How I Made 37 Cents on Medium in 741 days!
And so can you!
Dear reader, let’s dive into some of my pet peeves about Medium.com that might tickle your brain or, you know, make you want to throw your phone across the room.
Special Update: That’s What I’m Talking About, Baby!
The Money Talk Marathon
Ever stumble upon those stories where writers can’t stop talking about how much money they’re raking in on Medium? Of course, you have it. It feels like it’s 50 percent of Medium. It feels like a never-ending loop of “Look at me making more money talking about making money!”
Sometimes, I want to tape my fingers together to avoid clicking on those articles. Enough already! Did you write an article a day on Medium for thirty days straight?! Could you call me when you survived 100 days in Minecraft hardcore survival?
Dropping My Drop Caps on Mobile Editing
Discovering a typo or a clumsy phrase after hitting the “Publish” button on your desktop is an all-too-common plight. Such revelations often come during a final listen-through of the article with the voice reader, highlighting the critical need for post-publish edits. Yet, embarking on improvements via mobile plunges you into a mire of formatting challenges.
Those lovely drop caps, which serve as visual treats and structural markers to break up text, disappear when editing on mobile. While not every writer is a fan of drop caps, for those who are, they’re a crucial element of style, making the text more engaging and visually organized.
Given the omnipresence of mobile devices and the spontaneous nature of editing, enhancing the mobile editing capabilities on Medium is not just a wish but a necessity for fostering a more flexible and user-friendly platform.
Bottom line, I love drop caps. If you want to submit a story to a publication, you have to go into “edit article,” doing this on mobile might submit it with your drops caps gone. I am unsure yet, and I don’t want to risk trying.
The Maze of Story Submission
Publishing your article in Medium shouldn’t feel like deciphering the Da Vinci Code. Between navigating emails and Slack channels, the process can be overly complicated. Since last November, I’ve been lurking in ILLUMINATION’s Slack channel, feeling as unnoticed as a ghost. Not a single reply from anyone with the authority to publish. It’s like being lost in a mall, and I can’t find Mommy.
And when another publication finally shows a glimmer of interest, they request a “draft” even though I have a complete piece ready. Submitting finished stories directly through Medium’s interface would be much more straightforward. If a publication isn’t interested, that’s fine — at least receiving a rejection would be simple and easy.
You should be able to submit it, and the editor either approves it or rejects it while being able to give a reason if it is. It would be best if you allowed them to submit, not post, but submit, whenever they want rather than offer a finished story from what I can gather. I am my editor, so I may need to be corrected.
They may have to wait for approval. However, I don’t get that impression with the rate at which some writers get consistently published. It just feels like favoritism leaves newcomers overlooked.
I am the editor and sole writer of my publication, SLAYTHEMETA.com, so I don’t know what it’s like to be just a writer in a publication because I can’t seem to grasp getting into one. Furthermore, once you submit a story to the publication, it should be locked from editing until the editor approves the revised version.
Update to My Understanding 2/6/2024:
Iam happy to share that a new publication, WordWave, has published my work, and I now understand the process better. Once an editor approves your post, they can edit it and publish it. This process is much simpler than initially thought, but finding publishers willing to publish your work can take time and effort.
In my case, I got my work published by a publisher who asked interested writers to leave their names in the comments section of their simple recruitment story. While this worked well for me, finding publishers should be more accessible. A “request to join publication” button in the user interface would be a great addition.
Voice Reader Roulette
Why does the desktop voice reader sound like it’s from the ‘90s? “dot” this, “dot” that. It’s a poetry killer. The mobile version isn’t winning any awards, but at least it doesn’t butcher your verses with robotic precision. British Harry is my favorite, though dot. The “dot” instead of just pausing at a period in stories on desktop tends to happen when there is a single forced line break (Which is SHIFT + ENTER, by the way).
For example. Above is a line break, which takes up the entire line space. But, when I do this:
See? (SHIFT + ENTER). This is great for poems, but when ending a line with a period, you get the word DOT instead of period. Listen to my poem “Murder in the Bathroom” on mobile. It will read fine, but you will hear the dots on the desktop voice.
That’s because of the (SHIFT + ENTER) single-line breaks. The most impressive voice reader I have found is ChatGPT-4’s. The female voice, Sky, is my absolute favorite. I can even hear her take a breath before reading a line. Medium.com doesn’t have OpenAI’s budget, but I wish their voice reader were that good.
Grammar, Who?
The disregard some writers have for grammar is like watching the English language get butchered in a horror movie. It’s one thing to keep it casual, but seeing ‘i’ not capitalized is like witnessing a blue-blooded murder of the English tongue. Medium is a melting pot of styles, but it is there when you share space with former presidents’ pieces. An article that looks like it was banged out while texting at a red light? It’s jarring and drags down the whole vibe of the platform.
Spiritual Overload
My feed’s became a spiritual retreat I didn’t sign up for. Hope, butterflies, and endless positivity. Sometimes, it’s too much, and I find myself making that one motion with my hand and blowing raspberries at my screen. I don’t remember choosing a spirituality tag to customize my feed, so this perplexes me.
The One-Trick Ponies
You’ve seen those writers who seem stuck on repeat, churning out the same article repeatedly. It’s like déjà vu every time you click on their profile — same spiel, different title. Sticking to what you know isn’t a crime, but where’s the variety? This isn’t just a mild annoyance; it’s a creativity vacuum sucking the novelty right out of Medium’s ecosystem.
Take, for example, this one person I came across. Every piece they write somehow circles back to her tenure at Google. Whether they are doling out career advice or musing about the future of tech, by the third paragraph, you’re back at Google HQ with them. It’s as if their entire writing identity is anchored to this single life event. Quitting Google became their claim to fame, a narrative crutch. While initially intriguing, this constant callback has turned her stories into a one-note tune.
Then there’s the bigger picture: Medium’s charm lies in its kaleidoscope of ideas and voices, but these repeat offenders are drowning out the newcomers with their unyielding echoes. It feels as though they’ve stumbled upon a formula — albeit a profitable one — and are too apprehensive to stray from it.
But here’s a thought: innovation doesn’t come from playing it safe. The daring leaps into the unknown truly enrich and diversify our beloved platform. So, to the one-trick ponies, I say: Hay, there’s so much more to write about, and making money is great, but have you no shame?
Parting Words
To all the big shots thriving on clickbait and boasting 12,000 followers, I genuinely wish you all the best, straight from the heart. I strive to stay positive, even if it might not seem like this time. The frustration with this platform after two years of pouring my thoughts into it is real, but let me leave you with the idea that hit the mark.
Remember, Hell isn’t just depicted as a place of fire and brimstone but can also be a realm of boredom and mediocrity. It isn’t exciting when all that is penned down is how fantastic a writer you are and the mountains of cash you’re making. Sure, it might be effective, but at the end of the day,
“The sophisticated activity with which a man receives money is marvelous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! How cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!”
— Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or The Whale
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