writing is a bit like cooking stone soup. You just throw whatever you’ve got into the pot and then taste the results.
Here’s my top earning stories for April:
It’s unusual to have an unBoosted story make as much as my top earner did, but I’m not complaining. I wrote about five additional stories exploring the same theme, but none of them did nearly as well.
I might just do 2 or 3 stories on Medium this week and see what happens.
Meanwhile, here’s my month on Substack:
It’s been a pretty consistent 10k views a day. That bump around the 10th was the popularity of the same story that did well on Medium (I guess it’s a good story).
Here’s the view from the year so far:
I’m getting a good amount of traffic, but I’m finding earnings are down. I believe the reason for that (yawn… tired) is a combination of tax season and the fact that we’re staring at a global recession because an unhinged lunatic somehow got into the cockpit of our nation.
Try not to be too frustrated by what appears to be concerning trends. The reality is that we might be fashioning primitive weapons out of the discarded lumber in our garage by the end of the month.
You just don’t know.
I suggest you do the following:
Keep writing
Try to write at least one Boostworthy story every month
Don’t fret about things you can’t control
Look for positives (like increased views and increased subscribers)
Do everything you can to set the groundwork for a return to normalcy
Also, here’s how the podcast is going:
I know that there are some people who prefer to listen and some people who prefer to read. Unfortunately, I can’t go into the settings and unsubscribe my readers from sections (I looked into it).
If you are getting too many emails from me, you can adjust your settings here:
My paid subscribers are pretty evenly distributed between the podcast and the articles, so I have to keep doing both. New paid subscriptions have been down this month, but like I said, everything is uncertain.
If I could get a few more of you to sponsor this newsletter at even the entry level tiers, that would make a HUGE difference. I’d like to share the load as much as possible, and if all 9,500 of you could chip in $5, that would go a long way to ease my anxiety.
Then again, I’m fully aware we’re all dealing with perhaps more anxiety than anyone should be expected to endure.
So, for those of you who have the means to sponsor me, you have my sincerest thanks!
For those of you who have the time to listen, I’m so happy you’re here!
Everything I’m seeing suggests 2025 is going to be a tough year to be a writer. But we’ll survive this! We’re going to win this fight! I won’t accept any other outcome!
Again, thanks to each and every one of you! As always, leave your comments below!
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Thanks for sharing what works! As someone relatively new to this platform (3 months in), I have lots to learn.
In addition to looking for positive writing trends, I think it's also important to look for positive things in the world. VERY easy to complain and fret these days. That really changes nothing. Hope, however, does, because hope motivates to keep going.