Introducing Medium’s Top 10 Writers In 2021
the most influential writers on this platform
Oftentimes we wonder who Medium’s Top Writers (and earners) really are.
Medium unfortunately doesn’t offer a list with its Top Writers.
Surprisingly, I found a site that ranks Medium’s top contributors.
It’s called Topauthors.xyz and it shows the Top 10 contributors.
What’s Topauthors.xyz?
This site ranks Medium’s creators based on their follower count.
It says that the top 10 Medium writers in 2021 are:
1 Gary Vaynerchuk (306K followers)
2 Tim O'Reilly (258K followers)
3 Benjamin Hardy, PhD (253K followers)
4 Larry Kim (233K followers)
5 Darius Foroux (232 followers)
6 Bernie Sanders (222K followers)
7 Ev Williams (221K followers)
8 Julie Zhuo (213K followers)
9 Jason Fried (213K followers)
10 Marc Andreessen (209K followers)
Here’s a screenshot of the leaderboard:
Most of the Top Writers are inactive
When I saw Gary Vaynerchuk is leading the ranking I started wondering.
Since I’m an avid follower of Gary I know that he’s not active on Medium (anymore).
He used to be active until 2018. Then he stopped creating content for this site.
I did a little research and indeed Gary seems to have the biggest follower base on this website, still, he’s not active but he could reactivate his account one day in the future if he would think Medium is worth writing for.
Apparently, he focuses on other social media channels.
I’ve checked the whole list of writers only Larry Kim, Darius Foroux and Julie Zhuo are still active.
PS: The owner of the site, Mubashar, also quit writing on Medium in 2020.
This site was his side project. It gets updated on a regular basis.
9 out of 10 Top Writers are male
Where are the female voices in this ranking? Is there only one female Top Writer with Julie Zhuo?
I couldn’t think of one with 200K+ followers. What about you?
Only 354 out of 200K authors are getting tracked
One flaw of the homepage is that it’s only tracking 354 authors.
Well, 354 writers aren’t much.
Since 2017 more than 200K writers have enrolled in the Medium Partner Program — according to Digiday.
You can suggest new authors
Still, the allows you to suggest authors.
As you can see, just for the fun of it (and because I want to see whether the owner Mubashar Iqbal will answer me) I recommended myself, Niharikaa Kaur Sodhi, Zulie Rane, and Sinem Günel because I couldn't find them on the list.
Final Takeaways
Medium doesn’t offer a ranking of the Top 10 creators.
Topauthors.xyz gives you at least a broad overview.
Still, you have to keep in mind that it tracks only 354 out of 200K authors and ranks them based on their follower count.
It doesn't show whether they are still active on Medium or have already quit writing on this platform.
My recommendation:
reach out to the owner and suggest yourself or another fellow writer you love. 😉
Just click on ‘Suggest an Author’ and you can send Mubashar a tweet.
PS: Zulie Rane (36K followers) liked my tweet. Apparently, she would love to join the ranks of the listed top writers 😉
Tell me your thoughts! Who’s a top writer you would recommend?
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