What One Year on Medium Taught Me: 2023 — 2024
Feb. 18 2023 — Feb 2024
On February 18 2023, I published my first article on Medium. It was nothing particularly special, and I’m beginning to think ChatGPT might have had a little something to do with it. Whether or not it truly did, however, I can’t remember.
I took a rather long break from Medium, only recently returning to the platform after a somewhat shaky ride of writing my first book (the buy link will be floating around my profile sometime soon!) Despite this, I’ve learned a great many things.
1: Publications are your greatest ally
Without the help of publications to guide you, it’s much harder to grow a following of people who want to read your writings. It doesn’t matter how incredibly well you’ve written something if you can’t share it with others. Find them, use them! My main publication is The Taoist Online, run by Patrick Stewart , who is one of the best online writers I know.
2. Connect!
Go further than simply knowing others by their Medium username and join an online community of writers — Discord is your ally!
Being in a community gives you, among many other benefits, the ability to check with others before publishing. Being able to get a second opinion is one of the most valuable assets as a writer.
3. Writing something is better than writing nothing.
During my break, I noticed my stats go down significantly. I watched as my articles went from thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of views a month to dozens.
Writing just a short, brief article on your normal publishing schedule rather than a much longer one still helps to keep your readers interested to hear what you have to say. Alternatively, you might publish less frequently if you’re in need of a break, while still keeping the same quality of writing you had before.
It’s been an incredible year on Medium so far, and I’m very much looking to another one — and another one after that!
