I gave up on Medium and I regret it.
New writers, don’t make my mistake!
I started my Medium journey in the last week of November 2023.
I got to know about this platform from books I read and YouTube videos I watched and then I decided to sign up to start writing.
For a little bit of context, I have been an online freelance writer for the past four years. If you are familiar with freelance writing, you would know that it can be very unstable sometimes when it comes to getting leads or clients. One month, you could be getting a lot of clients, and in another, it’s just crickets.
I decided to give Medium a shot.
I published my first story in the Short. Sweet. Valuable publication on the 24th of November. Really thankful to Martynas Ki. (@strangecash) and Justina Ki. for such a supportive publication.
Not so long after, I got a few claps and positive comments from Sherry Atkinson and E. Darian. I was quite amazed because I was not really expecting that as a new writer. It fueled my desire to write more.
Two days later, another story of mine was published in New Writer’s Welcome, another wonderful publication led by Robert Ralph.
In total, I published five stories in November, building an audience quite steadily as I kept writing.
It was in the months of December and January that I committed the grave mistake.
I wrote only seven stories in the whole month of December with my last story getting published on the 13th, and that was it. I ghosted writing for the rest of the month. It was much worse in January 2024 because I wrote only two stories — one on the 11th and the other on the 28th.
The reason? Well, even though I was gradually growing, I thought it was not enough especially looking at how others had lots and lots of followers. This translated to thousands of claps, text-painting highlights, and hundreds of comments.
I frequently compared the engagement I was getting from my stories to those of people who had been writing on the platform for years if not months when in fact what I was getting was pretty decent for a new writer.
I concluded that I just wouldn’t get very far anyway so I stopped writing. This, I regret.
After posting on the 28th of January, I just decided to read a few stories. That was when I sighted the astonishing growth of Carl Jeffers and others who had started writing on Medium about the same time I did. Unlike me, they were consistent and kept writing no matter what.
Supposing I stayed on track, I probably would have experienced an exponential growth as well.
Nevertheless, I am glad that things turned out the way they did because I have certainly learned a few lessons from my experience.
Before February started, I subscribed to be a member of Medium once again and have decided to be consistent this entire month. It’s been good so far and I have already started seeing some substantial growth in my stats.
I will share a detailed progress report at the end of this month. Fingers crossed.
So if you are a new writer here just starting out, I have just 3 pieces of advice for you:
1. Don’t give up no matter what. Keep writing and engaging.
2. Stop comparing yourself to more experienced writers here. They all started like you!
3. Keep track of your stats. They’ll motivate you to do better.
Wishing you all the best on your Medium journey!
Thank you so much for reading to the end.
If you found this helpful or can relate in any way do leave some claps or highlight and comment with your thoughts.
Also, if you loved my writing take a look at other stories of mine:
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