My last Medium Post
I started posting to Medium almost exactly two years ago today when I post this entry. My intention was never to get rich, but to open up another revenue stream, as well as another path of discovery.
At first, I was moderately successful. I was making coffee money every month (that is, enough money to buy a cup of coffee). That was about it. But that was enough.
Plus, I had a couple of people who I believe discovered me on Medium, then went ahead and signed up for my newsletter, or who found me on Facebook.
Then, Medium changed its algorithms, and I stopped making any money. I was gaining followers, though. The number of people following me has gone up almost every single month.
But I was no longer being paid for my work.
I’m a professional, full-time writer. I make my living from my writing.
There are things that I do for free, for discoverability. I’m okay with that.
However, as far as I can tell, Medium is no longer providing that discoverability.
I’ve enjoyed writing my Medium articles this last year. I’ve written about how to write for anthologies, how to read as a writer, the Heroine’s Journey, and other writerly things. I’ve written about the pandemic, waiting between vaccines, and dealing with aging. I also included more DIY projects, such as grouting tile.
And all the while, I saw my audience grow.
Yet, my income stayed suboptimal.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to be paid for your work. As I said before, I’m a professional writer who makes her living off her writing.
I started searching for various things on Medium, trying to find additional writers or publications that interested me.
I’m not sure what’s going on with Medium’s search algorithms. Every single publication or writer I found over the course of an afternoon turned out to no longer be publishing: their last article was back in 2018. Some had continued through 2020, but none of the links I followed had published in 2021.
Is Medium growing in directions that I’m not interested in? Possibly. This means that my chances of discoverability have decreased even more.
Plus, I wasn’t thrilled by Medium’s anti-union work last year.
So I started looking at my options.
I considered Substack, but that felt like adding a new platform, starting to build an audience from scratch, and possibly without the potential of discoverability that I had with Medium.
Instead, I’ve decided to double-down on my Patreon. Instead of posting over here on Medium, I’ll be posting regular essays over there. I will post some of them for free, but most of them are going to be at the $1 subscription level.
Will I continue to post once a week? Probably not. Not unless I find I have a lot more things to say. I was getting tired of these weekly articles. Will possibly go to twice a month or something lighter. That would mean one “technical” article, either DIY or writing-related, and one “lifestyle” article, about all the other stuffff.
If you’ve enjoyed my articles here, if you like my writing, please consider looking me up on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/leahcutter Consider supporting me there. For $1, you’ll get a lot more than just an article every once in a while. There will be short fiction. And if you fill out your address, I’ll occasionally send you things as well. (The $5/month level gets postcards every month.)
Or you can follow me on one of the other platforms I regularly post on:
I regularly write about my crazy life on my blog: www.leahcutter.com/blog
If you want to learn more about my writing, sign up for my newsletter: www.leahcutter.com/newsletter
Or follow me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/leah-cutter
You can also support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/leahcutter
Goodbye — and good luck!
