To paraphrase the great Canadian bard Gordon Lightfoot: "Oh. Linda, they've done us wrong..."
I honestly don't care about how the sausage is made there anymore. I took the enhancement off my stats and don't ever check them. I'm content with where I am at this moment with them.
Some writers I like are leaving the platform like it was the "Titanic" after the iceberg hit, and I know I will miss their presence. But my autistic mindset compels me to remain loyal to those who are staying put, and when I can publish something new, people actually read it. That's all I want.
I know it won't make a lot of money. When I announced I was taking my Substack paid, I said that earning money was as unstable as She-Hulk's mood swings, and I stand by that. For Medium, you're writing for anyone who will listen, whereas with Substack people sign up to your account to listen to you alone.
Honestly, I don't know what's going on Medium HQ, and I don't want to know. But as long as people are still stirring the pot on it, I want to be there....
It's true that at Substack people sign up to read us. But at the same time, they likely sign up to read a bunch of other people, too. At this point I just post both places and let people read where they prefer. How are you doing with going paid on Substack? I hear 5-10% of readers are willing to go paid. Not sure if that's an accurate number but it's the number they throw around.
I pretty much only write for Substack at this point. That’s where my readers are. I just republish from Substack to Medium (don’t even know why I still do it!). I guess I am hesitant to stop Medium because I had so much published there and want to be sure to download all my content before canceling...
I post both places too, Kristin. Maybe Medium doesn't calculate read rates properly for all I know. I figure makes sense to let people read where they want. Plus, my substack isn't paid, so the bits of cash medium throws at me are nice.
Hahahaha exactly same here! I write too sporadically to do paid subscriptions, so I throw it on Medium to hopefully get some earnings. But, if I don’t take the time to go post in all the Medium Facebook groups for reads, I don’t get many. At first, when they selected articles for curation (before COVID), I didn’t have to do that and got a few reads from being curated…
My Medium readers are mostly strangers but Substack are people I’ve known or interacted with. I just made the switch to Stack and feel more pressure for it to be good. Medium is a place is can write something quick and submit to different publications for even greater readership. And then making time to submit to periodicals... keeping busy! I’d love a follow on here and Medium. Thanks for the interaction.
I nearly quit writing because of how beat up I felt on Medium. I'm convinced readers must scroll to the bottom for the read to count. On NewsBreak, all they have to do is click on the story for it to count. Writing there is building back the self-esteem I lost on Medium.
I am really glad to hear that Denise. I tried applying once but being Canadian seemed to be a problem. Got stuck at the field asking me to choose a state. I know there are Canadian writers over there. Not sure how that works. But glad to hear it's restoring the self esteem Medium flushes so easily
A little known fact is that, although NewsBreak prefers local stories, you don't have to only write about where you live. For instance, I live in Pennsylvania but I can still write local stories about other states. When you go to publish, you just put in the appropriate location.
I'm a reader 99% of the time, and a poor writer the other 1%. I've kept my Medium subscription only because a few of my favorite writers publish some content in Medium that doesn't get to Substack until later, or not at all. My Medium Daily Digest gets a very quick skim, and very few reads, because it rarely aligns with my interests. Even though I am retired, I have a lot of things to devote time to. I also feel strongly that writers should be supported (read paid), and I have committed more to subscriptions than I used to pay for the daily newspaper. (If you don't know "newspaper", ask your grandmother.) So every day I get close to an hour's worth of reading just from my subscriptions. That limits how many more I can follow. It's really difficult to fill a teacup from a firehose, which is what the Internet is becoming. This is not just affecting writers. Consider cable TV, which now has less than 50% of the households in the country. The rest are using streaming services. Yet almost every one of the streaming services is losing money. Free, ad-supported content is taking a big bite. Those who offer live TV are really getting hit, because it costs more to provide live TV, but only a little more than 8 million households use a live TV service. As noted by Gunnar De Winter (https://medium.com/predict/has-going-viral-killed-1-000-true-fans-f3432737a719), the Kevin Kelly model of having 1,000 true fans to achieve a viable income seems to no longer be working. At this point I'm long on observations and opinions, but short on answers.
I suspect how we define 1000 true fans might be the key. Might be 1000 people willing to pay, not 1000 "fans" of our work. A fan means little anymore. P.S. I am old enough to remember newspapers, for sure.
The main newspaper in my state is 75% syndicated content. No thanks.
I have one Substack I go-to for national news, one for state-wide news, and one for more "life in the Midwest" human interest stuff (the kind of story that used to be in the Local section of our paper.
The suburb I live in has a 1x weekly paper that I subscribe to partly in principle, partly because it has things like minutes from school board meetings, and partly because of the HS sports coverage.
Medium is SERIOUSLY broken now. My last published story has 3 whole readers and 105 claps. I haven't seen 105 claps since my FIRST day on the platform, four years ago.
The fact that I have 4700 followers and my headline scored in the high 80s, this is the most pathetic I've seen Medium, ever.
Yup, they are terribly broken. I saw one of your pieces come up in my feed and when I clicked it, the page was blank. Didn't matter how many times I hit refresh, it would not load.
And just the other day I went into my drafts to actually publish something and all 48 drafts were missing. Total blank page, even though it said "48 drafts"
I’ve probably shifted to 90% Substack vs. Medium. I don’t even look at the Stats page anymore- I just find it annoying.
For expected paid rates, Substack has revised that down a bit toward the 3-5% range. That’s in line with my own newsletter and most people I talk to.
One last point you made that I want to double click on: “writing once, publishing many” is something more people should know about. It’s your work! You want to write in on Substack and crosspost to Medium (or vv)? Go ahead. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Getting people to pay to support one writer is way harder than getting them paid for an all you can eat word buffet, that's for sure. I've pondered on whether to go paid, but if I do, I'd want to offer something that creates some real incentive. And you're right - no harm cross posting. The platforms like us to set a canonical link, but I don't even always do that. Let Google figure it out. That's what time stamps are for. lol
I agree, Linda. I'm always surprised when someone pays to read what I'm writing. And so grateful, considering how many opportunities there are out there and how hard it is to choose among them.
Absolutely right, Johnnie. I wrote about that a while ago. I see the clicks on Substack and the ones at Medium don't match. Not even close. I suspect they are falling into mobile, non-app reads but I could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. lol
I liked David P's comment a lot! Echoes how I feel about Medium these days. I've been one of those writers you reference - saying/believing I don't have the time for Substack. Never thought about simply copying and pasting! More grist for the mill. (Is that the right expresson? Not enough caffeine in my system yet) Thank you as always, Linda
RE: “I used towrite for print magazines back when I had the patience for the process and wait times.”
Ah, so like Poe, in your previous life, you were a ‘magazineist.’ Eddie (the nickname used by his wife Virginia and mother-in-law Maria Clem Poe) coined that phrase to describe his primary source of income, as writing poetry was a dead-end.
Followers are good, but I track my ratio, views to reads. Maybe it has to do with my short articles, about three to four minutes each. maybe it's because I get responses to my comments. But my ratio is over seventy percent so far. Something is working for me here.
I’ve been away from Medium for a while, but lately I’ve been cross-posting with no real action. It seems dead over there, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to put our pieces there, too.
I had to laugh when I saw what I made at Medium last month. 34cents!
It's real weird over there, for sure. Last month was absolutely dead for me, but this month has picked up some. I'm not holding my breath, though. It's like a roller coaster. The ups don't last long and are inevitably followed by a death defying pitch downwards. lol
I cross-posted a piece that was exceedingly popular at Substack (for me, that is.) and it got NO notice at all at Medium. I expected at least a little something, but no. Nothing.
It didn't hurt, necessarily, because I've kind of been snubbing Medium myself, but it caused me to wonder if I should even bother.
From what both of them have seen, basically, the read ratios are messed up and we shouldn't put much (if any) stock in them. It's disheartening how glitchy it is, but at least we know it has nothing to do with our writing quality. I personally would judge my writing based on the comments I get. Gradually I can tell the difference between lukewarm, polite praise vs sincere, enthusiastic praise. Or implied praise, when a reader bothers to write very thoughtful, even essay-length responses to me, haha.
I like what you said about copying and pasting to another platform to see how well you do. I will gradually cross-post my stuff to Ghost, which is sort of like a mix between WordPress and Substack. It doesn't have a discoverability feature, so I will rely on my social media/ friend promotions. But I like your idea that we look at the ratio of subscribers reading our posts, rather than the sheer number of subscribers per se.
Now I still have trouble deciding what content to write that is exclusive to my future Ghost newsletter. I originally just planned to use it to back up my posts on Medium, since I didn't want to use my Wordpress site anymore, due to some tech reasons. (I got quite spooked by your story about your client who suddenly lost all of his Facebook followers, and FB didn't even bother explaining why they deleted his account.) But if I want to ask fans on Medium to subscribe to my Ghost newsletter, I'll have to offer something that they'll only find on Ghost. I have even less of an idea what to do when it comes to monetized content on Ghost, LOL. Guess I'll figure out what to do eventually.
To paraphrase the great Canadian bard Gordon Lightfoot: "Oh. Linda, they've done us wrong..."
I honestly don't care about how the sausage is made there anymore. I took the enhancement off my stats and don't ever check them. I'm content with where I am at this moment with them.
Some writers I like are leaving the platform like it was the "Titanic" after the iceberg hit, and I know I will miss their presence. But my autistic mindset compels me to remain loyal to those who are staying put, and when I can publish something new, people actually read it. That's all I want.
I know it won't make a lot of money. When I announced I was taking my Substack paid, I said that earning money was as unstable as She-Hulk's mood swings, and I stand by that. For Medium, you're writing for anyone who will listen, whereas with Substack people sign up to your account to listen to you alone.
Honestly, I don't know what's going on Medium HQ, and I don't want to know. But as long as people are still stirring the pot on it, I want to be there....
It's true that at Substack people sign up to read us. But at the same time, they likely sign up to read a bunch of other people, too. At this point I just post both places and let people read where they prefer. How are you doing with going paid on Substack? I hear 5-10% of readers are willing to go paid. Not sure if that's an accurate number but it's the number they throw around.
I pretty much only write for Substack at this point. That’s where my readers are. I just republish from Substack to Medium (don’t even know why I still do it!). I guess I am hesitant to stop Medium because I had so much published there and want to be sure to download all my content before canceling...
I post both places too, Kristin. Maybe Medium doesn't calculate read rates properly for all I know. I figure makes sense to let people read where they want. Plus, my substack isn't paid, so the bits of cash medium throws at me are nice.
Hahahaha exactly same here! I write too sporadically to do paid subscriptions, so I throw it on Medium to hopefully get some earnings. But, if I don’t take the time to go post in all the Medium Facebook groups for reads, I don’t get many. At first, when they selected articles for curation (before COVID), I didn’t have to do that and got a few reads from being curated…
I focus most of my energy on Substack - the read radio is incredible! I will repost in Medium when I have the chance 😊
I do the same, Camille. Not all the time, but often I post the same thing both places. Let people read where they want.
Right now, I have one paid and just over a hundred free. Most of those people know me from Medium.
lol. Mine are same both places too. So much for 10%. I turned on pledges and don't have 10% either.
My Medium readers are mostly strangers but Substack are people I’ve known or interacted with. I just made the switch to Stack and feel more pressure for it to be good. Medium is a place is can write something quick and submit to different publications for even greater readership. And then making time to submit to periodicals... keeping busy! I’d love a follow on here and Medium. Thanks for the interaction.
I nearly quit writing because of how beat up I felt on Medium. I'm convinced readers must scroll to the bottom for the read to count. On NewsBreak, all they have to do is click on the story for it to count. Writing there is building back the self-esteem I lost on Medium.
I am really glad to hear that Denise. I tried applying once but being Canadian seemed to be a problem. Got stuck at the field asking me to choose a state. I know there are Canadian writers over there. Not sure how that works. But glad to hear it's restoring the self esteem Medium flushes so easily
A little known fact is that, although NewsBreak prefers local stories, you don't have to only write about where you live. For instance, I live in Pennsylvania but I can still write local stories about other states. When you go to publish, you just put in the appropriate location.
Which I could totally do, but I can't get past the application process where it asks me to choose the state I live in. lol
Fair point. I think I've written about Wisconsin...twice? And only one of those was local to my town.
I'm a reader 99% of the time, and a poor writer the other 1%. I've kept my Medium subscription only because a few of my favorite writers publish some content in Medium that doesn't get to Substack until later, or not at all. My Medium Daily Digest gets a very quick skim, and very few reads, because it rarely aligns with my interests. Even though I am retired, I have a lot of things to devote time to. I also feel strongly that writers should be supported (read paid), and I have committed more to subscriptions than I used to pay for the daily newspaper. (If you don't know "newspaper", ask your grandmother.) So every day I get close to an hour's worth of reading just from my subscriptions. That limits how many more I can follow. It's really difficult to fill a teacup from a firehose, which is what the Internet is becoming. This is not just affecting writers. Consider cable TV, which now has less than 50% of the households in the country. The rest are using streaming services. Yet almost every one of the streaming services is losing money. Free, ad-supported content is taking a big bite. Those who offer live TV are really getting hit, because it costs more to provide live TV, but only a little more than 8 million households use a live TV service. As noted by Gunnar De Winter (https://medium.com/predict/has-going-viral-killed-1-000-true-fans-f3432737a719), the Kevin Kelly model of having 1,000 true fans to achieve a viable income seems to no longer be working. At this point I'm long on observations and opinions, but short on answers.
I suspect how we define 1000 true fans might be the key. Might be 1000 people willing to pay, not 1000 "fans" of our work. A fan means little anymore. P.S. I am old enough to remember newspapers, for sure.
The main newspaper in my state is 75% syndicated content. No thanks.
I have one Substack I go-to for national news, one for state-wide news, and one for more "life in the Midwest" human interest stuff (the kind of story that used to be in the Local section of our paper.
The suburb I live in has a 1x weekly paper that I subscribe to partly in principle, partly because it has things like minutes from school board meetings, and partly because of the HS sports coverage.
Medium is SERIOUSLY broken now. My last published story has 3 whole readers and 105 claps. I haven't seen 105 claps since my FIRST day on the platform, four years ago.
The fact that I have 4700 followers and my headline scored in the high 80s, this is the most pathetic I've seen Medium, ever.
Yup, they are terribly broken. I saw one of your pieces come up in my feed and when I clicked it, the page was blank. Didn't matter how many times I hit refresh, it would not load.
And just the other day I went into my drafts to actually publish something and all 48 drafts were missing. Total blank page, even though it said "48 drafts"
I’ve probably shifted to 90% Substack vs. Medium. I don’t even look at the Stats page anymore- I just find it annoying.
For expected paid rates, Substack has revised that down a bit toward the 3-5% range. That’s in line with my own newsletter and most people I talk to.
One last point you made that I want to double click on: “writing once, publishing many” is something more people should know about. It’s your work! You want to write in on Substack and crosspost to Medium (or vv)? Go ahead. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Getting people to pay to support one writer is way harder than getting them paid for an all you can eat word buffet, that's for sure. I've pondered on whether to go paid, but if I do, I'd want to offer something that creates some real incentive. And you're right - no harm cross posting. The platforms like us to set a canonical link, but I don't even always do that. Let Google figure it out. That's what time stamps are for. lol
I agree, Linda. I'm always surprised when someone pays to read what I'm writing. And so grateful, considering how many opportunities there are out there and how hard it is to choose among them.
Their tech is truly terrible. Small extra example: according to them no one ever reads my friend links, even when I know for certain people have
Absolutely right, Johnnie. I wrote about that a while ago. I see the clicks on Substack and the ones at Medium don't match. Not even close. I suspect they are falling into mobile, non-app reads but I could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. lol
I liked David P's comment a lot! Echoes how I feel about Medium these days. I've been one of those writers you reference - saying/believing I don't have the time for Substack. Never thought about simply copying and pasting! More grist for the mill. (Is that the right expresson? Not enough caffeine in my system yet) Thank you as always, Linda
The only thing is that Substack is more tightly niched. I find that I try to write with Substack in mind, but knowing I can post both places.
RE: “I used towrite for print magazines back when I had the patience for the process and wait times.”
Ah, so like Poe, in your previous life, you were a ‘magazineist.’ Eddie (the nickname used by his wife Virginia and mother-in-law Maria Clem Poe) coined that phrase to describe his primary source of income, as writing poetry was a dead-end.
lol Right? Except for me, magazines became a dead end, too.
Followers are good, but I track my ratio, views to reads. Maybe it has to do with my short articles, about three to four minutes each. maybe it's because I get responses to my comments. But my ratio is over seventy percent so far. Something is working for me here.
Well that's super interesting! Might need to try some shorter reads and see how they do.
I’ve been away from Medium for a while, but lately I’ve been cross-posting with no real action. It seems dead over there, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to put our pieces there, too.
I had to laugh when I saw what I made at Medium last month. 34cents!
It's real weird over there, for sure. Last month was absolutely dead for me, but this month has picked up some. I'm not holding my breath, though. It's like a roller coaster. The ups don't last long and are inevitably followed by a death defying pitch downwards. lol
I cross-posted a piece that was exceedingly popular at Substack (for me, that is.) and it got NO notice at all at Medium. I expected at least a little something, but no. Nothing.
It didn't hurt, necessarily, because I've kind of been snubbing Medium myself, but it caused me to wonder if I should even bother.
Hey Linda, have you read Sally Prag's article where she experiments with an alt account to check how the read ratios work? https://medium.com/@sallyprag/do-you-only-earn-if-someone-reads-to-the-end-of-your-story-218b2e6409b3 She shows how the read ratios are messed up. :( The Sturg also analyzed what he saw from other writers. He's an editor for many publications, so he could see the read ratios of many other writers: https://medium.com/the-random-nerdiness-collective/theres-something-amiss-with-the-reading-stats-on-medium-9cf2958b767c
From what both of them have seen, basically, the read ratios are messed up and we shouldn't put much (if any) stock in them. It's disheartening how glitchy it is, but at least we know it has nothing to do with our writing quality. I personally would judge my writing based on the comments I get. Gradually I can tell the difference between lukewarm, polite praise vs sincere, enthusiastic praise. Or implied praise, when a reader bothers to write very thoughtful, even essay-length responses to me, haha.
I like what you said about copying and pasting to another platform to see how well you do. I will gradually cross-post my stuff to Ghost, which is sort of like a mix between WordPress and Substack. It doesn't have a discoverability feature, so I will rely on my social media/ friend promotions. But I like your idea that we look at the ratio of subscribers reading our posts, rather than the sheer number of subscribers per se.
Now I still have trouble deciding what content to write that is exclusive to my future Ghost newsletter. I originally just planned to use it to back up my posts on Medium, since I didn't want to use my Wordpress site anymore, due to some tech reasons. (I got quite spooked by your story about your client who suddenly lost all of his Facebook followers, and FB didn't even bother explaining why they deleted his account.) But if I want to ask fans on Medium to subscribe to my Ghost newsletter, I'll have to offer something that they'll only find on Ghost. I have even less of an idea what to do when it comes to monetized content on Ghost, LOL. Guess I'll figure out what to do eventually.