WOW! I finally deleted all my Medium stories…🚀
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If you’re one of the very few people who will get to see this article — ‘Hi!’
So, yes.
I finally deleted all my stories from Medium, and it feels amazing!
Liberating!
I started writing on this platform in August ’23 with the intention of just writing about life and the miracles I experienced, hoping to share some humanness (if that’s even still a word).
I experimented with different types of posts, but most publications rejected my personal stories, saying they were not up to standard.
Well — thanks!
This attitude set off many alarm bells. But then I found Illumination and Dr Mehmet Yildiz.
Long story short, I posted an article about blogging to Illumination, and for some strange reason, that post was boosted.
This is where it all clicked:
I was meant to come to Medium to help writers earn.
Have I told you the amazing story about how I discovered Medium?
I found out about this platform in a very serendipitous way — from watching Michal Malewicz on YouTube while studying UX design. He’s a writer here with over 100K followers.
The whole process was uncanny.
Just like all the miracles I was hoping to share with you guys.
Anyway, I kept going back to writing personal stories, but they received very little interest from the community. (sad face)
On the other hand, writing about how to make money online and sharing the tricks of the trade was welcomed.
So, I just followed the signs.
I’ve had posts that got close to 40–50K reads in a matter of a couple of weeks. And brought a lot of audience to Medium.
In January ’24, I took a break from writing here. I didn’t want to come back.
Something was off.
It was a combination of getting tired of sharing tutorials and not wanting to become part of the team of ‘gurus’ promising the whole get-rich-quick writing online possibility.
Here comes a side note❗️
The sad truth is — most of you probably won’t make money, even though you could with a little effort (and a lot of hard work).
What I found during this year and a half of writing on Medium is that most people don’t want to acknowledge the fact that if you want to earn a consultant’s wage from writing — you have to become like a consultant.
You need to learn how to write, SEO (which takes most people around three years to wrap their heads around), copywriting, storytelling, etc.
With skills, no matter the platform, you’ll always make money.
Without these skills, you’ll be jumping from one platform to the next, never finding fulfilment.
It’s that simple.
In a way, I’m happy that Medium cut the earnings.
Back in January last year, I discovered something that really put me off sharing more stories on Medium.
In 2020, there were people here making $25K per article, and it wasn’t because they could write.
Far from it.
They were being used as part of a huge marketing campaign to get people to sign up for the platform.
Many were interviewed by major online publications like Business Insider, Forbes, and others to bring Medium more publicity and visibility.
In 2020 — just as the pandemic hit (surprise, surprise) — Medium experienced its biggest growth thanks to all the media.
And there joined the flock of biased humans full of hope.
You know how it goes — ‘If he/she could do it, then I can too.’
As if…
That boat sailed a long time ago.
I was looking at some data online (because looking at numbers makes me happy) about the growth of Medium.
According to SimilarWeb, there was a significant decline in visitors to the platform in January ’25, and it’s likely been declining for a while.
Looking at my own recent articles — over half of my reads were coming from non-members.
It’s clear that Medium doesn’t have much money. And if they do, they’re certainly not parting with it anytime soon.
There are a few writers who are handpicked by the platform from each niche. Their content gets distributed over and over again.
Not necessarily because it’s good, but because it brings traffic to the platform.
It’s always the same people who write success stories about writing. The same people who write newsworthy articles that get picked up by news aggregators and bring tens of thousands, if not millions, to the platform. (I wrote about this the other day — sorry if you missed it.)
Anyway…
It feels amazing that all my posts are gone.
I don’t think I’ll be writing on Medium anymore. And this is not because of the pay.
I’m not sure how long I’ll stay a member for, but what I do know is that at least now, I can clap and comment as much as I want to and show my gratitude. 💕
There are a handful of writers whose stories I really enjoyed ( Emy Knazovic , Joanie Adams, Joe Guay - Dispatches From the Guay Life!, Simply Sophia— and others that I now get to read on Substack.
I really want to thank everyone who ever read my posts.
It means a lot.
Moving forward…
I have a YouTube channel that I’ll be dedicating my time to starting later this week.
It has nothing to do with writing or making money online. It’s just a fun project. A creative outlet.
I feel I’ve earned the right to finally share the stories I always wanted to share. To be liked (or not liked) for who I really am.
It’s also a way to protect my writing.
Ever since I joined Medium, I’ve had many posts stolen, copied — you name it.
AI isn’t able to steal from videos (yet), although I’m sure it won’t take long before they figure out how to do that.
YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine, and unlike platforms like Medium, when someone clicks on my video, I know they’re not robots. That, in itself, is an incredible feeling.
When it comes to Substack…
I have a newsletter that got a best-seller badge after just a few weeks. It’s great, but again, all I see around the platform is AI-generated content and people gaming the system.
There’s a lot of selfish behaviour over on Substack. Looking at the numbers, I think you have higher odds of winning the lottery than making decent money there.
I’m not saying it’s impossible — absolutely not. If I could do it, you can too! 😌
But your newsletter is a product, and for it to earn money, it has to tick a few boxes.
Then again, some people just sign up for no reason, pay you a fiver, and then cancel.
Anyway, it’s your game to figure out.
I leave you with this.
THANK YOU! 💕
If you want, you can join me on YouTube.
If not, I’m wishing you all the best.
Until next time,
Much love,
Deni
P.S: I will no longer be accepting stories for BlogBytes. Thank you everyone who contributed. 💕
