Make Sure You Click the Box to Email Your Subscribers

Otherwise, they won’t get your new story.

Many Medium readers/writers have posted the comment that they have stopped receiving email notifications from their favorite writers whom they have subscribed to. I think I may have discovered why.

When you decide the new story you’ve been writing is complete and you hit Publish, you get a prompt asking if you want to Paywall, then another asking you to check the box to send an email notice about this story to your list of subscribers. I used to check this box all the time, but then a week ago I re-read the prompt and got a different message from it.

It says that clicking on this box will only send emails to those who have opted to receive them, not to all your followers. “Gee,” I thought, “if that’s the case, maybe I shouldn’t check the box — and that way ALL my readers will be notified, subscribers and followers alike!”

But that is NOT what the prompt means. The phrasing is unfortunate.

If you don’t check the box, NOBODY will receive email notification that you have published a new story. Followers never get these emails under any circumstances; only subscribers do. They have subscribed to get them, you see. Followers don’t want to be bothered.

Not everybody understands this. Maybe you are a loyal follower of a writer, and just assumed that you’d be emailed when a new story came out. But you won’t be, unless you’re a subscriber. Better check your status to make sure!