I write on Medium to improve my craft and learn who my audience is. I prefer writing fiction to everything else and have ZILCH desire to teach classes.
I love these conversations because sometimes we can riff off each other. Like, when you said you have no desire to teach, my first thought was how much I love it. I really do. Guess that's where my Wed. substack will be going.
I've been an interviewer for 25 years and learning to remain neutral takes time and self-awareness. When I'm meeting with my writing group, their questions motivate me. I'm in poetry group led by Zach J. Payne. He rarely weighs in on a word change, so if he does, I do it. I need the group input.
I like this thoughtful post! I try to be mindful that the advice I offer is what has worked for me and other writers with other objectives might not find it as useful. This comes up in editing often. Just as it's important for writers to develop a thick skin about changes, editors have to develop a thick skin about having their suggestions overruled (I might have to write an article on that). I'm particularly interested in your long term strategies and your best practices for getting various platforms to work in harmony. I did 20 Medium articles in February and 7 posts for Substack (3 of those were old material from Medium). My long-term goals are to get enough of a following so I can publish the fairy books I wrote for my kids. Mainly, I just want those to be available somewhere so I can grab copies to read to my grandkids (wishful thinking). I'm drawn to writing because I like to sort out the delusional beliefs that sabotage our lives that we maintain without even realizing it. I'm a cave explorer and the cave is my subconscious. I suppose that's why I resist joining a traditional work environment... I keep spending my time contemplating better ways of doing things. Some say I never get anything done.
Christ Walter, I need to up my game on Medium. lol. 20 in a month, wow. I love that you know your end goal. A lot of people do not. They're just kind of winging it, which I get because that's where I started and having any kind of strategy is new to me, too. I make strategies to achieve goals for my clients all the time, but never really did the same for me. Duh, how dumb. lol
Last sentence made me laugh. John Cleese says everything is writing. Walking in the forest is writing. It's when words take shape. I'd be real interested in your article on editors needing thick skin. I don't have a problem when writers don't take my feedback. I do have a problem when they pull the story in a snit or block me. Which has happened, amazingly.
I hear you on that one! I've had writers give me the "yeah... I don't think it needs that" response. Or "yeah... that's not what I'm trying to do." It's the "yeah" that gets me. All I meant was that there's a lot of discussion on how writers need to listen to editors, but there's not as much talk about how editors also have to listen to writers (assuming the writer is actually engaged in the process). You're a wonderful editor. If writers are getting angry at you I don't know what they expect.
I suppose I should put more thought into an actual strategy. I have kind of a goal, but not a strategy really. Mainly my strategy is "become a better writer every day."
I so agree that there's need for a piece on editors listening to writers. I actually run into that a fair bit because I don't use quotation marks and I sometimes use short sentences. I've had good interactions with editors overall, and they've been really good about my thoughts and preferences so I'm lucky that way. Maybe it's because I don't say yeah... (lol) And thank you for the kind words. I try to make suggestions respectfully, but there's the odd person who just takes offense. So it goes, I suppose. :)
I'm very grateful for the suggestions, they always make the piece better. One publication added me as an editor and I made him remove me because I wanted another set of eyes on everything that goes live. I particularly hate it when I leave a typo in the title.
I have two Substacks, Constant Commoner and Writer Everlasting, and I like where I am with both of them. That said, I, too, believe writers should get paid for their work. But on each of my Substacks my wish to create inclusive communities supersedes my wish to make money. Paid subscriptions are optional at both and I try not to ram my wish for paid subscriptions too far down my readers throats.
Still, I wish I had more.
At Writer Everlasting I have 1300 subscribers with only 20 of them paid. At Constant Commoner I have 978 subscribers with 34 paid. Not much, but I'm grateful for all of them, and now and then, a few times a month, I get individual donations at Ko-fi or PayPal. I don't beg for any of them.
I'm wondering, Linda, why you don't just offer optional paid subscriptions? With your skills and your knowledge I think you would get more responses than you might imagine. Is there a reason you don't?
I did not know you have 2, Ramona. I read Writer Everlasting, but will check out the other as well. With me, I don't have a reason other than an arbitrary number I invented in my head. My thought was that when I hit a specific number of free subs, that's when I'd think it's viable to include a paid option. I just hit that number so I'll be offering a paid option soon. Of course the truth is that there is no arbitrary number, but we humans can be strange. lol
You're right about the numbers. Completely arbitrary when it comes to OPTIONAL paid subs. I say just throw it out there and see what happens, no matter how many subscribers you have.
So true. It's like that idea so many new Substack writers have that they have publish every day, or else. Or else WHAT? What's going to happen if they don't? I would never notice how often anyone I subscribe to might publish. Maybe because I don't keep a schedule myself and shoot for once a week or so. If it doesn't happen, nobody has complained so far.
Ramona, you make me laugh. I publish Monday and Friday so far. Come hell or high water, there will be an email Mondays and Fridays. Although to be fair, that's not because I think readers will object. It's that *I* do better with a schedule. Once I slip, it's too easy to lose track of time and go too long. Same thing with Medium. I try publish at least once a week or a month will go by with two posts. (That was January, incidentally.) We sure make a lot of rules for ourselves. lol
I just write. Have done for a long time. I write in a group also, a group of women. It seems like something I can do and like to do and it's not stressful. I come from a family of artists who never created to make money or to be famous or to fit into a scene- they existed as outliers in a field of individualists. So now I am sitting here with piles of writing, my aspiration is always to discover something, create something, not to sell anything. My parents left behind vast quantities of fascinating and beautiful art- visual art- that is appealing to only a few people and they were not famous and never will be. I find this conunnudrumous situation mysterious and bottomless and complex. Do I regret art that has no market? Do I feel it should not have been made? Do I feel that the artists who make it are foolish? No. I cannot find it in myself to think those things for a moment. But for this, as my daughter in law said, one must be independently wealthy. Alas. Or be a genuinely starving artist- a dying breed - no joke. My children are all of this same lineage. They are gifted, they create. They have few gifts of self-promotion. They are really good at what they do and there is nothing in the world that will stop any one of them from doing it. Musicians, writers, film makers, potters, artists, poets- to be paid is barely a dream though of course one must eat. The only ones making money do it through other work- just as my father did. I don't know what to think. In our insane world, it is not always skill or insight that gets attention; often it is only the ability to attract attention that gets the attention, not what is being offered of merit or substance. Anyway, I appreciate your advice, none the less. I'm not sure I will continue to swim in this small pond of my own forever, and what you have said here as guidance may be very useful. I'm going to read it again. I wish you success in clarifying for yourself your own goals and getting what you want out of your writing.
I would like to grow my writing revenue to a place where it would replace most, if not all, of my regular income. At some point, I will retire FROM my career, and writing is something I want to retire TO. I'm not even close yet, but edge closer every week. Right now, a majority of my writing income comes from the Boost program. That's something I'm certainly grateful for, but it's also ~95% of what I earn on medium.
Writing-wise, a good 95% is here on Substack. The earnings are good and the community is amazing, but I'd like to see revenue increase. My goal for 2024 is double my paid subs. We'll see if that happens. Biggest hurdles to address are reach (same as everyone), and refining my message/value proposition. I know "what's in it" for readers, but do they?
As you may know, I am firmly in the writers should get paid camp. But paid subs on my Substacks (3) are optional and there is no content paid subs get that free don’t. I tried paywalling some content at first but it didn’t seem to make any difference. My challenge is growth. On Medium I steadily add about 125 followers a month, which is fine. But their algo changes did a number on my earnings. On Substack growth stalled around 1000 subs, which probably means I need to get into more social media, which I basically hate. So this is as much a labor of love as an income source.
The answers to these questions depend on ~which~ writing project I'm working on.
Right now, the project I'm putting the most time into is something I don't want tied to this name (it's going to be published under a pseudonym) so I'm going to be vague.
There's a community I've been getting to know in the past year who is very frustrated, and part of that frustration is that many of them feel alone. That's why many are joining this community, but even though this community helps them, it's not enough. One of their complaints is that they don't see characters like themselves in media (movies, TV, novels, etc.)
So, I'm writing a novel for them. The objective is to help them feel seen in fiction.
How is it going? I've written most of the novel, and I've gotten at least one person in this community to agree to be a beta reader. On the other hand, when I discussed the idea for this novel, one member of this community had negative reaction, so who knows. I feel it's going in the right direction, but I won't know until I share it more widely.
How does money factor in? I'm going to take the low budget self-published route because I certainly don't want to lose money and this is a very uncertain venture, but on the off chance that it gains traction (on the order of maybe 10,000 books sold, which given the size of this community isn't impossible) yes I want to make money off it. Financially, the best case scenario would be that this novel gets a bunch of people so upset that they won't shut up about it, which will serve as word-of-mouth to get more people curious enough to buy it.
The sticking points? First, I need to finish it, but I'm most of the way there so I'm not so worried about that part. The bigger sticking point is that I'm nervous about approaching beta readers, but I know I need them. It's great that I already have one on board, but I need feedback from multiple people. I'm also very nervous about how they'll react, on multiple fronts (there are reasons why I'm doing this under a pseudonym and don't want this connected to the name I'm posting this comment under, and that makes getting beta readers harder). This novel has things which will definitely rile up members of this community (which are necessary to make the story work, because without those parts there would be much less conflict and the plot would be boring). I know it's also a good idea to get at least one beta reader who isn't part of this community, but that's going to be fraught as well.
I am working on a book of poetry and song lyrics. I have posted a number of them on medium, one on my substack and had the Power of Poetry (on medium) showcase one of them. Money does not play into my motives. I feel an overwhelming desire to let the world and circles I am in to know my tide of emotions, and doing so helps me come to terms with it myself. I am currently looking for a developmental editor to assist with the process.
I write on Medium to improve my craft and learn who my audience is. I prefer writing fiction to everything else and have ZILCH desire to teach classes.
I love these conversations because sometimes we can riff off each other. Like, when you said you have no desire to teach, my first thought was how much I love it. I really do. Guess that's where my Wed. substack will be going.
I've been an interviewer for 25 years and learning to remain neutral takes time and self-awareness. When I'm meeting with my writing group, their questions motivate me. I'm in poetry group led by Zach J. Payne. He rarely weighs in on a word change, so if he does, I do it. I need the group input.
I like this thoughtful post! I try to be mindful that the advice I offer is what has worked for me and other writers with other objectives might not find it as useful. This comes up in editing often. Just as it's important for writers to develop a thick skin about changes, editors have to develop a thick skin about having their suggestions overruled (I might have to write an article on that). I'm particularly interested in your long term strategies and your best practices for getting various platforms to work in harmony. I did 20 Medium articles in February and 7 posts for Substack (3 of those were old material from Medium). My long-term goals are to get enough of a following so I can publish the fairy books I wrote for my kids. Mainly, I just want those to be available somewhere so I can grab copies to read to my grandkids (wishful thinking). I'm drawn to writing because I like to sort out the delusional beliefs that sabotage our lives that we maintain without even realizing it. I'm a cave explorer and the cave is my subconscious. I suppose that's why I resist joining a traditional work environment... I keep spending my time contemplating better ways of doing things. Some say I never get anything done.
Christ Walter, I need to up my game on Medium. lol. 20 in a month, wow. I love that you know your end goal. A lot of people do not. They're just kind of winging it, which I get because that's where I started and having any kind of strategy is new to me, too. I make strategies to achieve goals for my clients all the time, but never really did the same for me. Duh, how dumb. lol
Last sentence made me laugh. John Cleese says everything is writing. Walking in the forest is writing. It's when words take shape. I'd be real interested in your article on editors needing thick skin. I don't have a problem when writers don't take my feedback. I do have a problem when they pull the story in a snit or block me. Which has happened, amazingly.
I hear you on that one! I've had writers give me the "yeah... I don't think it needs that" response. Or "yeah... that's not what I'm trying to do." It's the "yeah" that gets me. All I meant was that there's a lot of discussion on how writers need to listen to editors, but there's not as much talk about how editors also have to listen to writers (assuming the writer is actually engaged in the process). You're a wonderful editor. If writers are getting angry at you I don't know what they expect.
I suppose I should put more thought into an actual strategy. I have kind of a goal, but not a strategy really. Mainly my strategy is "become a better writer every day."
I so agree that there's need for a piece on editors listening to writers. I actually run into that a fair bit because I don't use quotation marks and I sometimes use short sentences. I've had good interactions with editors overall, and they've been really good about my thoughts and preferences so I'm lucky that way. Maybe it's because I don't say yeah... (lol) And thank you for the kind words. I try to make suggestions respectfully, but there's the odd person who just takes offense. So it goes, I suppose. :)
I'm very grateful for the suggestions, they always make the piece better. One publication added me as an editor and I made him remove me because I wanted another set of eyes on everything that goes live. I particularly hate it when I leave a typo in the title.
Damn keyboard gremlins. I hate when I miss typos, too. lol
I have two Substacks, Constant Commoner and Writer Everlasting, and I like where I am with both of them. That said, I, too, believe writers should get paid for their work. But on each of my Substacks my wish to create inclusive communities supersedes my wish to make money. Paid subscriptions are optional at both and I try not to ram my wish for paid subscriptions too far down my readers throats.
Still, I wish I had more.
At Writer Everlasting I have 1300 subscribers with only 20 of them paid. At Constant Commoner I have 978 subscribers with 34 paid. Not much, but I'm grateful for all of them, and now and then, a few times a month, I get individual donations at Ko-fi or PayPal. I don't beg for any of them.
I'm wondering, Linda, why you don't just offer optional paid subscriptions? With your skills and your knowledge I think you would get more responses than you might imagine. Is there a reason you don't?
I did not know you have 2, Ramona. I read Writer Everlasting, but will check out the other as well. With me, I don't have a reason other than an arbitrary number I invented in my head. My thought was that when I hit a specific number of free subs, that's when I'd think it's viable to include a paid option. I just hit that number so I'll be offering a paid option soon. Of course the truth is that there is no arbitrary number, but we humans can be strange. lol
You're right about the numbers. Completely arbitrary when it comes to OPTIONAL paid subs. I say just throw it out there and see what happens, no matter how many subscribers you have.
What can it hurt? 😏
Here is my other Substack. Thanks for your support at WE. https://constantcommoner.substack.com/
You are absolutely right, of course. Funny thing about making progress is that we all bump into walls that only exist in our head.
So true. It's like that idea so many new Substack writers have that they have publish every day, or else. Or else WHAT? What's going to happen if they don't? I would never notice how often anyone I subscribe to might publish. Maybe because I don't keep a schedule myself and shoot for once a week or so. If it doesn't happen, nobody has complained so far.
Ramona, you make me laugh. I publish Monday and Friday so far. Come hell or high water, there will be an email Mondays and Fridays. Although to be fair, that's not because I think readers will object. It's that *I* do better with a schedule. Once I slip, it's too easy to lose track of time and go too long. Same thing with Medium. I try publish at least once a week or a month will go by with two posts. (That was January, incidentally.) We sure make a lot of rules for ourselves. lol
I think your way--to keep a schedule--is far better than mine. FAR better! I just can't do it. I know me. 😏
SAME. I know algorithms appreciate consistency, but for me, the forcing function of a set schedule is the biggest benefit.
I just write. Have done for a long time. I write in a group also, a group of women. It seems like something I can do and like to do and it's not stressful. I come from a family of artists who never created to make money or to be famous or to fit into a scene- they existed as outliers in a field of individualists. So now I am sitting here with piles of writing, my aspiration is always to discover something, create something, not to sell anything. My parents left behind vast quantities of fascinating and beautiful art- visual art- that is appealing to only a few people and they were not famous and never will be. I find this conunnudrumous situation mysterious and bottomless and complex. Do I regret art that has no market? Do I feel it should not have been made? Do I feel that the artists who make it are foolish? No. I cannot find it in myself to think those things for a moment. But for this, as my daughter in law said, one must be independently wealthy. Alas. Or be a genuinely starving artist- a dying breed - no joke. My children are all of this same lineage. They are gifted, they create. They have few gifts of self-promotion. They are really good at what they do and there is nothing in the world that will stop any one of them from doing it. Musicians, writers, film makers, potters, artists, poets- to be paid is barely a dream though of course one must eat. The only ones making money do it through other work- just as my father did. I don't know what to think. In our insane world, it is not always skill or insight that gets attention; often it is only the ability to attract attention that gets the attention, not what is being offered of merit or substance. Anyway, I appreciate your advice, none the less. I'm not sure I will continue to swim in this small pond of my own forever, and what you have said here as guidance may be very useful. I'm going to read it again. I wish you success in clarifying for yourself your own goals and getting what you want out of your writing.
As of now, I don't have a long term goal - will write until I find a different hobby I guess :)
"Do you have an objective?"
I would like to grow my writing revenue to a place where it would replace most, if not all, of my regular income. At some point, I will retire FROM my career, and writing is something I want to retire TO. I'm not even close yet, but edge closer every week. Right now, a majority of my writing income comes from the Boost program. That's something I'm certainly grateful for, but it's also ~95% of what I earn on medium.
Writing-wise, a good 95% is here on Substack. The earnings are good and the community is amazing, but I'd like to see revenue increase. My goal for 2024 is double my paid subs. We'll see if that happens. Biggest hurdles to address are reach (same as everyone), and refining my message/value proposition. I know "what's in it" for readers, but do they?
As you may know, I am firmly in the writers should get paid camp. But paid subs on my Substacks (3) are optional and there is no content paid subs get that free don’t. I tried paywalling some content at first but it didn’t seem to make any difference. My challenge is growth. On Medium I steadily add about 125 followers a month, which is fine. But their algo changes did a number on my earnings. On Substack growth stalled around 1000 subs, which probably means I need to get into more social media, which I basically hate. So this is as much a labor of love as an income source.
The answers to these questions depend on ~which~ writing project I'm working on.
Right now, the project I'm putting the most time into is something I don't want tied to this name (it's going to be published under a pseudonym) so I'm going to be vague.
There's a community I've been getting to know in the past year who is very frustrated, and part of that frustration is that many of them feel alone. That's why many are joining this community, but even though this community helps them, it's not enough. One of their complaints is that they don't see characters like themselves in media (movies, TV, novels, etc.)
So, I'm writing a novel for them. The objective is to help them feel seen in fiction.
How is it going? I've written most of the novel, and I've gotten at least one person in this community to agree to be a beta reader. On the other hand, when I discussed the idea for this novel, one member of this community had negative reaction, so who knows. I feel it's going in the right direction, but I won't know until I share it more widely.
How does money factor in? I'm going to take the low budget self-published route because I certainly don't want to lose money and this is a very uncertain venture, but on the off chance that it gains traction (on the order of maybe 10,000 books sold, which given the size of this community isn't impossible) yes I want to make money off it. Financially, the best case scenario would be that this novel gets a bunch of people so upset that they won't shut up about it, which will serve as word-of-mouth to get more people curious enough to buy it.
The sticking points? First, I need to finish it, but I'm most of the way there so I'm not so worried about that part. The bigger sticking point is that I'm nervous about approaching beta readers, but I know I need them. It's great that I already have one on board, but I need feedback from multiple people. I'm also very nervous about how they'll react, on multiple fronts (there are reasons why I'm doing this under a pseudonym and don't want this connected to the name I'm posting this comment under, and that makes getting beta readers harder). This novel has things which will definitely rile up members of this community (which are necessary to make the story work, because without those parts there would be much less conflict and the plot would be boring). I know it's also a good idea to get at least one beta reader who isn't part of this community, but that's going to be fraught as well.
I am working on a book of poetry and song lyrics. I have posted a number of them on medium, one on my substack and had the Power of Poetry (on medium) showcase one of them. Money does not play into my motives. I feel an overwhelming desire to let the world and circles I am in to know my tide of emotions, and doing so helps me come to terms with it myself. I am currently looking for a developmental editor to assist with the process.