I Almost Went Insane but Medium Saved Me
When you’re writing on more platforms than you can handle
It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to inculcate the habit of consistent writing — the sweat and tears are not literal. Once I was at a point where I was churning out content day after day without wanting to throw myself off a cliff, I finally convinced myself that I was a writer.
I no longer had to worry about the long periods of droughts I often had on my blog or on social media. Creating content was now second nature to me. All I had to do was create.
There was just one problem though. Publishing online was slowly sucking the life out of me. It wasn’t the act of publishing itself that was the problem. Rather, it was because I was struggling to post my stuff everywhere online just so it will get attention. And by everywhere, I mean everywhere.
I published on my personal website, Medium, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and even Instagram. How else was I supposed to get everyone reading my posts? I thought. My online presence was the only way to ensure that I got readers.
I was everywhere online, doing my best to get attention for my posts. It was grueling work, but I sucked it up and kept going. After all, it was necessary. I was being productive and that felt great.
But slowly, I began losing my enthusiasm. I felt like my soul was being sucked out of me, and I dreaded publishing. On the surface, publishing already written content on several platforms sounds easy. But it’s not. I learned the hard way in December 2022.
The whole process took a huge toll on my mental health — I grew more irritable due to the lack of sleep. That was when I knew I had to do something about it. Nothing in this world is worth more than my mental health. This is my number one mantra in life, and not even writing, which I love so much, can change that.
I came up with a solution. I decided to focus my writing on one platform — Medium.
This was after I took my time to think through a lot of things.
The first thing I did was go back to the basics. Why did I start blogging in the first place?
First, to practice my writing skills. I’d learned to my horror that my writing was subpar, at best. As someone who wanted to become a full-time writer, having mediocre writing skills was blasphemy. I needed to practice to get better and I figured that blogging will be an efficient way to improve.
The second reason was to grow my audience and get more people to read my stories. Fiction is my first love. I love to write stories, usually fantasy, however, I have very few readers. I felt that starting a blog was a great way to get more readers for my stories.
So I started a blog on WordPress. After many years of playing cat and mouse with my blog, I eventually got serious about writing and started producing more content for my website.
Writing more meant that I was practicing more and honing my skills. However, I wasn’t fulfilling my second purpose for starting a blog — I wasn’t growing my audience. There was no engagement, no readers, nothing.
It was like I was the only one out there in the blogosphere, writing into the void. Even after I became more active on WordPress Reader (a Medium-like community for WordPress bloggers), I only had one or two views.
Then I started posting my stories on Medium. I already had an account on Medium for years, however, I had never posted anything until November 4, 2022. Of course, in the first few days, it seemed I was writing into the abyss.
A week or so later, I saw a vast difference between my Medium blog and my personal website. People were reading my stuff on Medium. Sure, it wasn’t the population of a small country, but it was far more than I ever had on my website.
Even more amazing was the fact that people were even commenting and clapping on my posts. For the first time, I felt motivated to keep writing. I looked forward to posting as often as I could, after all, I knew there was someone out there reading it.
I came to the conclusion that Medium was the perfect place for new writers. Not only will you get to learn from seasoned writers, but you’ll also grow your audience as long as you’re consistent.
I started with zero followers on Medium in November 2022. As I write today in February 2023, I have more than a hundred followers and a dozen or so active readers. Of course, this is nothing compared to people with ten times the number of my followers. However, when I compare my own progress on Medium with other platforms, especially my website, this is a great achievement for me.
Don’t even get me started on my Substack which I’m pretty sure has never been visited by any mortal.
Of course, as a rational being, I thought it was completely illogical to stress myself with the other platforms when 99.99% of all my audience is found here on Medium. Besides, I can also build my email list here.
This is why I now focus on Medium.
No, I haven’t neglected my website or Substack. However, I no longer feel pressured to do something that could potentially lead to a mental breakdown.
I’m not worried about those platforms. After doing all the hard work on Medium to gain more readers, it will be much more sustainable to siphon my audience to the other platforms.
I think what matters, in the long run, is creating high-quality content consistently. If posting everywhere works for you, that’s awesome. If it stresses you, stick to one platform that suits your content best, and give it your all.
Not only will your mental health thank you, but you’ll also be more productive than before.
I wish you all the best. Thanks for reading.
