NEWSLETTER
So, What IS The Secret to Writing Success?
December 2021 Creator Newsletter
Welcome to the last Creator Newsletter of 2021. (A reminder: We’ve renamed this newsletter, which until last month was called The Top Edit.) We’ve had an exciting year at Medium. More than 5,000 of you joined us for our Creator Workshop Series. (You can find the recordings right here.) You wrote over 2,000 stories inspired by our weekly writing prompts. And thousands more of you followed us on Creators Hub, pushing Medium’s creator-support publication over the 20,000-follower mark.
Best of all: We got to read your work.
Thank you. Thank you for being a part of a rich community and for using Medium to illuminate the world and inspire readers (and your fellow writers) with your ideas.
How to help readers find your work
We know that one of the things most on your mind any time you write on Medium, and perhaps especially at the end of the year is: How can I help readers find my stories? We think the most helpful answers come from writers like you. We love what Adeline Dimond, whose story “Boobs: The Last Frontier of Body Shaming” found lots of readers earlier this year, has to say about finding success as a writer in “Let Go of the Quest to Go Viral.” We think it applies to writing on Medium or anywhere else:
Do not chase algorithms. Do not read articles on how to “make it” on Medium. Do not create headlines that scare the living daylights out of people so they click on them, searching for some elusive answer to life’s unanswerable questions. Instead, write a story in a huff while you’re crying. Crawl back under the sheets and workshop the story with your dog. Chase the flow-feeling. Be naive.
“Write a story in a huff.” Huffs, revelations, lightbulb moments… Medium is ideal for when you’ve just had a profound experience and a truth emerges. Or for when you’ve spent hours of thinking and researching a subject and something just… clicks. Or for when you’re hurt or angry or elated. Or for when decades of experience result in a revelatory moment that could profoundly change how your readers live their lives or do their work. Your readers will feel that emotion and inspiration, and many of them will respond and they will follow you and they will share your work with others.
We’ve compiled Dimond’s advice and the advice of other creators on writing compelling stories, gaining followers, and connecting with other writers in a Creators Hub post. We think you’ll find it useful.
A way to prompt more readers to subscribe to emails from you
As many of you know, email subscriptions help ensure that your most devoted readers never miss a post. The “Subscribe” button is prominently placed on your profile page (it’s the little envelope next to the “Follow” button), and it’s easy for your readers to sign up.
But it’s possible to give your readers an extra nudge, making sure they know that they can subscribe, by adding a customizable subscription unit to your posts. This unit lives at the bottom of every story page and you can turn it on by going to Settings > Audience Development. More details are right here. You can personalize that subscription unit with a unique headline or a short bio, too, if you’d like.
Every time you publish you can pick whether to send your story to your subscribers. There’s a section on your Settings page where you can obtain the email list, so your list of subscribers (that is, your superfans) is portable.
How one humor writer is attracting readers to her popular publication
In this month’s Creator Spotlight, we featured Kyrie Gray, the humorist who runs the publication Jane Austen’s Wastebasket. We love that she reminds us of how much fun Medium can be, with stories like “Zeus Finally Fired Due to Sex Scandals” and “MasterClass Now Offers Courses Taught by Famous Dead Writers.” We asked Gray about running her own publication on Medium, and she offered this sage advice:
If I had one tip for running a publication on Medium, it would be to decide what your publication is for. Is it a personal portfolio? Is it a website where you want writers to submit? How often can you commit to publishing? How about editing? Are you going to open social media accounts to promote your writers? There’s a lot of little things you’ll learn along the way.
You can find more advice about starting your own publication here.
That’s it for this month. Thank you for writing — and inspiring and instructing and illuminating — on Medium. To help you carve out time in your schedule to do just that, please join us for an unstructured “writing hour” on December 16. (If you can’t make it, there will be more in 2022.) Members of our creator support team will be there with a few introductory thoughts and optional prompts, but for the most part we’ll be there in silent support — because we’ve got writing to do, too.
This monthly newsletter for writers is from Medium’s Creators Hub. Learn more about earning money for your best writing with the Medium Partner Program. If you’re in the Partner Program, see your dashboard here. If you would like to join, apply here.
