It Is Time to Stop Publishing So Much On Medium
I have come to a crossroads and I have nothing to show for it
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Crossroads, meet Jason.
I’ve put three years into building my home on Medium. I started publishing in August 2018, but wasn’t serious until September. I had stars in my eyes, and planned to scoot my ass up the list of writers, right to the top dollar names and be earning thousands before I knew it.
That was the plan.
Along the way, the most prominent feeling I had was disappointment, with flashes of brilliant success, like the month I had an article go viral and made $3000. I thought I had finally broken through and figured out the algorithm, and all the hard work and sacrifice would have been worth it.
But, a few months later I was in the toilet again.
The plan with Medium had always been all or nothing. With my atypical mental health issues, Medium seemed to be the only “job” I could do. I could hustle when I felt well, and rest when I didn’t. I could write about a wide range of topics, and my multipotential personality could always jump from thing to thing, and the ability to earn on Medium was beautiful and always an option.
When I failed as a freelancer in the beginning, Medium had been there for me with an opportunity, I’ve just never been able to do anything with the chance I was given.
I have almost 6.2k followers, and I publish frequently, always providing the algorithm with fresh fodder. But it has never seen fit to give my more than a few hundred views and reads.
And as always, I see the stories of the newbies who come along, making thousands after only a few months. Unlike me, those types of writers always seem to know how to be marketable, and write what Medium wants, and delight the algorithm enough that it keeps coming back for more and more.
It has never been that way for me. Yes, I know I’m a damn good writer, but I have never had the spark it takes to light a fire. I haven’t figured out how to build a tribe, and get people coming back day after day to read my work. I’ve never figured out what Medium wants in all its wisdom.
I guess maybe that I am the kind of writer who will take many years to find his stride. I’ll never shine brightly enough to for anyone to take notice, that is until I figure out how to catch fire myself. It may take me ten years of publishing on Medium to guess the right combination and figure it all out.
But, I don’t have ten years.
There are needs to be met and bills to pay, and I have finally realized Medium is not going to be the thing that will help me generate the income I need to support my family. As much as I would love to write strictly for platforms like Medium, Quora, and NewsBreak, I just don’t have what it takes to be successful.
Yes, it’s depressing. I thought for so long if I just worked hard and hustled, if I published several times a day, and I kept improving my writing, that one day I could make enough to not only break free from Social Security, but to have extra for things like travel and fun.
But, after all this time, I have been unable to make more than a few hundred dollars a month that I could count on, and that is nowhere near enough to pay for my nut every month.
It’s disheartening.
But, instead of developing a victim mentality, and doing what most people do when they are on disability for any length of time, that is, giving up and falling back into my illness, I am going to fight harder.
I am devoting all my time into learning the cannabis industry and I’m going to write and freelance in that niche. Oh course, to do that, I have to leave the Philippines, because cannabis and this country are not friends, but hopefully I can start generating an income in the States and commute home to see my family whenever I want.
There are a lot of reasons I want to get into the cannabis industry, but bottom line, considering my past and my interests, it’s a good fit. I’ve already started publishing pieces and pitching to magazines, getting back into the freelance journalism thing and picking up a few books to help me learn the industry inside and out.
Unlike the past where I always ended up giving in to my illness and letting depression and psychosis overwhelm me, I have been fighting back. No, it’s not easy to write full-time when you hear voices, it’s not easy to hit deadlines when you often fall into depression. No, it’s not easy to deal with people when anxiety ties your insides up in knots and panic threatens your sanity.
But I am fighting, and I am winning much of the time.
So the plan is to keep publishing on Medium, just less than I have been. I still need a place to host my articles and essays, and I do have a bit of a following here.
I can still expect a few hundred eyeballs on my cannabis stories and Medium’s high domain authority makes its easy to be found on Google.
I’m not ready to give up on the platform yet, but I am going to be publishing far less. I need to make between $3 to $4K a month to survive, but, of course, I don’t want to just survive.
I want to be comfortable for the first time in my life.
To do it, I’ll need to pitch a lot of stories to the outlets that pay. For instance to make $4k a month, I’ll have to land around 13 to 15 articles a month at $250 to $300 an article. That means I will have to pitch four times as many until people start giving me a chance. In the beginning, it will be difficult, but I will stick with it, and eventually people will start asking me to write for them.
It may take a year, but I am willing.
Beside that, I will need to gather fodder for my articles: smoking the best cannabis, visiting dispensaries and grows, interviewing people in the industry. I need material and experience to write about, and that takes time, and I can’t allow depression or anxiety to put me down when I need to be out there rubbing elbows.
It won’t be easy, but even though in the past I have jumped from thing to thing, at least I have shown with Medium than I can do something for the long haul. It just takes perseverance and some grit.
Medium has been a great platform, and I will always have work to publish here, but from now on, my focus will be elsewhere. Medium has helped me in more ways that I can imagine, but it’s time to move on and start doing it for myself.
So, thanks Medium, for being there when no one else would publish me, and thank you for showing me what it is to be a good writer.
I’ll never forget the hard lessons.