Summary

The author took a vacation from writing on Medium, publishing fewer long-form articles, yet still managed to grow their fan base and maintain their audience, although their earnings dropped to previous levels.

Abstract

In August, the author of the article took a break from their regular writing schedule on Medium due to real-life vacations, which led to a reduction in their usual content output. Despite the decrease in long-form articles published, the author's follower count continued to increase, albeit at a slower rate than when actively writing. The author's overall views and fan responses remained relatively stable, with an unexpected increase in reads. However, the author's earnings fell significantly, attributed to Medium's new payment model and the reduced number of long-form articles. The article concludes that while a consistent publication of long-form articles is crucial for revenue, a temporary break does not drastically impact audience retention.

Opinions

The author initially feared that a break from writing would significantly harm their online presence, similar to how a cheat day can affect diet progress.
They were pleasantly surprised to find that their fan base and views did not decrease as much as anticipated during their vacation.
The author believes that a brief hiatus from Medium can be compared to a single cheat day in a diet, suggesting that occasional breaks are manageable.
They express that maintaining a presence on the platform, even during a break, is important to not completely fall off the wagon.
The author notes that their earnings were negatively affected by Medium's new payment model, which impacted bonuses from converting non-member readers to members.
They observed that shorter articles, while helping to maintain daily publishing, do not generate as much revenue as longer pieces.
The author concludes that while consistent long-form content is key to earnings, a temporary reduction in publishing frequency does not lead to a proportional loss in audience engagement.

I Took a Vacation from Writing

Here’s what happened to my views, reads, fans, and earnings

In August, I took a vacation from reading and writing on Medium. I had to, because I was taking real-world vacations. But I was worried. I’ve spent five months building a following on the platform. Would that disappear if I wasn’t constantly putting out content?

You might be worried about the same thing. After all, we hear all the time that we need to be regularly producing content. Lots of content.

I was afraid that taking a break from writing would be like cheating on a diet. A few indulgent slices of chocolate cake can wipe out all the progress from months of celery sticks.

The good news is that a brief hiatus from Medium is like a single cheat day on your diet. You can survive it, as long as you don’t fall completely off the wagon.

What my vacation looked like

I started the month with a long weekend in Vail, Colorado, for my niece’s wedding. Then, I spent two weeks in New York visiting family. None of those were prime writing opportunities, although I did get plenty of material for stories.

The past few months, I’ve regularly published at least 20 long-form stories and 30 short-form stories. I did manage to publish seven long-form stories during the month. That was better than nothing, but about 1/3 of my usual output.

Fortunately, Katie Michaelson, the wonderful editor at The Daily Cuppa, let me submit bunches of short-form stories when I had the time to write. Then she published one a day. That way, I was able to continue publishing short-forms every day, even if I wasn’t writing every day.

Writing less, getting more fans

The biggest surprise to me was that, even though I wasn’t writing as much, I continued growing my fan base. I picked up an average of slightly more than 2 followers every day.

This is slower than my follower growth when actively writing. I’d been averaging slightly more than 3 followers every day for June and July.

Still, the point is, the number is growing, even if I wasn’t publishing 5 long-form stories every week.

Some stats actually improved

In general, my stats backslid, but not as badly as I feared. In fact, as you can see from this chart of the past few months, my overall number of views and fan responses did not go down very much. And my number of reads increased!

Part of this may be because one of my stories got a lot of exposure. Nearly 1/3 of my total reads for the month came from that story alone!

My views and fans were also impacted because I wasn’t reading and commenting on as many other authors’ articles as I normally do.

Show me the money

Of course, views, reads, and fans are nice. But at the end of the day, it’s important to know how much your stories are earning.

The new model of Medium payments for people who join the program hurt me badly this month. Normally, I get a sizeable boost from non-member conversions. With the new model, those conversion bonuses go to the people who were able to enroll the non-member readers.

As you can see, my revenues fell back to May levels. Part of this is because many of my views, reads, and fans came from my short-form stories. Medium pays by the minute, which means a 1-minute story simply isn’t going to generate as much revenue as a longer piece.

In July, my two top stories earned $69 and $14. In August, my two top stories earned slightly more than $9 and slightly less than $9. Quite a difference!

The depth of my bench was better in July, as well. 11 other stories earned at least $1. In August, only 7 other stories earned at least $1.

And before you start thinking I must’ve been writing better in August, since I only wrote 7 long-form stories — not so. Some of the stories that made at least $1 were written previously.

Conclusion

To recap the results of my writing vacation, I wondered what would happen when I cut my monthly long-form articles from 20 to 7.

My views and fans dipped slightly, but not as much as I expected. My read numbers actually went up month-to-month.

I also picked up 64 new followers for the month.

But my earnings dropped back to the level they’d been at in May.

This seems to indicate that you can maintain your audience even if you don’t publish as much. However, the steady publication of long-form articles is necessary to earn revenue.