I’m Not a Fan of the New Creator Program
Almost everything it’s supposed to do, it probably isn’t going to do.
When I first heard of the new program they were launching, I thought it was a great idea. As I’ve taken time to think about it, I’m not so sure anymore. From an angle of supporting excellent, smaller writers? It’s good… ish. From the angle of it being motivational? Not even ish.
Let’s take a look at what these creator programs are likely supposed to be doing.
Support Excellent Writers
This aspect is pretty good! If the idea is giving smaller writers some financial stability and security, this is a way to do it. If it’s about giving people who are on the fence a reason to stay, this is a great strategy.
Give Incentive to Write
If Medium sees there are people who are getting great numbers on their stories but they don’t write often, this is a great incentive for those writers. If a writer is writing less than four stories a month, this will give them a reason to write at least four stories each month.
Give Incentive to Improve
By letting us know about this a little bit in advance, this could be seen as a way to push smaller writers to try harder and write more. If they continue to add people each month, this could potentially work.
Get People to Write In Specific Topics
I’m not sure what topics they’re trying to push but I imagine Medium does have specific topics they want to be seen. This could be a great way to get writers to write more of what Medium wants them to write.
Those are some of the things that the new creator program may be trying to do. I may have been a little optimistic about how good they are though, lol. I’m now going to break these down and show what I believe is wrong with them.
It Isn’t Very Supportive
Unless I’m mistaken, these minimum payouts aren’t additive. That’s to say, if you do make more money than the minimum payout offers, they’re not going to give you that money as extra.
While getting this support is great, the moment you do “too well” it’s lost all value.
There’s No Incentive to Write
The problem here is that they set the bar WAY to low if the idea was to get excellent, smaller writers to write more. I’m not sure what exactly the qualifications are but it just seems like you have to write four stories. There might be specifications on what you have to write but that’s such a low number.
The idea might be to make it easy and accessible. The problem is when you tie just how little you have to write to make the minimum payout and the fact that you lose all value of that payout if you do too well…. I can see a lot of people doing the minimum and collecting as much value from the program as possible.
No Prior Warning Means No Time to Improve
If they were trying to push smaller writers to try and do well enough to join the creators program, they dropped the ball hard. You can’t keep this stuff a secret and let people know pretty much as you’re offering the program.
Honestly, I don’t think this was at all a part of their strategy, though it should have been. They should have told us all about this a few months in advance. It would have helped motivate those who really wanted to succeed to do their best. To push harder and write more.
People Might Write Specific Content, IF They’re In the Program
If one of the qualifications to get the payout is you have to write about a certain topic, than yeah, you’ll get the people in the program to write about those topics. For the rest of us? We’ll write about what we want and/or what we think people want to read.
The contest they’ve started is potentially a great way to get people to write what you want. The creator program? Not for the vast majority who didn’t get in.
We went over what they might be trying to do. We went over how they’re generally failing if that’s what they’re trying to do. Now, let’s talk about what they could do to succeed in these goal. In some cases, what they should have done or do in the future.
Minimums Are Great but What If I Surpass Them?
What I think should be done is that the minimum should be on top of whatever you earned with your writing. Kind of a pre set bonus instead of a minimum payout. They likely would have had to reduce the numbers but I think plenty of people would have been fine with a guaranteed 50 or 100 dollar bonus if they followed a few rules and guidelines, for example.
If you’re thinking that’s just what the bonuses were, you’re kind of right. The difference is that by being in the program, you know you’re getting that bonus. It cuts out the worry about whether you made it or not.
Four Stories is Way to Low of a Number
I’m a prolific writer but four stories? That’s it? Honestly, this is just ripe for those who got in to game the system. Crap out four stories and sit back and wait for their money at the end of the month.
I’m not in the program but what I’ve gathered from what other people have written, the minimum work required is really low. I get they didn’t want to make it too difficult but it definitely feels like they went to far in the opposite direction. A writer simply isn’t going to grow by much if they only write 4 stories a month. I don’t think they expect most of their writers to only write this much but that only further emphasizes my point of the lack of value in the system.
If they really wanted to get good writers to write more they should have taken a page out of some of the other platforms book. Newsbreak for example required something like 20 stories to get their minimum payout, which was quite generous, by the way.
I would suggest anywhere from 8 to 12 stories a month. This might be a lot for some people but considering they’re giving you a minimum payout, it makes sense that you should have to do a bit more work if need be to get it.
Why Didn’t They Give Us Time to Improve?
I’ve only just started a little over two months ago and there’s a good chance I wouldn’t have gotten in even with warning. For others though, they received no such warning. Sure, we’ve had the bonuses to push people to do their best but it would have been all the more incentive if we’d known about the program a few months in advance.
It would have been a kind of “Well, I didn’t get the bonus but I can try and meet the requirements to join the new program!” kind of scenario. This one is simple. They should have actually let us know what was going on ahead of time.
With Such a Low Requirement, There’s Little Incentive to Write About What They Want
I don’t know if part of their requirement is that you write about specific topics. If it is though, with such a low number of stories required, they likely aren’t going to get nearly as many as they might want. Sure, it might push those numbers up a bit but it could have been so much higher.
If they’re trying to guide Medium in a certain direction, this isn’t going to make much of a difference. If they want people to write about more specific topics, they need to give us incentive to do so. For example, does being a top writer in a tag do anything? It doesn’t seem to. Seems like it might be a good idea to “distribute” writing from authors with top writer tags, at least the stories that feature those tags.
Whew… this was long! I’m going to end it here with a few final thoughts. I think that the idea behind this new creator program is good but the execution isn’t. It lacks real value, incentive or direction. There’s a good reason why so many people would rather have the bonuses than this new program, if we’re being honest.
What do you guys think? Am I way off? Am I just a whiner who has to crap on something because he didn’t get into it? Am I a brilliant forward thinker who should be in charge of Medium! Okay, probably not that last one, lmao. I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas! What did I miss? What do you think could make this better?