avatarAttila Vágó

Summary

The article asserts that Medium writing courses are unnecessary and potentially deceptive, emphasizing that the platform's inherent simplicity and freely available resources provide ample guidance for writers to succeed organically.

Abstract

The author of the article advises against the use of Medium writing courses, suggesting that they are not only redundant due to the abundance of free and comprehensive learning material on Medium itself but also potentially misleading. These courses often promise writing success for a fee, despite the fact that success on Medium is more closely tied to one's personal writing skills and techniques, which cannot be directly taught. The platform's Help section and the Medium Creators Hub offer extensive advice that surpasses what courses might provide. Furthermore, the author highlights the value of learning organically by actively engaging with the platform and developing a unique style. This approach can lead to more genuine readership and potentially more rewarding monetary returns. The article encourages writers to take advantage of Medium's straightforward design and free resources, and to consider the personal journey and experimentation as key components to becoming a successful Medium writer.

Opinions

  • Medium courses are considered a "scam" because they may not offer content beyond what is freely available on the platform.
  • Writing success on Medium comes from personal skill development, which cannot be guaranteed through paid courses.
  • Medium's user-friendly interface and readily accessible resources are sufficient for new writers to learn without additional paid courses.
  • Organic growth in writing skills and audience leads to a more fulfilling and potentially more lucrative experience on Medium.
  • Medium's official resources, such as the Help section and the Creators Hub, provide invaluable and superior guidance compared to external courses.
  • Learning from others' experiences and taking time to understand the platform can be more beneficial than structured courses.
  • The article criticizes the marketing tactics of some courses that use free offerings to lead to paid course enrollments, capitalizing on the hope of writing success.

Medium Courses Are A Scam!

Use a bit of common sense. It’s cheaper, and you’ll gain a transferable skill.

Photo by Jad Limcaco on Unsplash

Go ahead. Google it. DuckDuckGo it, or whatever-search-engine-you-use it. Type in “medium writing course”. Go on. Humour me. Hit enter and be amazed by all the utter nonsense that will pop up on your screen. Links upon links, videos upon videos, so-called academies, Udemy crash-courses. Anything and everything you can imagine, designed to make you the best and most successful Medium writer there ever was. Now quickly close that tab and forget you saw any of it. You don’t need that.

If you managed to sign up for Medium, you already have the skills to use it.

What I see an increasing number of people assume is that Medium is complex, that one needs to learn how to use the platform, but that’s not really the case. Other than Twitter, Medium is probably the most straight-forward platform for writers. As for computer literacy, if you were able to sign up and log in, you pretty much know everything there is to know. The rest… the rest will either come organically as it does for most, or proactively by just reading articles on Medium, and before you say “well, Medium costs too”, let me remind you that all the learning material to be a successful — whatever success means to you — writer on this platform is offered entirely free, without even needing a subscription. All content written and curated by the best of the best, the number one experts on this platform — Medium themselves! Medium’s Help section is there for a reason. Read it.

But there’s more…

Anyone who intends to spend time on the platform, should stay up to date with its upcoming new features. This will help you potentially strategise your writing and publishing habits, or even choose your niche. Perhaps you were on your way to creating a podcast. That might not be needed any more with the new Listen feature. All I’m saying is, stay up to date. It takes very little time.

But that’s not all. Medium’s own creators hub is chock-full of goodies. This is advice that no course out there can outrank. If you really don’t want to go down the organic route, spend a few days reading articles in this section. It’s perfectly understandable if you don’t like winging it, and would prefer to start out your Medium journey with prior knowledge.

One word of advice, though. Anything you read, may or may not fully apply to you. This should not be unexpected. Writing is a personal journey and if you’re any good at it, you’ll develop your own style, strategy, and technique over time — be that on Medium or anywhere else. Use the existing training material as pillars to build your own learnings upon.

But we don’t all learn the same way…

And that’s very true. While some need a bit of structure, a learning phase to precede their writing, others, like myself, like to wing it, and I’ll be honest, there are some unique benefits to winging it. It fosters organic learning through discovery and experimentation.

The never-discussed benefit of the 100 follower requirement to join the Medium Partner Program (MPP) is the luxury to have the time to grow into a writer that people will want to pay for to read. When followers are gained organically, this means it could take as long as a whole year to reach your first 100 followers, but they’ll be mostly genuine readers, who will also stick around after you start monetising your stories because it makes a huge difference to your self-esteem when in your first month of MPP you make $20 instead of just $0.20.

The time you use to grow and learn organically on Medium by just reading other people’s stories, writing some of your own, will turn you into a potentially more experienced writer and content creator than your peers. I am not against accelerated learning, but just like a free-range chicken tastes better than an industrial one, the same applies to your writing journey. It’s less based on prescribed patterns and more on what work for you, and you learned from others who themselves learned a lot organically. For instance, while my primary focus on Medium is tech and software development, I do sometimes share with everyone else on Medium what, I think, is worth sharing about the platform, and you’re welcome to read some of them, if you think they’re worth your time.

The danger of Medium courses

Yes, even the free ones out there are dangerous. Don’t get me wrong, the content of the courses isn’t bad per se. Maybe some of it questionable, but generally speaking, it’s not bullshit, except that it’s nothing you can’t get for free on Medium already.

The second danger of Medium courses is that very often the free offering is merely an advertisement for the paid offering, which is where the scam begins. Even at $9.99 on Udemy, to pay that amount to “become a successful writer” is very misleading. The reality is that no amount of money you’ll pay on a course will make you a good writer.

You can learn all the ins and outs of Medium, if you’re a shit writer, it will all be worthless.

If you really, really want to spend your money on a course, find an actual writing course that may just polish your writing skills, which then you can use anywhere, not just Medium. Contrary to what all the Medium courses claim, there are no tricks to making it on Medium. The platform itself never claimed it will provide you with a full income, or any kind of reliable income. What it does promise you is that you will get paid for every single second that paid members spend reading your stories. The rest is entirely up to you, and no course can teach that. The platform itself is so simple to use and the help section is so well constructed that there is virtually nothing left to teach.

Medium courses are selling the hope of success, nothing more. Your money is better spent elsewhere.

Attila Vago — Software Engineer improving the world one line of code at a time. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, Lego fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer!

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