Inside Blogging Shuts Down
And a new journey already started.
Inside Blogging now has more than 900 followers. It’s been only a side project, for four years. I couldn’t expect more. Nonetheless, I firmly believed in the mission and put countless hours into it.
The idea, that’s still dear to me and alive in my writing, was to share down-to-earth advice on blogging and, at the same time, show the dark side of a world that swallows millions of writers, giving back very few, usually the very few skilled in marketing.
It failed. And it did for two reasons.
The first is that Medium didn’t help. It sounds whiny, but it’s the truth.
Medium has never loved independent publications. That feature is a legacy of old times, and it shows in the stagnant and poor tools offered to editors. Different implementations of an editorial cover are in the plans of Medium but independent publications… that’s never really been in the plans. Just one sentence to explain: not a single cent goes to editors who are not gifted with a partnership from Medium. Not even a 1% of what’s earned by the stories they spend time to edit, curate, and promote.
The only independent publications encouraged by the Medium algorithm are the containers, where everything goes in. Their editors just press publish and put a link on Facebook. That’s their work. They amass stories, writers, numbers, followers, even dozens of “editors, contributing to the myth that it’s not worth submitting to “minor” publications. The publication is crap, but it grows, up to alarming results.
But the second and most important reason for the failure it’s me.
While I was committed to the publication — only editor and main writer — , it was just a piece in the puzzle of my online presence, or I should say my entire creative life.
I was spread too thin. And a brand like inside Blogging, intrinsically not popular, needs much, much more. More editors, more effort, more writers, more promotion.
I could have walked that path but it wasn’t my way and I’ve been forced to think better about it in the last year.
I’m not interested in being an editor. I love curating. But that’s not my purpose in life. And it happens that it’s also not the best way to earn a living, for me.
So, why?
Writing is part of my life purpose. Curating and editing are not. So, I’m switching to personal brands.
I reframed my online presence for my creative work, and it now falls into only two specific brands:
Vico notes (life & self-development) and
Vico XL (blogging & tech).
More focus and my own land, with external websites (also going to be multilingual), twin publications on Medium, and newsletters. My followers don’t follow me because of some impersonal brand. They follow my writing, and that’s exactly what they’ll get, however self-referential it may seem.
I still love the name inside Blogging. I still care about the idea behind it, its strong identity and value. It will remain in the back of my mind. But you’ll just find all of its value in Vico XL, with a broader approach, about thriving as a creative and mastering the opportunities of the digital world.
I didn’t change the dress of inside Blogging, trying to keep its hardly gained followers. I saw others do that, because the system rewards it, but that’s not my way. Vico XL restarts from zero, in its Medium version (medium.vicoxl.com), and my fans will decide if they want to follow me there.
Even better, if you want to keep following me, my newsletter will be the main connection with my loyal followers.
You know me. No spam, no useless words.
Dear readers, writers, and followers of inside Blogging, thank you so much for your support till now. Inside Blogging is born in a special moment of my life and it channeled some of my dearest words. It’s been a journey that I won’t forget. I hope to have you with me in the next chapter of my creative life. In any case, we’ll still meet in our great Medium community, and all my best wishes for you to thrive inside and outside blogging.
