My New Reading and Writing Strategies

I didn’t renew my Medium and Friend of Medium subscriptions when they expired on 15 March this year because I wanted a break from the frenzy caused by the introduction of the Friend of Medium. I also needed time to consider what I wanted from Medium. I renewed my Medium Membership on 1 May because I had decided on new reading and publishing strategies.

Reading

I am going to be selective about the stories I read on Medium. I want to read stories by honest and thoughtful authors who cover subjects I am interested in.

People who read my stories are more likely to get my attention than those who haven’t read a single story and subscribed to receive email notifications or left a single clap. Forget the 30-second rule; all my stories take longer than 30 seconds to read.

I won’t be using highlights because I think they make only a slight difference to a writer’s earnings. I also want to avoid receiving notifications when someone else highlights the same passage as me.

I could turn off these notifications in settings, but that would mean turning off notifications of new followers as well! This is something I don’t want to do.

I will be responding when I have something constructive to say — not just for the sake of doing it.

If a story is worth reading, it’s worth 50 claps. So, if you get 50 claps from me, it means that I have read your story — not doing a 'clap and run'.

You might think that when I read one of your stories, you will earn less from me than someone who is a Friend of Medium. This isn’t necessarily true because earnings are 'diluted' if the person who read your story has read many other stories.

Publishing

I have abandoned targets for my stories. I am going to write what I want to write about when I want to write it.

Medium members will have early access to my stories. Learning Pages Members, Supporters and Free Subscribers, will have even earlier access (Sign up.)

I have tried several platforms for publishing my stories — Substack before I joined Medium and the Hive platforms while I was taking a break from Medium.

To keep my workload at a reasonable level, I have decided to publish only on LearningPages.org (which I am currently redesigning) and one other platform.

The 'other' platform is Medium.

Conclusion

As I have decided to be more selective about what I read and what I write, this new strategy is likely to hurt my earnings.

I have given up my previous goal of 'breaking even' on Medium. It’s more important to me that people read my stories than to earn money.