WRITING
It’s my 5th week on Medium. Here’s what I think.
I’ve changed how I write for the platform.
First, stats. In five weeks I’ve published 77 stories. Those have garnered 168 responses from 269 views and 110 reads.
I have 139 followers, and 10 email subscribers.
My best day was May 8, 48 views, 17 reads, and my most popular story seems to be ‘Long time divorce lawyer says marriage is a technology that doesn't work.’ That has 18 views, 15 reads, for a read ration of 83 per cent.
So you can compare that to your journey. I’m not burning up the Medium landscape. It’s a long game.
I don’t intend to monetize on Medium for at least a year. I’m aiming at September, 2025.
That’s very different from the plan most people have on this platform. Medium articles I write now, and likely articles I will write on Medium for the next year, I’ll receive no compensation for.
I’m reminded of viral YouTuber Casey Neistat, telling fellow YouTuber Peter McKinnon, that he never monetized until he reached 100 million YouTube views.
That’s holding off a lot longer than I will.
Neistat’s reason was he wanted a purity of content.
Money wasn’t his driving factor.
It was the quality of his product.
He went public in an interview later and said he regretted the move, calling it “stupid,” and that he missed a lot of dollars turning on monetization late, but I admired what he did.
When you look at what Neistat was producing for public consumption in the early part of his video career- long before YouTube was created- it was all editorial.
When he did ‘iPod’s Dirty Secret,’ in 2003- that was the video of the Apple battery he claimed couldn’t be replaced- that video was editorial comment. That wasn’t done for money. That was done as social protest.
(The battery actually could be replaced- contrary to the video claim, but there was a problem in replacing it. Newswire pointed out a flaw in the Firewire port in very early iPod models could loosen a connection, causing an issue.)
When he did ‘Bike Lanes’ in 2010, it was after he received a ticket for riding his bike on the sidewalk- and he followed up by videoing himself obeying the law, riding his bike on the street bike lane- and crashing into obstacle after obstacle the city itself put there- including a police car! That’s editorial, and it was brilliant.
Editorial comment isn’t done for money. It’s done for some higher purpose. You’re mad at a big corporation, or city hall, things are unfair, and you have to get the word out.
That said, I really have no higher purpose on Medium than to gather a community around my writing. You can make friends here. You can admire writing here. There are some good writers here I enjoy reading.
In my fifth week on this platform I noticed a change in how I was writing.
I write more responses. That leans toward editorial. A lot of that is in comments as I engage, not just posted articles.
I’ve noticed a surprising portion of Medium is feminist writing. And some of it is- I’ve joked about this- a sort of air-conditioned, priviledged feminism, a you-men-are-all alike feminism, regurgitating old myths and trumpeting sexual freedoms. Go girl. If that’s your alley, go strong. But there is another side, and I had to write it after one gentleman wrote a simpy article about how men were never good enough for women that got 34 trillion claps. We’re on Medium, so of course it would.
So, of course, in response, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek article, ‘Women are sneaky, lying, conniving, treacherous, charmers.’ The article just took a few minutes. But that was editorial.
After five weeks on Medium I’ve noticed the earth doesn't move here for long form. Medium readers have short attention spans. The advice from the experienced here is break your story up. Use pull quotes. Add photos. I’m thinking- haven’t Medium readers read actual books?
I noticed a three part story detailing how I wrote my first front page newspaper story , (here’s Part 2) (here’s Part 3) never got the traction of, ‘It’s Super Soaker Season,’ a joke article I wrote in a few minutes. There’s a lesson in that.
I had written articles following the Stanley Cup playoffs- I enjoy writing those- but I realize this isn’t the platform for them. They take more than a few minutes, and have learned Medium, at least for me, isn’t-for the most part-the place to write articles that take more than a few minutes.
So after five weeks on Medium I’ve learned it’s best I write more editorial comment and joke articles- at least for now. I enjoy writing those, and they take much less time than other sorts of writing.
Once in a while, I’ll do a longer piece for my publication, Writer’s Reflect, but that won’t be the priority it was.
Meanwhile, I’m learning Substack, ← that’s my link to it, and my longer, more careful pieces, I’ll publish there.
