There are a lot of stories about dissatisfaction with Medium.
How Medium only looks after its top writers. Why are my stories not being curated? Medium strikes again! My Love-Hate Relationship With Medium. Where is my bonus, Medium?
Let’s get a few things straight.
You are not writing on Medium to make money.
You are here for many other reasons, but money is not one of them.
You do make some money, but that is just a bonus.
Let’s have a look at what you are really here for.
You are on Medium to learn your craft.
Writing is a tough skill to master. First, you need to write a million words and then throw them away and start all over again before you start making an impact with your writing.
“My advice to the young writer is likely to be unpalatable in an age of instant successes and meteoric falls. I tell the neophyte: Write a million words–the absolute best you can write, then throw it all away and bravely turn your back on what you have written. At that point, you’re ready to begin.”- David Eddings
Where else can you do this kind of practice other than Medium? Of course, you can do it the old-fashioned way — in a journal, in writing competitions, or with writing groups.
Or you can do that on Medium. When you write on Medium, regularly and consistently, your growth is much faster than when you do it in isolation or with the writing groups.
You make an extra effort to improve because your stuff gets read.
You are here to get your stuff read.
The biggest strength of Medium is that it is a blogging platform with inbuilt readers.
Gone are the days when you start a blog, and people find you and start following you. There are 600 million blogs on the internet. No one will notice you unless you can write interesting articles that are SEO friendly too.
Instead, you can host your blog on Medium, where approximately 85 million readers are looming around to read good stories. And the good news is you don’t have to pay any money for hosting.
Medium enjoys a very high ranking on Google, which means you don’t have to write articles to satisfy SEO.
You can write anything, from personal stories to professional advice to travel tales. There are all kinds of readers here. And these readers not only read your stuff, but they share their own stories in their articles, and you get to learn from them.
Where else will you find so many like-minded people on one platform?
You are here to exchange ideas.
I have a pretty decent friends circle, and I belong to several writing groups. But none of them have the same interests as me.
I am a multi-passionate writer. I like to write on different topics. When I write on Medium, there are always people passionate about different topics, whether it is short story writing, or artificial intelligence, or personal development.
Then there are writers on Medium who introduce me to topics I haven’t considered before. When on Medium, I am never short of like-minded friends.
I get to know them, and they get to know me.
You are here to make a name for yourself.
We all start from nowhere. To establish yourself, you got to put your work out there. With time people start appreciating your work and start recognizing your name. There is nothing more to self-branding. But it takes time. Medium is one platform where you can do it effectively.
About three months ago, Donnette Anglin left me a comment on one of my articles. She said she wanted to try writing on Medium. That she had written a few articles, and they were well received.
With a little bit of encouragement, she started publishing 2-3 articles a month. Then 2-3 articles a week. She now has 1.2K followers.
Why? Because she is reaching out, making connections, reading other people’s work, leaving comments, learning from them. She has already made a place for herself.
Her stories are being noticed. She is being noticed.
You are here to learn how the online world works.
The online world is a big enigma, and it takes a while to crack its code. There is no better place to learn it other than Medium.
If another platform comes up, you will read about it on Medium. If a new technology starts making the news, you will read about it on Medium. If something is not working, you will learn all about it on Medium.
By being on the platform and reading what others are writing, you learn all that you need to know about the online world.
Where else can you learn what is happening in Cyberworld in one place?
In Nutshell
30 June marks one year of me writing on Medium. I have come a long way since then. I have many fans, even more followers, and I have made some money along the way.
Before writing on Medium, I was writing on my blog for about 18 months. I was spending hours writing stories, but no one was reading them. I started publishing those stories on Medium, and they all got read. Many of them got curated.
Not only that many readers take time to leave comments which sometimes lead to good discussions. I have made great friends on this platform. Some of those friendships will lead to future collaborations; others will turn into support networks.
Don’t dismiss Medium because you have not been able to make money. It might be providing you better benefits than money.
Photo by Christin Noelle on Unsplash