Medium Isn't Dead. It's The Era of Smaller and New Writers.
The average author can make more money, gain followers and build an audience. It's the age of the smaller writers, the new writers.
I wrote a very long post and wanted to delete it.
I didn’t.
You have the choice to go with a shorter version or a longer.
Let’s go.
Short post
Big names leaving Medium and writing about it has become a sport.
They claim it's a sinking ship.
They have switched to LinkedIn and YouTube, started personal blogs and expanded their newsletters.
But is it wise to follow them?
Not necessarily.
At some point, they'll tell you the same thing about Substack (when they get disappointed with the platform).
Try to follow your gut when you hear advice that tells you to stop with something.
Seeking greener pastures is nice (as in the corporate world), but it's also worthwhile to see Medium and Substack as part of ONE ecosystem.
You don’t have to quit one to write on the other.
All members can now catch the replay from our LIVE session with Walter Rhein inside our Online Writing School community.
I’ll also start a Substack Chat for paid members.
Long post.
I would like to start with a piece of information that I just received at the last minute.
I just received a message from my German-speaking tribe member
from Denmark:
“Super news this morning. My latest story got Boosted from Medium”
It’s this one 🥳🙌🏻
Deep. Sweet.Valuable is a relatively new pub from an engaged team. Within the last days I often reeived messages from people telling me they got Boosted in this publication.
Oh and here’s another one from my member:
🥳
But that's not what this story is about.
We want to address the elephant in the room.
The death of Medium.
Medium is dead.
Substack is better than Medium.
Stop writing on Medium. Start writing on Substack.
I bet you read and hear this all the time.
Of course, especially from those who are frustrated with....
their revenue not being as high as it once was
not growing as much as they want
writing tons of stories
no longer getting paid for AI stories
It's easy to write these kinds of stories, and of course you get a lot of attention because that's how it's always been.
When I started writing on Medium in December 2020, I was already reading stories about people quitting and looking for greener pastures.
Mostly these statements come from writers who used to be “big fish” in the pond.
Who lived through the “really golden days”.
Now that Nick Wignall is quitting Medium and deleting all his posts, they are “dancing on Medium's grave”, as they call it, and screaming:
“Look! Even Nick is leaving Medium. See? Cancel your subscription. Better post somewehere else.”
But is it wise to follow this guide?
Nick is a psychologist and has more than 330,000 followers on Medium.
He has built his audience on Medium, and as I followed the tag #psychology, I saw many stories from him in my feed.
Did I click on his posts and read them?
Sometimes.
But since Nick was heavily promoted and Boosted on Medium, I saw him often, so I figured he must be one of the writers who “made it” on Medium and “loved” the platform.
Having written on Medium for 3.5 years now, I've seen authors get pushed, hit a high, hit viral, peak and then.... left or quit.
It's always sad to see this happen because I don't think it's smart from a marketing standpoint.
No one knows how much you “make” if the “hay” is the reason you're in it in the first place.
No one sees how many views and reads you get and how small your reach is, even though you seem to be “big”.
No agent or publisher will ask you that.
No client will ask you that - unless you're selling a Medium course.
They see your follower count of 300,000 and think:
“Wow, that's huge. Why not work with him?”
I recently interviewed Anne Bonfert, who has 186,000 followers.
Guess how much money she earns?
“Only” a few hundred dollars a month.
Is that good or bad?
Who knows? It always depends on where you live in the world.
She also has sponsorship deals and brand deals, but she's not focused on making “hay”.
She has a full-time job as a skydiver and lives her best life with her husband in New Zealand.
That's another story that should be told.
That there are people out there who love to write and want to share their #Travel stories.
One day Anne could get a book deal.
She could be invited to speak somewhere.
People want to interview her (like I did).
Writing on Medium is a window of opportunity.
Before I introduce you to four writers I admire and highly recommend, let's review Nick's statement, which has been quoted many times:
“But over the past 6–12 months, both partner program earnings and distribution have been dramatically worse for me with no improvement in sight.
It’s not worth it for me to publish here anymore.”
Okay, so where is he now?
He publishes weekly on YouTube.
He also has his own website with a blog and a newsletter with 50,000 subscribers.
Okay, good.
Now let's move on to the four authors I absolutely recommend because they fall into the “I knew them when...” category:
Derek Hughes (part-time writer with full-time job)
I call
the “headline genius” because he spends a lot of time on his headlines.When I asked him for an interview in March 2024, he had around 6,000 followers.
Today he will soon have more than me. 12K.
He writes about writing, but that writing really helps you become a better writer.
That's why Medium drives him. Sometimes he gets Boosted. He gets recommended, is a top writer, and has been featured in their Medium Digest newsletter.
2 months = 6,000 followers!
He told us for the first time that he also made $1,200 in one month.
You have to know that he was offered a collab with Sinem Guenel and was published in a magazine.
All thanks to writing on Medium.
Here is my interview with Derek.
Ossiana Tepfenhart (freelance writer)
is a beautiful soul and writes about all things life, womanhood, feminism and injustice.When I asked her for our first interview she had 13,000 followers, now she has 31,000 WITHOUT being boosted that much!
8 months = 18,0000 followers!
Let that sink in.
Her biggest month to date made her $19,000.
She was also offered a movie deal.
Here is my interview with Ossiana.
Michelle Teheux (part-time writer and author)
now has 8,000 followers. She made about $1,300 in April, and I interviewed her as she was celebrating her biggest month yet with $2,000.
I know Michelle was frustrated with her lower number of Boosts (she had Boosted a lot of stories), but I also know she's focusing more on writing books now.
She's also building up her Substack.
See what she's doing without writing a story about it? She's not putting all her eggs in one basket, because that's not what smart writers do.
Smart writers amplify their message, try other platforms and add some of them to the mix.
I bet in a few months she'll have more followers than I do and will be growing as fast as Ossiana and Derek are today.
Walter Rhein (full-time writer and author)
like him a lot, so I might be a little biased, but I think he's a real full-time writer.He spends more than 12 hours a day writing. Not just on Medium, but also on his books.
He's a nommer on Medium, which means he can nominate stories for a boost on Medium.
He reads a lot. He also helps new writers and authors get a foothold on Medium.
He told me that he was Boosted 12 times in March!
He told me that he expects to earn about 200 dollars per Boost. He also earns when stories he recommends under the tag #Racism get Boosted.
This way, family man Walter earns about $3,000 a month on Medium.
That's huge!
That's definitely a full-time salary.
Plus, writing from home allows him to spend more time with his family.
He writes and publishes books, walks his dogs and enjoys his life.
Here is my interview with Walter.
REPLAY available for members:
And all members can also watch the recording inside our membership (“The Online Witing School” plus I'm opening a Substack Chat where I share the recording with you and you can ask more questions) where we talked about the Boost and how to write Boost-worthy stories, how to format them and what to avoid.
We talked about AI and questions from the community.
Need more… here is the super long post.
Medium is simply a different game and a different website.
Of course, if you miss the days when Medium announced how much money writers were making each month with the Medium Partner Program (MPP), those days seem to be over.
All Medium has to offer right now are numbers about its own success.
Medium has reached 1,000,000 members and is on its way to becoming a profitable company.
The golden age of the “big players,” those who make $2,000 or more on a story, may be over, but it's the age of the smaller writers, the new writers.
The average author can make more money.
New authors can grow their following very quickly. One person in my tribe went from zero to 1,500 followers in two months.
You also have to look at all the other opportunities.
You can get clients and customers, be approached by an agent/publisher, start your own business....
You can still make a full-time income, but you also have to do the work. Walter starts writing at 6 a.m. until noon. Then he feels exhausted.
He does that six times a week.
I couldn't do that and I wouldn't want to either.
And you?
Nothing lasts forever.
The days of the gold rush are over.
The algorithm is constantly changing.
One month, your follower numbers go through the roof. T
he next, you barely gain any new followers. That's part of the game. It happens in social media on every platform.
