I used to have my own business. Sometimes people would give me advice on how to run that business. Most of it was not good because they were not seeing the big picture like I was seeing.
I am giving Medium some advice. I don’t have the big picture.
When reading this article, keep in mind that I really appreciate Medium. It has been the best forum for me to get my ideas out of my head and into the world. While results are not what I wanted, being “out there” has been a great cathartic release for me.
My new Medium strategy
After the November 5 election, I changed my Medium strategy. I was writing more directly to my alternative democracy. I thought the second term of Donald Trump would generate more interest in this idea. I was wrong. My Medium traction was cut by 75% with direct writing. The world wants the current system to fix itself, which I’m sure will not happen.
My new viral article
Nonetheless, I published an article on March 6 that became my best earner since I joined Medium six years ago.
The Economic Elephant in the Room
But I didn’t think this article was anything special over my other articles. But don’t get me wrong. I’m happy for the extra revenue that article brought. I’m even more happy that I got to introduce my alternative democracy to at least another 1000 Medium readers.
But my befuddlement to this article’s success started connecting a few more dots together into how Medium works. Maybe my insights might be useful to Medium.
The Medium pubs “kind of” help
In October, I did a statistical analysis of the pubs I had published on. The general conclusion I came to is that the pubs help my traction, but only a little.
Do Medium Pubs Enhance Readership?
When I publish independently on Medium, I need only hit the “Publish” button to make the article go live.
If I publish to a Medium pub, there is not an “instant live.” I have been ghosted. I have been excessively delayed. I have been rejected. While writers should expect this treatment, it still saps a little energy from me.
Pub editors often have good suggestions. And sometimes they are a little too picky. To deal with these suggestions, a little energy is taken away from me — when compared to independent publishing.
But for only a little bit of extra traction, my extra efforts to go the pub route have not been rewarded well.
The pub owners need a cut
The previous section outlines my frustration in dealing with pubs. If the pubs could find me more traction, the extra hassle might be worth it.
But the pub owners also have their frustrations. The pub owners spend time reading my work, finding a typo here and there, which probably should not be there. Occasionally they point to clumsy sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes they have a style guide they want to maintain, and this writer tends to pay attention to his own style guide. I suspect my pub owners spend a half hour with my article before it goes live. They too have invested in my article.
And I suspect that some pub owners reluctantly accept some articles, mostly because they do not want to discourage writers from submitting their better articles later.
Recently, I had an article where the pub owner replaced my chosen photo.
How Retail Work Shaped a New Masculinity
His photo was indeed better than mine. From this photo’s caption, I suspect the pub owner paid for that photo. This was “going beyond” a reasonable effort to improve my article.
Right now, it is impractical for writers and pub owners to engage in serious editing. In my pre-Medium times, I paid for my editors. My writing improved when they told me that “this sentence is not working for me” or “this paragraph is not logical.” We need to bring this level of editing to Medium.
But if pub owners are not paid, they cannot justify anything more than a superficial effort in editing. To get more commitment from the pub owners, I believe the article’s revenue needs to be split 80/20 between the writer and publisher. With this split, some pub owners will provide serous editing and some writers will willingly subject their work to several rounds of this editing.
With better editing, “pure readers” will be attracted to the pub. The pub finds these readers; if accepted into the pub, the article gets the attention of those readers. Win-win-win for pure readers, pub owners, and writers.
I suspect that this 80/20 split has been talked about in the Medium backrooms. I suspect that most writers will not publish on a pub if 20% of the revenue goes to the publisher. Based on my experience of publishing independently vs. publishing on a pub, I would say that is an understandable response.
But without a financial incentive, pub owners can only justify a volunteer effort to bettering the articles. And that limited effort will not take the pub to where it needs to go.
Medium needs more “pure readers”
I have been on Medium for six years, promoting my alternative democracy. Methinks I have found about 150 lukewarm fans. I say “lukewarm” because I have not convinced any of them to take the next step, which goes past the known political ways of how ordinary people participate in democracy: complaining, voting, and protesting.
Often I check on my fans’ Medium bio. Usually, I see most of them have an ulterior agenda. They might be promoting their own political philosophy. Or selling a book. Or gaining some recognition. Or angling for some paying writing gig off-Medium. Or publishing articles that have already been published elsewhere. Often, I sense they are easing their conscience that they are doing something “positive” in this crazy world that is becoming crazier.
With most Medium members having ulterior writing motives, it is hard for writers to find their pure fans. So to acquire a following, Medium writers usually strike a quid-pro-quo deal with similar writers: “I’ll follow you if you follow me” or “I’ll read your stuff if you read mine.” In this way, the writers support each other, giving each other’s articles a higher ranking for Medium algos to give more exposure in the feeds.
I too have played this game. I follow 504 writers. I should say that there were some expectations with most of them. Let’s admit that these expectations create a disingenuous connection.
But three of my TDG fans have no such quid-pro-quo deal. They have not published anything on Medium. They have no agenda. They have paid the annual Medium fees just to read.They like reading my stuff because they like reading my stuff. That is a pure reader.
But from my Medium observation, the ratio of quid-pro-quo writers to the pure readers is about 20 to 1.
Medium should provide a cheaper option for pure readers. If their fees were lower, maybe more of these people will join Medium. Since they are not interested in writing and publishing, Medium should be able to justify lower fees. So a lower price might bring in more pure readers.
My Mastodon experience
I am also promoting the TDG on Mastodon. When sitting at my computer, I submit a Mastodon post every three hours, recycling my Medium articles. While I have also not gained tangible results from this forum, I sometimes click on Mastodon links. Usually, I am disappointed for these reasons:
· Paywall
· Popups to subscribe
· Garish advertising
By comparison, Medium is such a clean read.
I believe many pure readers would join Medium, just to get some clean reading on the internet. The quality of writing and content are already on Medium. The webpage layout is A+!
My Medium reading
Part of the reason I am still on Medium is because I have been both educated and entertained here . Medium has become an important source of absorbing the world around me.
I am currently reading about 20 Medium writers. They don’t seem to be reading my stuff — and that is OK.
There are about another 20 writers who I like. But their work doesn’t show up an my feed that much. If I want to read their work, I have to hunt them down. I contend that the Medium algos are not functioning as well as they could be.
Limit the number of follows
As alluded previously above, my Medium feed has some flaws.
A big part of this problem is that I am currently following 504 writers. There’s no way I can truly follow this many writers. I should cull this list to about 50 and see what happens. But there is something in me that does not want to do that. Maybe I need to do this experiment anyways.
At least half of the 504 are no longer on Medium. They should be automatically culled.
Much of the remainder are silent quid-pro-deals I have talked about earlier. They are not interested in my stuff, so I lost interest in theirs. But the Medium stats still say we are following each other.
Supposedly I have 2.3k followers. But maybe only 10 are actually reading my articles. This makes the number 2.3k a grossly misleading statistic.
May I suggest that each Medium member is limited to following only 50 writers or pubs. If a member wants a 51st follow, he/she must cull one of the current follows to make room for the new writer or pub. In this way, follow lists remain current to where the Medium member is at.
With this 50-follow limit, a writer who has acquired 500 followers, probably has close to 500 regular readers. We can assume this writer has a large active audience. In contrast, a writer with 25,000 followers but only 200 claps per article is really not read that much. That 25,000 figure is another grossly misleading statistic.
My Substack experience
In January, I joined Substack. I had low expectations. I am using Substack mostly as a place to park my TDG writing, just in case there is an interest in building a new democracy in the future.
So when I write a new article, it gets published in both Medium and Substack.
If I take away my Medium viral outlier of March 6, we could say that my Medium traction is, at best, 50% better than my Substack traction. But here are the important points for this comparison:
· I have been on Medium for six years; I have been on Substack for four months.
· I am often commenting on Medium articles; I do not comment on Substack articles.
· I am still playing the quid-pro-quo game on Medium; I do not play this game on Substack.
In essence, the extra effort I am putting into Medium is not worth the extra traction I am getting.
However, I still have “fun” on Medium. I see no need to seek the same fun on Substack.
New media forums
Let’s go back to my disappointing clicks on Mastodon. Many of these clicks go to upstart media outlets trying to find their way in this crazy world of too much information.
Could not Medium offer these upstarts an opportunity to build their audience?
This means the upstart media publishes some or all of its articles on Medium. These articles get the clean Medium look that do not offend a potential audience. When the upstart has built up its Medium audience, it can strategize on moving some of that audience to its website.
Methinks some upstarts have tried to use Medium in this way. But when most of the Medium members have a quid-pro-quo agenda, the upstart publisher is not finding its following of pure readers.
But if Medium has many more pure readers, the upstarts have more potential to find their loyal audience. And the upstarts put their quality work on Medium to attract more pure readers. Win-win-win for pure readers, upstart publishers, and amateur writers who now have more pure readers to market to.
In other words, Medium needs to market to more pure readers, to make this part of Medium work better.
Conclusion
This essay makes several points, which seem to be independent of each other. But they are all connected. In this conclusion, I will try to connect them together:
· Medium offers a clean look for readers to engage with their internet reading.
· Amateur writers and off-Medium publishers can use that clean look to attract those pure readers to their work.
· The Medium pubs should be filters for better quality writing and stories.
· Pure readers will be attracted to the better pubs to find higher quality writing.
· High quality writers will willingly give up some of their revenue if the pubs do deliver on readers.
· Medium needs to attract more pure readers with lower subscription fees and reliable feeds.
· A Medium member should be limited to following only 50 writers or pubs. This will force the algorithms to deliver articles the pure readers are really reading.
In essence, Medium should market Medium to the pure readers.
The writers will sort themselves out differently when pure readers take a bigger role in reading Medium articles.
Published on Medium 2025
Motivating the Democratic Party
