Medium Emails Explained in Snapshots
“The Edition” — Member Only Newsletter — and “the Digest” or the Medium Weekly Digest / Medium Daily Digest plus Medium “Emails from writers”
If you are a paying member of Medium, you can subscribe to the weekly newsletter called “The Edition”.
To subscribe to the weekly member’s newsletter email, called “The Edition”, you will need to click on your Avatar (the round picture or icon at the top right which represents you), then on Settings.
Ensure the box next to “The Edition” is ticked if you see it (which you will only see if you are a paying member) in order to receive “The Edition” emails.
If you no longer want to receive “The Edition” emails, un-tick the box.
“The Edition”: written by the Vice President (VP) of the Editorial team
This is a weekly email for paying members only, focused on a “theme”. For example, the 19th February 2021 edition focused on the Medium Publication “Level”.
It comes out on the Friday or Saturday, and arrives in your In Box as being sent by, or from “Medium Membership.”
At the time of writing this article, it includes links to articles written by Medium staff, and by commissioned writers in the Medium-run Publications, like One Zero, Forge, and Level.
It may include links to stories written by other writers, which Medium thinks are relevant to the theme. The authors will be professionals, i.e. those with academic and business qualifications.
It may include links to articles in “the Creators Hub” which is a little-known Blog which features articles by independent or “private” individuals, and by Medium staff, relating to the writing and promoting of Medium stories.
You can also subscribe to weekly or monthly Digest Emails, via your Settings. The content of these emails is described later in this article.
Select Daily or Weekly for the frequency of the Digest emails.
If you have receipt of the Digest Emails on, you can turn off receiving them here, if you want to.
Did You Know?
A private individual writer on Medium who writes about writing and whose story about writing tips catches “the eye” of a Medium staff member, may have their story featured on the “Creators Hub.”
If this happens to you, you will receive an email about this. You may see the label “Featured” on the stats graph for the featured story BEFORE you receive the Email. 😄
“The Medium Digest”
This is a customised “Digest” which you can opt to receive either daily or weekly. 😃
If you tick a Weekly frequency under your Settings, it comes out on Fridays.
This email includes stories from people and stories in Publications, which fall into one or more of the following 6 categories.
.
(1) FROM YOUR FOLLOWING
6 stories either from people that you are following or which are stories in Publications that you are following.
I haven’t tested this out to see how many of my own stories are shown to my Followers, or tested at what rate my stories are shown to my Followers. I have tracked back to find that the last five Digests contain different writers in each email.
It is logical that the amount and frequency of stories shown to Followers would depend upon how many writers and Publications that my Followers are following and upon how often the people, who are being followed by my Followers, publish on Medium.
(2) WEEKLY HIGHLIGHTS
3 or 4 stories which may include-
- Stories which Medium’s programme “thinks” or calculates that you may be interested in, because they are related to your interests that you customised for yourself. These stories may be from writers and / or publications that you are NOT following. However, they are supposedly related to an interest that you are following (see the article below).
2. Stories from the Medium Editorial team and/or from Ev Williams, Medium’s founder.
3. Stories from the Creators Hub.
P.S. I am not sure how the “programme” picks out these esteemed stories.
(3) IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
3 stories related to your interests, whether by people or in Publications that you are following or not.
(4) QUICK READS
Three 4 minute reads based upon your interests, whether by people or in Publications that you are following or not.
(5) BASED ON YOUR READING HISTORY
3 stories based upon your reading history, whether by people or in Publications that you are following or not.
(6) BEST IN [ topic name here ]
2 or 3 “Best in Topics of interest” stories, according to the topics that you have selected to follow under your Medium Settings. 1 to 3 Topics will be included. For example, my latest Weekly Digest shows “Best in Marketing” and “Marketing” is one of the Topics that I follow.
The Digest, whether weekly or daily, is CUSTOMISED FOR YOU. The content of your Digest will probably differ substantially from somebody else’s.
Here is what the Email entry in my In Box looks like, for my March 26th Weekly Digest.
Note: the information in this article is correct at the time of writing this, April 2021. Medium changes things a lot, including the names of their Emails, and the type of content and format of their emails!
I started with Medium back in November 2018. At that time, the newsletters were sent out to MPP members only, as MPP newsletter emails.
Back then, they had statistics on the earnings of writers in the Medium Partner Program (MPP).
“The MPP newsletters” used to be titled“Partner Program updates”.
Then the title was changed in 2020 to “Medium Writers Newsletter” and now in 2021 it’s called “The Edition.”
It used to be sent to MPP members only, but is now sent to paying members who subscribe to “The Edition” via their Medium settings, whether they are in the MPP or not.
It used to include stats on pay-outs and more useful info than it does now!
Sometime in late 2020, the newsletters stopped including stats on Earnings payouts, of which an example is shown below.
Now these emails are called “The Edition”. Who knows what they will be titled soon, or what they will contain, or if the frequency will change, e.g. they may be issued monthly only.
I am not happy that the earnings payouts disappeared from the MPP Newsletter emails!
At some time, Medium also started to send out monthly emails to to all Medium users, who have their settings configured to receive these emails.
These go to those with an “account” or signed up with Medium, even if they are not a paying member. They don’t have to be a paying member or in the MPP. They are for actual and potential writers, and are directed toward anyone with a writing interest in Medium.
This email newsletter was called “The Top Edit” until November 2021, and was renamed the “Creator Newsletter.”
You can receive it if you tick the box next to “Writing updates and announcements” under “Updates for Writers” on your Settings page.
Medium’s official Help article covers the different emails from Medium, click on the link below.
https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004745947
Handy Tip: if you scroll down your Medium homepage, on the right, you will see “WHO TO FOLLOW” under “READING LIST”. Under WHO TO FOLLOW you will see the following links.
Click on Blog to go to Medium’s official Blog “the 3 Min(ute) Read” AND to go from there to the Creators Hub by clicking on “Creators Hub” at the top.
Emails from Writers and Publications
If you were wondering what the option for “Emails from writers” under “Emails from Writers and Publications” in your Medium settings refer to, the answer lies in 2 articles that I’ve written. Start with the one below!
Thanks for reading! If you got use from this article, feel free to visit my personal Publication, “Celine’s Creations” (click on the link below) and to browse through my Medium Publications for more useful information about working with Medium. 😄
