Did Your Earnings TANK? This May Be Why

A regular reader explains why he can’t find me

Here is what I received today from someone who likes my stuff (there’s no accounting for taste):

Prior to about four weeks ago, I would get a notification on my phone every time you published something. Same thing with everyone I followed. As a matter of fact, I had to trim down my “following” list, because I was getting so many notifications. Of course, I still kept you on.

But now, every time you publish something, I get zero notification. As you say…crickets. I get only one or two notices a day now from Medium about stories being published.

Needless to say, if that is the case for everyone that’s following you, that’ll cut your stats off at the knees. If the people who WANT to read your stuff are not notified you’ve published, this HAS to be due to something Medium has done.

I’ve tested this out over the past few days. I had to wait while you published a few things. And confirmed it…I am NOT getting notified when you publish something. And hardly anyone else, compared to the amount of notifications I WAS getting.

So just NOW, I “unfollowed” you and re-followed you. Let’s see if that activates the notification fairy at Medium. I’ll let you know if I start getting notifications from you again.

If I do, then I guarantee…it’s a glitch on Medium’s side that’s cost their most popular writers (probably all of them) a lot over the past month. (author bolded)

I saw an article recently by someone who was calling folks like me out for barking at Medium about their changes. Clearly Sparky doesn’t count on his income as a few of us do; while his $7.89 cents a month might buy him a Starbucks, those of us who invested several YEARS of very hard work developing a following and honoring those people by doing what all those Brand New But SUPER EXPERT Writers are telling the rest of us to do: comment, include, link, engage, encourage, etc.

We have been, Sparky, that’s why we have followers. Followers whose very hard-earned pennies have been pick-pocketed out of our accounts by Medium because of stuff like the above. My stats fell so far that I am sweeping them up from the basement. If people who like you can’t find you, Skeezix, then it ain’t something I did, not something the writer did.

Medium did this. I have sent note after note after note after note. Crickets. Unanswered. Of course they go unanswered. I’d be embarrassed as shit myself if the actions I took completely torpedoed the earnings of my most prolific writers.

I’d love to have not been right. But it appears that I am. Thanks to my reader for letting me know. For what it’s worth, if YOUR stats did what mine did, this is likely why. And I’m not alone. I have heard from a buncha deeply unhappy, very disappointed people.

I don’t have an answer. Medium’s answer so far is to dodge the issues and leave those of us who have toed the line, built a following and worked our asses off to make this platform what it used to be and is no longer to start all over again.

Not an admirable way to treat talent. Not a good business model for building loyalty. Yes, I’m angry. But not just for my part. I’m angry for the writers and editors and folks who, like me, got knifed in the creative gut. That those of us who have repeatedly written in and asked for an explanation have received nothing in return, should tell you and me all we need to know.