Bad News For Publications And Good News For Self-Published Writers
Medium is undergoing a lot of changes. Here’s the answer to the question whether it’s a worrying time or an evolution.
Medium is undergoing a lot of changes. In the past few months, we have watched several big as well as small publications closing their doors.
I am sad to see these publications close. For many writers on this platform, it was their ultimate goal, to have articles published by Medium’s giants.
You may wonder: ‘Is it a worrying time or an evolution?’
A few days ago, I informed you that one of Medium’s biggest pub’s called ‘The Ascent’ with 100k followers is surprisingly closing its doors. Here’s the story.
Medium wants to support individual writers more
The other day, I heard that ‘World Traveler’s Blog’ will also say goodbye to its audience soon.
As the owner and chief-editor Cody James Howell PhD (Raiden) stated in his farewell letter:
‘We find it hard to justify the ongoing work of our editors in the current environment.’
Certainly, the pandemic has hurt travel writing hard, but Cole gets more specific about the WHY? behind his decision:
We are closing our doors, in part, in solidarity with these other publications and with the acknowledgment that Medium is a place where the self-published author can flourish without publications (…)
He even says, ‘this is the way Medium wants it’.
Medium’s new updates support the self-published writer
In fact, with their latest updates, Medium made it clear that they want to move away from supporting publications and help individual writers (more) instead.
3 top publications that closed lately due to the new updates
- A few months ago P.S. I Love You closed its doors because Medium pulled the plug on fundings. The editors chose it wasn’t worth their time to continue.
- A few weeks ago, Tom Kuegler announced he’ll shut down ‘The Post Grad Survival Guide’ for all submissions.
- As I mentioned at the beginning of my story, a few days ago the founder and editor-in-chief Steve Campbell surprisingly announced he’ll close ‘The Ascent’. He had a great time. He just wanted to move on after 5 and a half long hard years of running his ‘side project’.
I think more pubs will follow and I wonder who will be the next big publication to step up and take their place?
It’s sad but also exciting at the same time.
As Bebe Nicholson commented on my latest article on this topic:
‘When I first joined medium there was a huge publication called The Mission, and you would have thought the internet was shutting down from all the comments when they closed the publication.’
Let’s see where the changes will bring us.
There are around 1,5k Medium pubs
Attracted by the Medium Writers Challenge, hundreds of new subscribers joined Medium.
Especially in the early days of your Medium journey, you may feel frustrated. When you submit an article to a (bigger) publication you either get a generic rejection message or will be ignored.
When I started my journey on Medium, I took a free email course by Top Writer Tom Kuegler. In lesson 3 called ‘How to Contribute to Tons of Publications’ he introduced Smedian.
Smedian is a third-party Medium tool. It follows and ranks pubs of all sizes.
According to Smedian, there are currently 1,478 Medium publications that are accepting contributors.
Tom says in his email that ‘Medium is all about publications’. Submitting to pubs is a must.
Maybe the reason why you’re not getting much traffic is that you need your article to be published in a publication instead of being self-published. It’s an extension to your followers and you get in front of a much bigger audience.
Therefore he recommends using Smedian in order to request to contribute to Medium publications.
Final Thoughts
I want to come back to my initial questions: ‘Is it a worrying time or an evolution?’
As far as I’m concerned, I think it’s an evolution.
evolution = a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state (Webster Dictionary)
Things change on Medium. We adapt and move on.
I believe in publications. Although Tom Kuegler shut down his own pub, he recommends joining or opening one, for instance, Jonathan Townend, RMN. Founder -Creative Passions and his wife Carol Townend with ‘Creative Passions’ or Nancy Blackman with ‘Herb+Fettle’ successfully did this.
Moreover, I’m sure new opportunities will come our way.
- As my friend Jameson Steward (check out his profile) said: ‘It seems that Medium is trying to put tools in place to promote the individual writers. I’m starting to see more and more stories trending under a tag that aren’t in a publication.’
= In fact, tags are becoming more and more important. Tags are replacing topic pages.
- As my friend Kristina Segarra (check out her profile) stated: ‘This could also spur the growth of small pubs as writers from big pubs will be publishing more in smaller pubs.’
= Yes, that would be great to see. Moreover, there are new pubs emerging, such as ‘New Writers Welcome’ by Robert Ralph. It’s aimed at new starters.
I think more pubs will close their doors soon. It’s sad but also exciting at the same time.
I wonder who will be the next (big) publication to step up and take their place?
What are your thoughts?
PS: Dear ‘The Traveler’s Blog’ team (Cody James Howell PhD (Raiden), Glad Doggett, Anne Bonfert and Be Adventurer) thanks for the time and effort. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision to make. You’ll be missed. Thanks for the wonderful stories and for publishing my Medium Writer’s Challenge entry. I hope you’ll reopen someday in the future.
‘Sad but understandable. You guys were where I go my Medium start and taste of success (…)’ Will Hull
‘I enjoyed touring the world and learning through all of the great writers here!’ K. Barrett
‘I will miss the amazing travel stories that come in a bundle, altogether, in this publication.’ Suntonu Bhadra
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