Subscribe To Get An Email Whenever A Story is Published
You may have noticed that some Medium writers have now got a little envelope icon at the top of their profile page and next to their bio, as shown in an example below, for an inspiring writer Charlene Fate . 😃
This is related to an email subscription function which was quietly brought in by Medium recently. Having thoroughly explored this function, I have found that a Medium writer can decide whether to send out an email to subscribers, about her/his self-published stories, and her/his stories in a Publication.
Go to your Settings and under “Audience Development”, click on “Promote subscriptions”. From there, you can get your own URL to give to whoever you like, to subscribe to your emails with links to stories (that you choose on a story by story basis whether to send out or not). The person signing up will have to sign up for an account with Medium, if she/he doesn’t have one already.
Tick or check the box next to the following message.
On profile and story pages
Display a promotion after the second story on your profile, and at the bottom of every story page.
This will toggle / turn on the little envelope icon at the top and side of your Medium profile page, for email subscribers. Also it displays the default or your customised message for signing up, at locations listed above. You can customise your message by clicking on “Edit message”, then typing in your “Headline” and other supporting information, then clicking on “Save”.
You can also get a web address or URL for your own Email Subscribers Landing Page by clicking on “Copy” under “via your subscribe page.”
Speaking for myself, I like this feature, and have it activated. Currently I have two subscribers, who knows why there are not more? The possibilities could be:
- My followers are content with just following me, and don’t want emails with links to my stories in their In Box.
2. My followers don’t know about the email subscription function.
3. Non-followers who come across my stories don’t want emails with links to my stories in their In Box.
As I mention in my articles on this subject, emails are NOT sent out automatically. I choose which articles/stories I send out emails for, partly on the basis of the rate of stories that I write.
Rather than inundate a subscriber with one email a day from me, I will click “send” for those stories which I believe are more interesting or useful to people, in general.
I would love Medium to have the option to send out a weekly digest email, which would make it simpler and easier for writer and reader to keep track of, and to find weekly emails from Medium writers.
This is what I have told Medium in a recent survey that I completed for them. I suspect that a big reason why people don’t sign up for emails is that they don’t want to be deluged by emails. Receiving a weekly Email Digest from a writer could help decrease the number of emails that a subscriber receives.
The survey that I completed a couple of months ago asked the survey participants if they liked the word “Follower” or the word “Subscriber”.
I responded that I liked the use of the label “Follower” for those interested in my stories on Medium.
Also I pointed out two things.
- If Medium wants to change the word “Follower” to “Subscriber”, they might want to change “Following” to “Subscriptions” ( or to subscribees, if that is a word ).
- If Medium changes “Follower” to “Subscriber”, well then, they had best look at the “Subscribe by Email function” and discriminate between this function and “Subscribe” if they use “subscribe” to replace “follow.”
Perhaps Medium will re-vamp the “Follower” function and will call followers “Subscribers”, with the options to “follow on Medium only” or to “sign up for emails with links to a writer’s stories”, or to both, “follow on Medium and sign up for emails”.
I noted one big change that Medium has made to the Email Subscription process.
Before now, only Followers of a writer could see a message on someone’s profile page to subscribe to emails. NOW any Medium writer who has turned the email subscription function on (under their Settings) has the envelope icon, meaning one doesn’t have to be a Follower in order to subscribe by email to someone’s stories.
What does this mean, practically?
I can hit the “Subscribe by email” icon for those writers whose stories I love to read and support, even if I am not following them. If I want their stories to appear in my newsfeed I can follow them.
It’s more likely to happen the other way around for me.
That is, I’m more likely to focus on the writers I’m following, and if they have the Email Subscription icon on their profile page, click on it, to get their emails.
Why would I do this when I can just “follow” them on Medium.
The answer is that the writers that I follow are all very important to me. I may not see some of their new stories come up in my newsfeed because of the amount of content that comes up and changes.
So if I get Emails from them, I can do a quick preview and then decide whether to go to their profile page (or story) on Medium, to read. I don’t want to miss out on new stories by the revered people whom I subscribe to.
On the flip side, I wonder, does that mean that I am not revered, LOL. Just joking because I think that people are content with “following” and in general, don’t want more emails, and that is why they don’t subscribe to many writers.
When you see a solid colored Envelope Icon on a Medium member’s profile page, you will know that you haven’t subscribed. Once you subscribe, the envelope becomes an outline of an envelope (not solidly filled in) and thus if looking at profile pages you see a SOLID COLORED envelope icon, this means that you have NOT subscribed to the person’s emails!
A writer with the email subscription option turned on, can download an Excel report with Email Addresses only of those who have opted to receive emails.
I have just found that Medium’s “3 Min Read” blog has info about updates to their Email Subscription function. On your Stats overview page, you will know see “Audience stats” at the top right. Click on this “button” and if you have any email subscribers, you can click on “View details” under Email Subscribers to see the usernames and email addresses of Medium members who are following you! 😄
Complete information about the Email Subscriber function can be found in the 2 articles that I have written, which are current at this time.
Finally, I have been writing on Medium for over 2 years now. As I love technical writing and supporting others, I have written many articles on how to work with Medium. You can read those at the page below!
