Ko-Fi has been good to me. I have connected with people I know here and others through its social media functions, and I have my books available there in a specially made shop. And, thanks to one Substack writer, I got a substantial amount of money in a tip: https://ko-fi.com/T6T31N0VU
Interesting! I have Ko-Fi, but hadn't thought of using it for newsletters this way. Assuming you plan to implement this, are you planning to paywall more posts, or just leave it as something otpional for readers. Piggybacking on that, are you concerned people will just pay $3 here or $5 there at the expense of springing for an annual subscription?
"tell someone else “hey, I like what you’re doing” they often return one kindness with another."
Ha, they don't have the quote feature here like Medium, so I did it myself :-)
I think people are kind of scared to trust that someone will return their kindness if they compliment others, but in my experience, it's usually returned. It would happen a lot more often if I wrote a lot more often... but that's another story :-)
Thanks to you, Linda, it seems that I always learn something new. As I organize myself out of 2024: The Year of Chaos, I plan to look for more interesting and better ways to reward the writers I've long enjoyed and have kind of taken for granted in the realm of the internet. AI has been a motivator for me to keep "finding what's real!" You. You are so real!
Thank you for saying it’s not easy. It’s not. And more people should know this going in..
Cool to know about the new Medium feature and love the idea of monetizing only certain newsletters through ko-fi. It’s good to have options. Thanks for sharing such useful info.
But more than anything, thank you for selflessly promoting other writers. This platform needs more writers like you
Hey Linda. These are 3 fantastic little duckies. As I read each one, my head was nodding up and down. Another big thanks for all you give us.
And yes I agree, your Substack IS a conversation when Medium can sometimes be, but not always. Also, I find when Medium works on the convo mode, it still can’t match Substack. Especially yours.
I love what you did on Substack in the past week, promoting other writers you enjoy. Great and encouraging results.
Would love your thoughts on this one: Often on Medium ( not on Substack because I haven’t made that leap yet), over different periods of time, I search out new (to me) writers and topics. When I find ones I enjoy, I read thoroughly and then I make a point to highlight salient lines, clap 50 times and leave thoughtful comments.
My results are not impressive, whether the writer has 200 or 5000 followers. Lots of times I get no reaction whatsoever from the author. Other times I get a single or 3 max claps. Very rarely do I get a comment response and when I do it’s mostly just 2 words: thank you.
I have done this activity for several years now and the results are consistently disappointing. If I follow the particular writer or (rarely for this next one) subscribe to their stories because I really enjoy their writing, for every time I do a basic follow, I say 1 person out of 30 or maybe even 1 out of 50 reciprocates. I never, EVER follow, subscribe, comment without reading the essay/poem/story first.
Am I just lousy at my selection process? Frankly, I do less of that activity now because it is so disheartening. What I have discovered is that the boosts I have received is the best way to engage with new-to-me writers and readers. But whoa, shouldn’t the other way I describe above also work in terms of creating engagement?
I feel as though I am missing something? Oh and here is another thing, the number of people choosing to follow me BEFORE they have read anything I wrote. I get that happens a lot as a strategy to “get” followers. Since I only follow if I want to AFTER I read, I simply don’t understand it. ( now I feel like signing this comment: From Pollyanna!🙄🥰)
Interesting, Suzanne. Here's my perspective on why the 'showing love' strategy doesn't work on Medium but does work on Substack. (it's not you, I promise!)
I write on both Substack and Medium.
On Medium, there's no compelling reason for me to respond to comments or acknowledge comments so unless someone asks me a question directly I don't respond. I certainly don't feel like it's necessary to clap comments, because a clap on a comment doesn't really achieve anything for the comment-writer.
On Medium it takes a long time to read and respond to comments, with about zero outcome for me and not much benefit to the commenters either.
On Substack, it's completely different because shares (re-stacks) and recommendations are incredibly meaningful to creators, and everyone knows it.
Because I have lots of Substack subscribers, if I restack someone else's post to Notes I am doing the writer a big favour, because it gets their work in front of heaps of new readers that they can't reach otherwise (Substack doesn't distribute posts automatically the way Medium does). If they want to do something nice in return a recommendation can be quite powerful for me if their publication gets big.
So on Substack it's worth taking a little time to share excellent work. And it makes Substack a nicer place all around.
Final thought: on Substack, sharing a post is a two-second task and fun, but checking Medium comments is time-consuming and boring (most comments are yawnnnn).
Interesting that you should bring that up. I'm about to move my first Substack over to Medium for that very reason. My theory so far....
I'm VERY MUCH a conversational writer, that's where I really live and do my best writing. So when I first came to Substack, I made the mistake of seeing it as being what I wanted, instead of what it actually is, or rather isn't, a zone optimized for conversational writing. And then I spent two years whining, and trying to get Substack to redesign it's entire platform around my personal needs. You can guess how that worked out. :-)
And then, I'm embarrassed to admit, I got addicted to Notes, even though I hate all social media platforms with an uncontrollable enthusiasm. Tons of engagement, no real conversations. It was like taking up smoking, realizing that's a really bad idea, not enjoying smoking, but not quite able to quit either. Just enough to keep me hooked, never enough to satisfy. I think my behavior might be why they invented the word "pathetic".
Anyway, what attracts me about Medium (so far) is that there appears to be no chance I'll ever confuse it with a conversational writing platform. So I'll have no unrealistic expectations, and no disappointments. I'll either write, or I won't. People will either read, or they won't.
I find I'm developing a sort of fundamentalist vision of what a real writer is. Somebody who keeps writing even when nobody is reading. Talking to oneself in public like a crazy old man on a park bench mumbling to no one.
In addition, I'm just curious to learn something new. I've never used Medium, even as a reader, so every day will be an education.
If nothing else, if all else fails, two weeks from now I may be back with a bunch of new material for my whining repertoire. Woo Hoo!
Ko-Fi has been good to me. I have connected with people I know here and others through its social media functions, and I have my books available there in a specially made shop. And, thanks to one Substack writer, I got a substantial amount of money in a tip: https://ko-fi.com/T6T31N0VU
Thanks so much for this helpful advice!
Interesting, positive and practical. It doesn't get better than that. Thank you, Linda.
Interesting! I have Ko-Fi, but hadn't thought of using it for newsletters this way. Assuming you plan to implement this, are you planning to paywall more posts, or just leave it as something otpional for readers. Piggybacking on that, are you concerned people will just pay $3 here or $5 there at the expense of springing for an annual subscription?
ZIg Ziglar says something like if you help enough people get what they want you will end up getting what you want.
This is so YAY! Thank you for the info and thoughtful message on helping others. I'm there!
Also, I have been trying to figure out how to do the "buy me a coffee" thing with no luck. I am going to look into Ko-Fi because it sounds so easy.
"tell someone else “hey, I like what you’re doing” they often return one kindness with another."
Ha, they don't have the quote feature here like Medium, so I did it myself :-)
I think people are kind of scared to trust that someone will return their kindness if they compliment others, but in my experience, it's usually returned. It would happen a lot more often if I wrote a lot more often... but that's another story :-)
Thanks to you, Linda, it seems that I always learn something new. As I organize myself out of 2024: The Year of Chaos, I plan to look for more interesting and better ways to reward the writers I've long enjoyed and have kind of taken for granted in the realm of the internet. AI has been a motivator for me to keep "finding what's real!" You. You are so real!
I like & restack posts & hope that helps. One day I hope to have funds to support my favorite authors.
Loved hearing your take on Medium’s new feature option.
I had known about the ko-fi thing but the sharing experiment made me say wow! Thanks for keeping us in your ‘loop’
I promoted two a day for Monday through Friday. I can’t say it helped them.
Thank you for saying it’s not easy. It’s not. And more people should know this going in..
Cool to know about the new Medium feature and love the idea of monetizing only certain newsletters through ko-fi. It’s good to have options. Thanks for sharing such useful info.
But more than anything, thank you for selflessly promoting other writers. This platform needs more writers like you
Hey Linda. These are 3 fantastic little duckies. As I read each one, my head was nodding up and down. Another big thanks for all you give us.
And yes I agree, your Substack IS a conversation when Medium can sometimes be, but not always. Also, I find when Medium works on the convo mode, it still can’t match Substack. Especially yours.
I love what you did on Substack in the past week, promoting other writers you enjoy. Great and encouraging results.
Would love your thoughts on this one: Often on Medium ( not on Substack because I haven’t made that leap yet), over different periods of time, I search out new (to me) writers and topics. When I find ones I enjoy, I read thoroughly and then I make a point to highlight salient lines, clap 50 times and leave thoughtful comments.
My results are not impressive, whether the writer has 200 or 5000 followers. Lots of times I get no reaction whatsoever from the author. Other times I get a single or 3 max claps. Very rarely do I get a comment response and when I do it’s mostly just 2 words: thank you.
I have done this activity for several years now and the results are consistently disappointing. If I follow the particular writer or (rarely for this next one) subscribe to their stories because I really enjoy their writing, for every time I do a basic follow, I say 1 person out of 30 or maybe even 1 out of 50 reciprocates. I never, EVER follow, subscribe, comment without reading the essay/poem/story first.
Am I just lousy at my selection process? Frankly, I do less of that activity now because it is so disheartening. What I have discovered is that the boosts I have received is the best way to engage with new-to-me writers and readers. But whoa, shouldn’t the other way I describe above also work in terms of creating engagement?
I feel as though I am missing something? Oh and here is another thing, the number of people choosing to follow me BEFORE they have read anything I wrote. I get that happens a lot as a strategy to “get” followers. Since I only follow if I want to AFTER I read, I simply don’t understand it. ( now I feel like signing this comment: From Pollyanna!🙄🥰)
Interesting, Suzanne. Here's my perspective on why the 'showing love' strategy doesn't work on Medium but does work on Substack. (it's not you, I promise!)
I write on both Substack and Medium.
On Medium, there's no compelling reason for me to respond to comments or acknowledge comments so unless someone asks me a question directly I don't respond. I certainly don't feel like it's necessary to clap comments, because a clap on a comment doesn't really achieve anything for the comment-writer.
On Medium it takes a long time to read and respond to comments, with about zero outcome for me and not much benefit to the commenters either.
On Substack, it's completely different because shares (re-stacks) and recommendations are incredibly meaningful to creators, and everyone knows it.
Because I have lots of Substack subscribers, if I restack someone else's post to Notes I am doing the writer a big favour, because it gets their work in front of heaps of new readers that they can't reach otherwise (Substack doesn't distribute posts automatically the way Medium does). If they want to do something nice in return a recommendation can be quite powerful for me if their publication gets big.
So on Substack it's worth taking a little time to share excellent work. And it makes Substack a nicer place all around.
Final thought: on Substack, sharing a post is a two-second task and fun, but checking Medium comments is time-consuming and boring (most comments are yawnnnn).
I missed your reply until now. Apologies. Your feedback is really helpful. Thank you.
Very useful tips. Thank you.
You write, "On Medium, I just write."
Interesting that you should bring that up. I'm about to move my first Substack over to Medium for that very reason. My theory so far....
I'm VERY MUCH a conversational writer, that's where I really live and do my best writing. So when I first came to Substack, I made the mistake of seeing it as being what I wanted, instead of what it actually is, or rather isn't, a zone optimized for conversational writing. And then I spent two years whining, and trying to get Substack to redesign it's entire platform around my personal needs. You can guess how that worked out. :-)
And then, I'm embarrassed to admit, I got addicted to Notes, even though I hate all social media platforms with an uncontrollable enthusiasm. Tons of engagement, no real conversations. It was like taking up smoking, realizing that's a really bad idea, not enjoying smoking, but not quite able to quit either. Just enough to keep me hooked, never enough to satisfy. I think my behavior might be why they invented the word "pathetic".
Anyway, what attracts me about Medium (so far) is that there appears to be no chance I'll ever confuse it with a conversational writing platform. So I'll have no unrealistic expectations, and no disappointments. I'll either write, or I won't. People will either read, or they won't.
I find I'm developing a sort of fundamentalist vision of what a real writer is. Somebody who keeps writing even when nobody is reading. Talking to oneself in public like a crazy old man on a park bench mumbling to no one.
In addition, I'm just curious to learn something new. I've never used Medium, even as a reader, so every day will be an education.
If nothing else, if all else fails, two weeks from now I may be back with a bunch of new material for my whining repertoire. Woo Hoo!
Thanks. This is very helpful.