Your Life Doesn’t Get Better by Chance; It Gets Better by Change
Medium Journey; Is it Coming to an End?
Life is about making choices, and the choices we make are what take us down the path. It is not like standing in a river hoping the flow will take you where you want to go. It’s the paddling and steering that get you there. And so it is for people who would make their living writing.
Tell a writer that he can make up a story or an article or a poem and he will feel as though he had been invited to a pleasant party. Tell him he might also get paid for having done so and he might start a family. More writers flocked to Medium to share their work, something that seemed to reflect the spirit of the site: the promise that writing would be democratized, that a writer’s toil could at last be rewarded. Things felt like they were starting to change. But then things changed.
And in a time when Medium was still a lush garden for emerging and established writers alike, the chances of making a decent living through it becoming harder and harder, the result of changes to the algorithm, paywalls, and growing demand from the audience, and a litany of other reasons. For many, the Medium dream has become a dream.
Is it time to change?
Here, the logic of the process — of evolution — helps. If nature best adapts the environment to itself, we must learn to adapt our method to our means.
If the chosen path was cluttered with debris, we learn to carve out our own new way
Alternative outlets can lead to better ways of sharing and earning through your work.
To be prepared here are a few alternative platforms to consider:
From the writer’s perspective, Substack is a way to get your own newsletter and charge readers a subscription. You get a perfect audience and a steady paycheck.
Patreon: Offering readers exclusive content, behind-the-scenes access and other perks for pledged support helps writers cultivate backers willing to devote time and money to their work.
Ghost: The lifework of one developer, it offers both complete control over one’s writing and the option to start earning money via subscriptions.
The Human Capacity for Adaptation
After all, it’s not as if change is easy. It’s a process that demands work, creativity, and bravery. It’s also what makes us adaptable, and flexible. Not just able to survive, but to flourish in an evolving environment. As writers, our capacity for adaptation isn’t just about survival: it’s about flourishing in an open, adaptive world.
I write a lot for Medium and I’ve always been glad for having the venue to reach a diverse audience and to earn from my writing. I remain hopeful that last month’s earnings debacle was just a glitch and I’ll be earning more this month. As with any digital existence, the more open and used an outlet or pipeline becomes, the more it’s necessary to diversify and explore other avenues to continue reaching people with our output wherever the web allows.
We just need to be prepared
Your writer’s life doesn’t get better by default; it gets better by transition. Embrace the worry; try another platform; keep pounding the walls. For it’s in the midst of change that desire comes to life. A willingness for change is what carries us over the threshold into our own true writing lives.
After all, it’s not your platform that defines you, but your enthusiasm, your stick-to-itiveness, and your ability to push through each twist and turn.
May you change often, and change for the better.
