Hello Friends!
We’re in our final approach for the holiday season, and I thought I’d bring you another update on what’s going on in the world of writing. I read a interesting post by Veronica Llorca-Smith titled “Goodbye Medium: Why I Quit With 6,100 Followers [And what others are saying]”. I appreciated that she included comments from a variety of well known writers on Medium, so I thought I’d offer my thoughts (they’re going to be positive thoughts because I thought the article was very good).
First of all, here’s my Medium profile:
I just hit 50.5k followers, but I’ve been sitting at that number for a long time. I’m also at 158 Boosted stories. I’d actually be really interested to know which writer has written the most Boosted stories. I expect there’s probably somebody sitting there at 400 or so, but I bet there’s a big drop-off after that.
Growth has slowed down lately:
Over the last year, I’ve worked really hard to understand and conform to the Boost guidelines. It’s been interesting to review some of the things I posted a few years ago and compare them to the work I’m doing now. I’ll often repurpose work for Substack, but usually I feel I have to do quite a bit of editing.
This leads me to conclude that my work has gotten better over the years, and I think writing to the expectations of Boost has a lot to do with that. Still, I haven’t had any stories Boosted in December, and I only had one story Boosted in November.
I think my biggest takeaway from the Boost program is that it allowed me to get to know a whole bunch of really talented publication editors. Over the next month (heck, maybe forever), I’m going to reserve a portion of my newsletter to “Celebrate Good People.” I’ve realized that one of the things that bothers me about modern times is that awful people get all the praise, and good people are never given any credit. That made me sad until I realized I had a platform and I could celebrate good people on my own (but I’ll get to that later).
Anyway, working with the editors has been a blast. Throughout Boost, I knew there were always publication editors who were looking for quality stories, so I tried to submit one or two to each of them every month. I also know that a lot of writers are scrambling for money, so I looked at this as a way of getting money in their pocket as well as mine (win-win).
But these days, it’s a lot harder to get Boosted and it feels like change is on the horizon at Medium. I’m spending more of my time over there as an editor rather than a writer, though I’m still publishing a lot of stories.
Before I go much further, let me just say that I have no intention of quitting Medium and I still recommend it to writers as an important/necessary platform. One of the main things I’ve seen in my 30+ years working in writing (one way or another), is that things always change. Actually, the run I’ve had on Medium has been unusual since it’s been so stable for so long. Change was overdue.
As a writer, you can’t afford to become stressed or frustrated when you encounter change. That’s wasted energy. Instead, you have to read the room and adapt both your approach and your expectations.
How to Use Medium in 2025
I still see Medium as the best place to get immediate attention and compensation for a quality article even if you don’t have a huge following. The model they’re using feels a lot like the old submission model writers used before the internet era.
In those days, you’d type out a story, stick it in an envelope, send it to an editor, and hope it would be accepted for publication. The idea was that you’d get your work featured in a publication with 50k subscribers or whatever. Then, if those people wanted to learn more about you, they’d go and buy your book (although that was unlikely).
All that’s different today. Today we have platforms that allow us to build followings of 50k ourselves. However, the caveat is that the platforms actually own those followers, not necessarily the authors (it’s complicated).
Through Medium’s Boost program, an author with a story to tell can submit to Medium, get a Boost, and be seen (and paid) through a model that’s similar to the old snail mail submission process. The advantage is that the process only takes about a week. In the past, writers had to sit around waiting for months on end.
Folks, I’m telling you, you don’t understand the benefit of a prompt rejection. That’s a get out of purgatory free card.
Even though fewer of my stories are getting Boosted, I’m still having success with the stories I nominate. I’ll go through and edit a story to the Boost expectations as I understand them. I just had a writer tell me that her story made over $250, and she was quite pleased with that.
Now, there are times when a story really catches an updraft and you can make $1,000 or more, but that’s rare. I’ve only had 5 stories make $1,000 (one is almost at 3k). I have 3 more at $800, 2 at $700, 2 at $600, and 7 at $500. In the prime days of Boost, I’d get as many as 15 stories Boosted in a month. If you can average around $200 for Boosted story, that’s $3k!
The other side of this is that if you can get $50 per story, you have to write 20 stories to make $1k in a month. Honestly, that’s also fine, but I’d prefer to get a little more. The point is that $1000 per story is not reasonable to expect. I doubt the platform can sustain it.
Consider how much you can reasonably expect to write in a month
The thing is, none of this is relevant if you don’t have the time to produce 20 quality articles in a month. I think that’s something that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. A lot of writing newsletters are offering advice from the perspective of a full-time writer.
I’m a full time writer. These days I’m doing 20 articles for Medium per month, 30 articles for Substack, 30 podcast episodes, and 12 chapters of a fantasy book for my kids. That’s a lot of words every month. I have more darts to throw at the board. When you’re throwing more darts, it increases your chances of hitting the bullseye.
For me, Substack offers a convenient model. I am easily able to produce content every day. Also, a lot of my content is repurposed from Medium where I’ve already published 1,419 articles. I could republish an article from Medium on Substack every day and have enough content for almost 4 years (probably 3 because I’ve already used quite a few articles).
However, if you are only interested in writing one or two articles a month, then Medium is the way to go. From what I’ve seen, the best model on Substack is to post once or twice a day. If you are doing 24 posts a year, I’m not sure you’ll get a lot of paid sponsorships.
So, here’s what I’ve been telling people to do:
* Start on Medium
* Build a following
* Build a portfolio of writing
* Work with editors to improve your work
Then, once you’ve developed a quality portfolio, it’s easier to launch a Substack. Now, this is not to say that this is the “right” way. It’s just that I’ve talked to a lot of writers who become overwhelmed by the settings and options of various platforms. They turn to me and say “I didn’t sign up for all these technological tutorials! I’d rather be writing!”
Hence the name of this newsletter.
How I can give back
As of right now, December of 2025, Medium remains the best way for me to give back to my readers. I’m always looking for quality stories to Boost. If you read my newsletter and follow my tips, you should have a good idea as to the form and style of the kind of content Medium prefers. Again, that evolves all the time, so we have to stay up to date.
Medium has just launched a new tool that allows editors to feature certain stories on their publication. Because this tool is new, we don’t really know the impact it is going to have. I tried using it on one story, but I don’t have the data yet to determine how well it worked. I’ll keep experimenting.
I do enjoy taking a few minutes a couple times a week to look over drafts from my readers. If you let me leave comments in Google Docs, I can help you hammer the article into shape. Naturally, if you don’t like my suggestions, you’re free to reject them. I believe that writers must retain the ownership of their work (it’s your name on the byline).
So, I fully anticipate that I’ll continue to recommend that writers launch a Medium account. If you’re going to publish with any frequency, you’ll likely make back the $60 membership fee, and you’ll learn a lot in the process. If I can help you get something Boosted, it’s not unreasonable to expect a $200 payday.
Now, I realize that’s not retirement money, but it’s a legitimate and achievable starting point. I often get frustrated with the various writer newsletters out there that fleece readers out of thousands of dollars on the false promise that they have the “secret” to making thousands of dollars writing.
Put it this way, if you pay $1,000 to a newsletter for a course, you better make $1,000 with the information you learn. I wouldn’t charge that because I couldn’t make that guarantee. I do feel $100 is a reasonable amount because I’m confident you could apply what I teach and make that money back. All that being said, I prefer to keep my newsletter free so you can see the value of the information before you pay for it.
I had been chatting with Kristina God about offering a course in the upcoming months, so I’ll keep you informed about that. In addition, I do my bimonthly question and answer sessions for paid subscribers. That has to be paid because if you put the link out live on the internet, you get people who show up just to disrupt.
My plans for Medium
Medium remains a great platform for publishing. My portfolio of Boosted stories continues to bring in a passive income, and my following is large enough that I get a decent return on new stories even when they’re not Boosted.
I enjoy editing and nominating stories, so I’ll continue to do that as long as I’m part of the program. 2025 promises to have many changes, so I’ll roll with those changes as they come. I’ve been through ups and downs with Medium, but it’s a wonderful corner of the internet and I enjoy spending time there. I expect I’ll be releasing 20-30 articles a month on Medium for the foreseeable future.
I’ll also continue to advise writers to start there and work the platform a few months before coming to Substack. You could build both platforms simultaneously, but that can feel overwhelming. If you’re curious about writing and you have a great story that needs to be seen immediately, Boost is still one of your best choices.
The Celebrating Good People Initiative
Today I want to celebrate Linda Caroll who writes “Hello, Writer!” Linda inspired me a few weeks ago with this article about her plan to post about people she admires. She’s right. All we get in the news is people complaining about awful people who are causing harm. We need to spend our time celebrating good people who are making the world better.
Linda is one of the editors I’ve really enjoyed working with on Medium. She does a publication called “On, Reflection” that always offers thoughtful and positive content. If you read Linda’s work, you’ll find a certain, distinctive rhythm that is highly poetic. Almost every time I read something by Linda, I feel inspired to go and write something of my own. There are quite a few “catalyst” type writers out there that provide me with a kind of creative momentum and Linda is one of them.
Linda edits with a very light touch, and if something isn’t a fit for her publication she’s very kind about it. On more than one occasion, she’s told me that a submission wasn’t a good fit, and that feedback is probably more valuable to me than when she publishes something. Being a writer is all about making inferences, and Linda helps provide you with vital information in a way that’s both clear and kind.
We need more people like Linda! Thanks for the work you do!
That’s it for today, be sure to comment and don’t forget to subscribe (if you haven’t already):
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