I’m Tired of Being Ignored on Medium and Finally Created a Substack
Yes, I’m passionate about writing, but I also need to pay bills!
On May 24, 2020, I created a Medium account and published my first story, “Why I Fled a Tropical Island Paradise in the Middle of a Pandemic.”
It received two whole claps, 243 views, 137 reads, and made $0.
That’s fine for a brand new account and a first post, but nearly five years later, I can’t say I’m faring much better on Medium.
After five years, 153 stories, and 11 boosts, I hoped to earn some decent money every month, but that only happens when I get boosted.
As grateful as I am for being selected 11 times, I hate stressing out over it and feeling like I’m posting into the void when the boost gods don’t favor me.
Before the boost program though, I was lucky to earn $1 a month, so the program has helped me finally earn some money. It’s just not sustainable.
I can’t keep chasing boosts and hoping for the best. The old Medium advice to grind away by posting every single day, and engaging with other people’s stories to the point where it becomes a full-time job, will now get you banned because the system will think you’re a spam bot.
That grind was never sustainable anyway. I always just posted when I felt like it, clapped and commented on stories I truly enjoyed, and took as many breaks as I needed for my mental health.
I know that writers get paid terribly. I’ve been freelance writing for several years and have seen my freelance earnings plummet after ChatGPT was released. (sobs)
I’ve been writing for free since I was three years old, and know there’s much more to this craft than making money. This is the worst field to be in if you want to make money.
But I still want to be a full-time writer and filmmaker who makes a good living doing what they love. I’m not giving up on that dream.
I can’t relate to the “just do it for passion, stop caring about money” crowd. Not everyone has the luxury of writing for free when they’re struggling to afford groceries and vet bills.
I don’t have a well-paying day job, an inheritance, or a sugar daddy/mommy. I can’t afford to earn pennies on stories that I spent hours working on.
With the rise of AI bots and spammers, real people having their accounts deleted because they’re mistaken for AI, Medium staff promoting TikTokers who don’t follow posting guidelines and aren’t even Medium members, and many writers reporting that their earnings dropped significantly despite their reads and view ratio being high, the state of Medium doesn’t look great right now.
You can read more about this problem in Dr Mehmet Yildiz’s story.
And no, I’m not throwing a tantrum in the hopes that doing so will get Medium to magically give me the steady income from writing that I’ve been desperately seeking for almost five years.
I’m trying something new and shifting my focus elsewhere.
I finally created a Substack. Three in fact. They’re all free.
The Future is Vegan, focuses on animal rights, vegan food, and the latest news to create a vegan future. I recently wrote about the Je Festival which is a 9-day vegan festival in Thailand.
On The Spooky Tourist, I post articles and guides to spooky, occult, and death-related places around the world, but mainly focus on Thailand. I’ve written about haunted dolls, Buddhist hells, and a spooky guide to Bangkok.
Full Moon Party Massacre is about my progress writing my first horror novel. I have also posted the first four chapters. When spiritual influencer, Maddie Gallegos, disappears on a tropical island in Thailand, her older sister Sol arrives to search for her and soon discovers something far darker than she ever imagined. Will she find Maddie before it’s too late?
I’ll still post on Medium when I want to write about other topics and make some Ceylon tea money. My main focus now, though, will be building an audience for my Substack accounts and creating Ebooks to sell. It will make whatever I earn (or don’t earn) on Medium feel less frustrating since I now have a bigger goal to work toward.
Hopefully, I can finally find my tribe and build an audience of loyal readers who genuinely enjoy my work and will actually get notified when I’ve written a story, instead of having over 1,000 subscribers only to be lucky if one of them sees an article of mine that isn’t boosted.
Wish me luck!
If you have a Substack too, drop your link in the comments and tell me what you write about.
