4 Months on Medium: what I have achieved
Why sign up with Medium?
I signed up with Medium on 9th November 2018 as a paying Member (which means I pay just over $5 AUD per month as the membership fee is in US dollars and I live in Australia).
The sole reason why I signed up (without knowing everything about Medium) is that I absolutely love to write and I love to read.
Because I am a very practical person, when I read about the Partnership Program, where Medium writers in some countries can receive money for their writing, I thought why not sign up for that if I can, it will be fun. Let’s see what happens, my curiosity told me.
Luckily I do not need to rely on this platform, Medium, for an income or a supplementary income, and I thought “Wow, that would be the icing on the cake if I get remuneration for something that I write on Medium!”
I have been writing and blogging for as long as I can remember, on all sorts of platforms and began with WordPress in 2012. I thought I would write on Medium for 2 practical reasons:
- Medium already has a huge established readership.
- Medium is easy to use, and this ease and ability to write what one likes (within the rules of course) is comforting to me and encouraging.
What I don’t expect from Medium
I am a realistic person and I think that I am a humble person. I don’t expect to be “curated” on Medium (i.e. to have any of my “Stories” distributed to many readers via Topic tags and other means or to be Featured on the Home page).
This is not at all the same as saying “I don’t want any of my Stories to be curated!”
A lot of Medium members are dispirited about their Stories not being curated, and I have started responding to this, saying that Medium has approximately 25 editors cum curators; and millions of posts/articles AKA “Medium Stories” are submitted & published every year.
The Editors are human beings and some Medium writers may feel that the same writers or topics are promoted over and over, and will express their indignation and disappointment.
Well, that’s fine but consider that if Medium isn’t fulfilling your expectations, then you can look for another source that does.
Medium is basically a writing platform. No agreement or contract is signed between you and Medium stating that your Stories will be shared by Medium in people’s news feeds or by any other means.
Having an Email list for readers to receive notifications of your new Stories is definitely not a guarantee that those who subscribe to your List will read and interact with your Medium Stories.
A large Following with readers who actually Clap and respond to your Stories is achieved by publishing a lot of quality, thought-provoking Stories with general or mainstream themes, and by marketing your Stories.
There’s an interesting perspective on the type of Stories on Medium that are curated, at the page below.
UPDATE: 2023 Smedian has now closed
What I first did on Medium
Within a few days of being on Medium, I found Smedian and applied to join 3 Publications as a writer. The first editor replied that her “pub” (short for Publication) was a personal pub or blog only for her to write for (though she had not stated this on her Publication overview page).
Smedian (formerly SuperMeditor) is for Editors of Publications primarily, to find suitable writers; and as such is also an avenue for Writers to apply to write for Medium Publications.
After signing up with Medium, I applied, through Smedian, to write for “Real Life Resilience” and the “Ascent” because I felt that I had lots of stories to contribute which met their briefs: those of sharing personal experiences of how to be resilient, and sharing experiences about the significant (or at least important to the writer) journeys of unique people.
You request to be a Writer, after signing up with Smedian, by simply clicking on the green “Request to contribute” button for those Pubs listed on Smedian that are accepting requests.
Then click on “Manage request and reference links” to add a DRAFT Medium Story to your application to be a Writer for the Publication, if the Publication’s Submission Guidelines asks you to submit a draft Story for the Editor to review whether your work fits their Publication.
Click on “Advertise my Publication” to get to your Writers dashboard, as shown below, which will display the Pubs registered with Smedian, that you have been accepted into. Note: you can also just click on your Avatar (little round picture at the top corner, then on “My Publications” in the drop-down list).
Note: you may not receive an Email or message that you have been accepted, so it’s important to check your “dashboard” as shown below, from time to time, as it will show if you have been accepted into a Pub.
There’s a “bell” icon at the top right next to your Avatar, on Smedian, which you click on to read your Notifications from the Channels on Smedian. Click on the icon or picture of the little house between the bell and your Avatar, and then click on PenChat to go to your Smedian Chat area.
In my experience, the Editor of “Real Life Resilience” sent me a PenChat message, saying that I had been accepted as a writer.
However, I never received a message from the Editor of the Ascent. I only found out that I was a writer for the Ascent by going to my Smedian Publications area, and seeing that the Ascent was in my list of Publications.
You can search for an Editor’s name in the “Search people” area at the top left of your Penchat area, in order to chat to someone, if they are in the Smedian directory.
The top 100 Medium Publications can be found on Smedian at:
Please don’t have your heart set on becoming a writer for “The Mission” or any of the top pubs, and then feel that Life is not worth living because you don’t get accepted into the publication (“pub”).
I submitted a draft to “the Startup” but after not hearing back from them for 48 hours (per their submission guidelines) I concluded that my submitted Story wasn’t suitable for them, so I removed it from their Publication (via the 3 little dots and clicking on “Remove from publication).
You will get readers by publishing in the smaller publications also. Not all Medium publications will be listed in Smedian. Search for a Pub’s name on Smedian and if it is registered in Smedian, you will find the number of Followers and the number of current Writer requests.
How to find the number of Followers of a Medium Publication
Open up a story in the Publication and click on any Tag Name. The resultant page will show you the number of Followers. Also, going to the “Latest” or to the “Archive” page of the Publication (at the bottom of the Publication homepage) will show you the number of followers. However, some Publications have endless scrolling & you never get to the bottom!
The Medium Home page
Tom Kuegler advises on how to follow Stories with particular “tags” or Topics.
The Medium editors will feed in Stories categorized under the Topics that you have ticked if any, and they will appear on a desktop screen on the left under the Featured stories.
The section on the right titled “New from your Network” has a feed of Stories from individual Writers and Publications that you Follow. You can click on Customize then on Topics from this area and tick Topics of interest.
I have ticked 3 Topics being “Books” (which is under “Arts and Entertainment”)and “Science” and “Math” (which are under “Innovation and Tech”).
Some Stories tagged by the Medium writer with a tag name matching the Topic that you ticked, or categorized by the Medium editors under the Topic that you ticked, will appear on the left in the lower section of your computer screen, under the top section with the Featured Stories.
I have noted that this section includes Stories from the Publications that you follow (keeping in mind that new Stories from the Publications that you Follow appear under “New From your Network”, as do new Stories from individual Writers or People that you follow).
My writing method on Medium
I am truly grateful for the opportunities I have to write for Medium Publications and am now a Writer for 8 publications:
A Few Words, and
I am writing for 8 Publications because they all accept Stories with different themes or purposes and styles. Your writing repertoire may cover the needs of different Medium Publications.
Outside of Medium & these 8 publications, I don’t promote/market my Medium Stories because I don’t want to. I have very few close friends and the members of my adoptive family are more my “frenemies” (half friend/half enemy), and my content on Medium is personal enough for me to want to keep it outside of the readership of friends and foes.
Anyhow, I decided to only publish in Publications, as much as possible; keeping in mind that it’s a good idea to know how soon they publish.
I chose to do this in order to try to gain a wider readership, rather than relying on new readers searching topic tags and/or relying on Followers.
I can see that although currently on Medium, I have more Followers than I’ve ever had on WordPress, that hardly any of these followers interact with any of my Stories.
Some Medium writers say writing for Publications is not that important but go with “your heart” because YOU are unique, and what works for one may be different for another.
Also, all of my Stories are for paying members only to read. At first, I felt guilty that non-paying members couldn’t read my Stories; but after a lot of soul searching, it dawned upon me that the CHOICE is mine.
Non paying members can read a few Stories per month “for free” (without being a paying member) and if they can’t read some of my Stories, well they won’t be missing out because I am only writing for paying Medium Members.
Interesting things I have learned
Self-help is a great equalizer
Your Story may be rejected by a Publication, and the Editor may tell you in a Note (private communication on your Story) why it was rejected. They may state something general like “Your Story is not right for us at the moment” or they may not give you a reason at all, for your Story being rejected.
IF your Story is rejected, there’s no need at all to get angry or depressed; that won’t help anyone. Instead, do some reflecting or thinking, and some research if need be, to work out for yourself, why it was rejected.
There’s nothing to stop you from removing your Story from the pub and submitting it elsewhere.
I had lots of Stories rejected by the Ascent but had them published by other Publications. I concluded that the Ascent is interested in personal experiences or struggles with a lot of substance or words, which provide sobering advice or self-help tips for a general audience; or describe unusual but brave and inspiring encounters.
As concrete examples of other rejections, my Story “Everlasting Love” was published by Real Life Resilience; and my poem “A Thanksgiving” was published by Bookworm Sanctuary & Stories — but BOTH were rejected by “PS I Love You.”
I figured that these 2 pieces were too old fashioned for “PS I Love You.”
If you’re new to Medium, searching by clicking on the little magnifying glass at the top right of a desktop screen, typing in “success on Medium” or just “Medium” then pressing the Enter key will bring up lots of information about how to work with Medium.
“Googling” terms or phrases like the above or “how to use Medium” and referring to Medium’s Help / Support section, will also help you learn how to work with the platform.
Tom Kuegler gives some good tips for working with Medium (but this doesn’t mean that you have to religiously follow what he suggests).
Keep up to date with Medium developments through Medium’s Blog called “3 Minute Read”- accessible via the link titled “Blog” at the bottom of their Help section.
Take your time getting to know what Stories are in the various Publications, and very importantly, carefully read the Submission Guidelines of Publications that you are interested in. You may find out how often they publish or how long they take, on average, to publish accepted pieces.
If you have questions to ask, and the Pub doesn’t have an email contact, try seeing if the Editor or an Editor for the publication has got a contact email address on their Medium Profile.
If you’re on Facebook, you may like to join some good Face Book closed Groups where you can promote your Medium Stories.
Take your time going through all the functions on the drop-down list when you click on your Medium Avatar (the little round picture that represents you).
Tagging Stories
Use the same Tags or search categories as much as you can, and add the maximum number or 5 Tags to each of your Stories. Click on the 3 little dots between the “bell” picture and the green “Ready to publish?” and click on “Change tags.”
Type in a Tag name where it has “Add tag” then press the Return key. Remember to click on the Done button. The number that appears next to a Tag is the number of Stories published on Medium with that Tag.
Tom Kuegler provides a list of popular Tags to use on Medium.
Vico Biscotti has an excellent article about tagging on Medium.
I find it illuminating that Vico explains that Topics and Tags are not always the same. You can see for yourself that the Medium Editors will categorize some Stories which don’t have a tag name matching a Topic, under a certain topic, so you will find that Story by going to the Topic name but NOT by searching upon the topic name as a Tag.
An example is that the Story “On Mame’s “Down Girl” definitely does not have a Tag named “Books” but it can be found under the Medium Topic “Books.”
If Medium puts your Story under a Topic this means that it is “curated” and you should get an email about this, or see a Notification in Medium.
Justin Cox 🍩 explains this very well.
Click on the 3 little dots and click on “Change display title / subtitle “ if you want to change your Story’s title and refine the sub-heading or sub-title. Remember to click on the Done button.
IF you change your Story title, you may want to also click on the 3 little dots, then click on “Customize story link” to change the URL or web address of your Story to MATCH your new Story Title.
Feature a Story
Feature or pin a favorite Story of yours to the top of your list of Story titles on your Medium Profile Page, by finding the Story on your Profile page, by clicking on your Avatar (i.e. the small round photo of you at the top right-hand corner) then clicking on your name under your Avatar, which will take you to your “timeline” or “wall” or Medium Profile page.
Click on the little down-ward pointing arrow at the bottom of your chosen Story and click on “Feature at the top of your Profile.”
SAVE Stories that you really love, for easy re-reading or for making notes from, by clicking on the little flag icon under the Clap icon in the side-bar of a Story, or on the little flag at the bottom of a Story that you read. The “little flag” is shown in the screen-shot above, next to the down-ward pointing arrow.
This will place the Story into your Reading List which is on your Medium home page.
Get some neat tips from Medium on writing Stories, at this page here, of Medium’s blog “3 Minute Read”; for example, you can “mention” or tag someone in your Story (as I have done for 3 people in this Story).
Clapping (applause or recommendations)
I soon learned that one can clap up to a maximum of 50 claps for any one Story. My own method is to give any Story that I like in the least bit 15 claps, and Stories that I really like I give 25 claps; then those Stories that I love I give 50 claps. Who knows why? Whatever you CHOOSE is okay.
Personally I would rather there be a response system like Facebook has, i.e. that one can give a “Like” or a “Love” (but not a dislike, which is unnecessary — if you don’t like a topic, don’t read it).
Statistics
A thing of wonder, or are they? You may read viewpoints from Medium writers recommending that one does not check their Stats often, and viewpoints from those who love to check their Medium Statistics as often as possible.
Let the Statistics remind you that what you write is worth reading to at least one person.
Over time with consistently publishing a few Stories per week, I have seen a rise in the Read ratio of my Medium Stories; and this is a thrill for me. (The February 15 to March 16 period has twice as many Fans or applauders and twice as many Reads than the previous 30 days.)
If you must know, my Read ratio for the 30 days ending March 16th, was 0.45 or 45 percent of the Views; and for the previous 30 days was 0.39 or 39 percent of Views.
I try not to dwell upon the Read ratio and it is definitely best not to get upset or angry about your Read ratios; but rather to understand that there’s a big world of readers out there, and even if some of them click on your Story title, he/she may not find your content “their cup of tea”.
It cheers me no end that my number of Reads per se or in their own right, has increased. I list every Story that I write, which is published in a Medium Publication, in a Word document, by weeks, and colour code the Publications, sample shown below.
This makes it easier for me to see at a glance which Stories have gone where, how many Stories per week have been published; and to make plans for submitting more Stories to which publication.
Publishous may also duplicate your Medium in their website PublishousNow but check to see if any links that you put in your Medium Story carry over. Be aware that if your Story appears in PublishousNow that anyone can read it (i.e. they don’t have to be a paying Medium member).
Over the February 15 to March 16 period, I had 12 Stories published. This averaged 3 a week (because 12 divided by 4 equals 3).
I aim to have 3 to 5 Stories published per week.
Over the January 16 to February 14 period I had 8 Stories published, averaging 2 a week over the 4-week time-frame.
Tom Kuegler talks about “how reads are calculated”. Don’t get angry or frustrated over how payments to members are calculated.
Medium: a great place to be, if you set yourself free .. don’t worry about being curated or being famous or rich .. write from your Soul to share … and those who need to learn from you or be entertained by you WILL find you.
Here is a link to the “Medium Help” page of my Publication “Curation Matters” that provides useful information about working with Medium.
https://medium.com/curation-matters/mediumhelp/home .
Thank you to the Writing Cooperative for letting me share my writing knowledge. I love writing as I love to breathe, and a close second is that I love to read.
Medium & the Writing Cooperative is like “Heaven” to me: so much to read and the Writing Cooperative fostering good writing is a tonic for many.
I feel that I should also say thank you to Tina Viju my biggest supporter when I started with Medium. Having someone take a special interest in you when you start something new is terrific for your growth.
I hope that my experiences on Medium will help someone.
If you are thinking about creating your own Medium Publication, you may be interested in my comprehensive guidelines on how to create a publication, at the page below.
https://medium.com/lockdown-peaceful-space-live-love-learn/medium-tips/home
Enjoy your stay on Medium. Appreciate what you’ve got, and Celebrate your achievements!
