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Modern Women January Newsletter

We need to talk

ADEOLA SHEEHY-ADEKALE
Modern Women

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grayscale photo of women reading newspaper — image by Museums Victoria on Unsplash

I could apologise for being late, for missing December altogether, but I have a suspicion that a great many of you are going through a similar transitional period and will understand my not really knowing what to say.

Things on Medium have been hard this past two months. The numbers of stories getting boosted — especially on the subjects we tend to talk about here at MW — have dropped and earnings overall have taken a hit.

Alot of you noticed the changes quickly and I’ve spent a lot of time in my dm’s and emails trying to reassure you that IT ISN’T JUST YOU. And if you take nothing else from what I’m about to say, please really hear that.

It’s hard to put yourself out there as a writer, but you do it and rightly or wrongly, those claps, likes and comments, and lets be real, the payments, really help to validate that effort.

It’s hard to hear how quickly even our best writers are to doubt themselves, and second guess their worth as writers. Why do we let an algorithm and a single platform have so much impact?

For me the answer is simple, this is my only job, my only source of income. That was never the purpose of Medium as a platform but it is what I’ve managed to have from it. But maybe with that, an element of comfort perhaps that…

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