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How To Roll With the Punches and Still Make Money
Everything is in flux right now, including Medium
This year is less than four weeks old and I’ve already had to pivot a few times in terms of how I’m going to be operating as an online writer and what I’ll be doing to keep my head above water, financially speaking.
Everything is changing. Medium is my main writing platform and I’ve previously earned over $2,000 for a single article on the platform, but it is in flux, reportedly due to having to do a huge spam purge. Social media platforms are in trouble too. In fact they seem to be falling apart, left, right and centre.
If you’re a writer, or online creator of any kind, here’s my advice right now.
Stay flexible in approach
People are saying Medium is broken. I’m not convinced (yet). For now I’m committed to focusing on quality over quantity on the platform, and my plan is to submit mostly to publications run by Boost nominators (here’s a list of those if you’d like to follow a similar plan).
If your writing landscape is changing, try to stay on top of the changes and work with them rather than just railing against them. Maybe it’s time for a change of platform. Maybe it’s time to use your current platforms differently. Maybe both, to be honest, which brings us to the next point.
Don’t be scared of exploring new platforms
I’ve written before about how I’m now focusing on three main platforms, but nothing is set in stone. You have to be prepared to move on. I’ve also written about how I’ve weathered the changes in the online writing landscape over the past couple of decades and survived in spite of it all. Medium was once ‘the new Squidoo’ for me. I guess one day something will be the new Medium.
I only use TikTok as a consumer, not a creator, but watching US creators recently as they madly tried to move their audiences to Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and various other apps (all of which have their own issues to be fair) has been an education. TikTok is back up, but for how long? And what impact will it have if it does eventually go away?
