Two Months on Medium
My first impressions - the wonderful and not so wonderful aspects of Medium for me
I stumbled onto Medium while stumbling onto a YouTube video that was in my suggested video feed. (I never searched for anything on YouTube about writing.)
I am getting ready to retire from my decades-long career as a teacher, and I love to write, so this concept was appealing to me. Because of Covid-19, I could not see any family over winter break and was looking for something to do. I had just started my blog and thought the more I can write, the better.
This is exactly what happened. I loved writing my travel stories, remembering all those exciting adventures from my gap year and travels around the globe. I enjoyed researching the articles I submitted on various financial topics. I looked at poems I had written the last few decades and submitted a few untouched or revised.
Then I wrote some more poems. I have always loved writing, and I even write sample essays for my students for all essays I assign. However, beyond that my personal writing had ceased, just like the two guitars downstairs that I used to play during my college days are collecting dust. Perhaps in time I will pick them up as well and play again.
Aside from my appreciation that I can publish my writing here and that people read some of it and comment, there are also some annoying and confusing aspects of Medium.
Formatting tools are lacking and inefficient, and Medium does not follow accepted formats for publishing. It took a while to get used to Medium’s preferred formatting, which (as I was told) was to accommodate readers who access Medium primarily on the phones.
Medium also wants us to use the internal images. After a couple of warnings to label my images correctly, I adjusted. I had also erroneously assumed that I would not have to label my own pictures, but was advised that I was incorrect in that assumption. Okay, I tell my students to get used to MLA and other formatting styles, so all of this was no big issue overall.
Another somewhat annoying or confusing aspect is the earnings potential. After I watched the YouTube video on Medium, I kept getting more video suggestions and noticed a couple of YouTubers that really hyped Medium as a great source of income. I was not looking to make money, but I don’t really dislike earning more, so I listened in.
Then, of course, I did my own research and found an article about that on Medium claiming that “most writers — 94.6%, in fact, last month — make less than $100 per month.” That would mean that barely 5% of writers here make enough money to go out for a nice dinner.
Various bloggers claim a varying degree of monetary success, but even though most people who publish on Medium make some money, most make little. I have to say that the few dollars I have earned so far do not allow me to see much income potential, but who knows?
Really confusing is the advice from people who found success here. Write well researched and well-documented articles of at least five minutes reading time, they say. However, my articles that fit that definition have hardly made anything while some of my short poems have made more.
In addition, it is difficult to know what publications to join. It was helpful that one publisher asked me to join his publication, which is a good fit. I applied to another that accepted me right away; the publisher actually sent a personal email — while another I applied to never responded at all.
I wish there were a directory of publications including information on how to best apply. Researching this for every publication is tedious and time-consuming.
Overall, I enjoyed these two months of writing here. I assume I will continue this for a while and see. I enjoy the community here, and I have enjoyed reading other writers’ articles and poems. So, as long as I will recoup my $50 annual membership fee, I will feel that I am doing all right.
