What's Working On Medium and Substack in June of 2025?

Don't hesitate to ask questions, I'm your resource remember!

Hello Everyone!

I thought I’d take a few minutes this morning and give you an update on the state of Medium and Substack as I see it. Since November 5th I’ve been saying that creatives will be facing headwinds in 2025. Authoritarian regimes don’t like opinions. They don’t like diversity. They don’t like color. They don’t like anything but obedience and even that makes them angry.

In short, there’s nothing you can do to make them happy because most of all they hate themselves.

So keep living your life, be fabulous and push on!

I suppose there are people who think it’s frivolous to spend so much time working the platforms. But the way I see it, these are powerful tools that allow us to provide an alternative message to the lies of the mainstream media.

It’s sad that the mainstream media has so failed us. 10 years ago, we were defending it, but now the nepo baby tyrant seems to have reformed the media into his own image… which nobody wants.

Meanwhile, media sources are either failing or firing all their worthwhile reporters. Those guys almost instantly find a soft landing on… you guessed it… THE PLATFORMS!

So, this is serious business!

I’ll start with Medium because views are always lower on Medium than they are on Substack. Here’s my stats page for June (so far):

That’s pretty consistent for what it was last month:

Views are unimportant, what you need are reads. It’s interesting that my views are down for June, but my reads are on pace to be pretty much the same.

Medium has changed up its following mechanism, so now people can more easily opt in to getting emails from your account. The downside of this is that now it’s more difficult to download your email list.

It appears to be a positive change. My monthly earnings on Medium have been as high as $5,000, but I’ve been in the $1,000-$2,000 range for the last few months. Again, you have to ask yourself:

• Is it Medium?

• Is it the economy?

• Is it me?

• Is it something else?

The answer is that it’s all of those things, so don’t go doubting your ability. At this point, it’s too late. I have too much to say and no time to doubt myself. More and more, I’m seeing Medium as “extra” but there are still months where it makes more for me than Substack, so I’m grateful.

Here are some more stats Medium sends periodically:

Also, I find this list useful:

The middle group of stories is relatively new. The first and the last one are a couple months old. It’s interesting that the “What Rural Folk Don’t know” continues to perform well. That story was unboosted and it wasn’t featured and it has made me this much:

I should read it again and write another story using the same vibe and structure. Why not? I’ve had that work in the past, and I’ve also had it fail spectacularly. I got a very robust comment section when I published that one on Substack, you can read it here:

Honestly, the comment section reveals a lot about the delusional nature of people in the United States.

Here’s what’s going on with Substack:

My views had been on a steady rise, but lately they’re kind of stabilizing. Part of that is because when I posted the “What Rural Folk Don’t Know” I got a huge amount of traffic. It’s sitting at 35k views. I periodically reshare it and it gives me view spikes again.

I’m still trying to do 3 posts a day, but I don’t always hit it now that it’s summer. I expect that people are less inclined to read during the summer months. That’s been the case with Medium, so you shouldn’t be too concerned in June, July, and August.

When fall comes, we’ll be closing in on the primaries (which begin in March), so people will be even more glued to their screens than normal. The point is, don’t fret. Get out and swim. Enjoy the world. It won’t be here forever and neither will you.

Speaking of that I went out on the paddleboards with my family yesterday and I’m tired today. My back is sore. It’s a good feeling. The only thing I’m missing out on is grass stains on my jeans and knees!

I’m still seeing subscriber growth and I just hit 10K subscribers! That’s a dream! Thank you so much! I put that number in my brain and circled it when I just started out, so it’s wonderful to get there. I keep wanting to use this newsletter to publish the vast collection of fairy books I wrote for my kids, but the time doesn’t seem quite right. I’ll do it soon. That might be a project for when my kids finally leave the house and I’ll be a blubbering empty nester looking to tell stories to all of you.

I’ll gather you all up just like I did my kids when they were small. We’ll have a great time. I’m looking forward to it. Speaking of that, I’ve been wanting to do another live where I read three stories. Maybe I’ll get to that this week. I’ll try!

My paid subscriber count is doing well, but I could use a few more honestly. If you have the means, please consider upgrading at any tier. There are days when the weight of the world crushes me, and I always get a jolt of energy when I see I received a new paid subscriber, so thank you in advance!

Speaking of that, I get the sense that I need to do more humor stories. Please don’t hesitate to tell me what kind of topics/stories/articles you want me to provide. You can leave a message when you upgrade to a paid sponsorship (believe me, I read those!).

If you have other suggestions, please leave them in the comments. As always, thanks so much for your support!

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I'm so happy you're here, and I'm looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.

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