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I write on medium [1] and I don’t think switching to a stand alone website would be good for me at all. Medium has “publications” where my work gets sent out t

I write on medium [1] and I don’t think switching to a stand alone website would be good for me at all. Medium has “publications” where my work gets sent out to hundreds of readers that are reading about a topic, not necessarily from me - I’m not notable at all in the field so I’d have a rather hard time getting people to subscribe to __me__. If I were to make my own website, I’d lose a ton of discoverability. Plus, the monetization on medium is fantastic. Nowhere else would I get that return per view - I’m currently averaging around 25k views a month with a $500 return. I do have my gripes with the platform, but in my case, Medium is the worst platform for writing besides all the rest. [1] https://anth-oleinik.medium.com/ https://anth-oleinik.medium.com/

cpach 5y ago
I’m not a fan of Medium but I do admit that those are compelling arguments.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hmlongco 5y ago
  I'm with aoleinik. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away, I had a stand-alone blog that--to put it bluntly--no one visited. Today I put the same type of content on Medium and get thousands of readers on almost each and every article. So much, in fact, that I've consistently been in the top 1,000 creators on Medium several months running. Yes, I understand that I'm simply part of their platform. but that's the same for anyone who attempts to create monetized content on Medium, YouTube, Twitch, or any of the many other platforms that pay creators for content. As far as I can tell, articles and sites like the one above exist because some people simply believe that they should never have to pay for content, and that everything should be free. Fair enough. And, that being the case, those people are never going to see my work. Also fair. But Medium drives enough people to my content to make the exchange work for me. Plus it provides enough incentive to get me off my butt and create things that I probably won't have created otherwise. If anyone who reads this doesn't like Medium. Fine. If you want to go elsewhere... also fine. But thus far, the value proposition works for me, and it apparently also works for all of the people who read my articles and stories and tutorials each and every day. To them, thanks.
  - jonahx 5y ago
    Do you give up rights to your work by posting on Medium? Also, do you have a link to your work?
    - sunny--tech 5y ago
      No you don't give up rights. You own everything you write and publish. Medium has a setting where you can download all of your files at once as HTML files and there are tools for converting those html files into markdown. https://www.npmjs.com/package/mediumexporter https://www.npmjs.com/package/mediumexporter
smoldesu 5y ago
For what it's worth, you're currently losing my discoverability by using a platform that I don't. Me (and many, many other people) will get redirected to your site, see a big intrusive banner on our screen, and leave. It doesn't matter if you were about to disclose the panacea or secrets to life, there's simply no writing on Medium that's worth the royal asspain of stepping through your digital metal detector. You're increasing the amount of complexity in your reader's stack to reduce the complexity of your stack. Much like how nobody clicks the 'Reddit is better in the app!' button, you should be conscious that most people nope-out when they click a link and don't get your article.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  Your observation is worth nothing because you also aren’t reading his personal blog, or wherever he would publish instead. You don’t even try to suggest other places you’d happily read.
  - Retric 5y ago
    Except he is reading HN which will link to personal blogs. I am not saying write good context and they will find you, but Medium isn’t that great. Only ~9% of the writers made over $100 in a month, and the top earner fluctuates between 20 and 30k/month. You basically get a handful of people making a living and most people getting little more than free hosting.
- shados 5y ago
  Yes, they're losing yours, but that's a small cost to pay vs NO ONE discovering their stuff. Basically what this comes down to is that there's a market for something like Medium's earlier days, back when it was decent. Someone just needs to figure out a better way to monetize it, while still having the mind share Medium used to have.
  - AniseAbyss 5y ago
    Ah yes the monetisation. That's always been a problem on the internet. Yes you can reach millions of people but not earn a single €. Many such cases! Newspapers almost went broke because of the digital future until they decided to do something completely anti web 2.0: PAYWALL IT. And it worked newspapers were saved.
cloudking 5y ago
How do you get your posts into publications?
- crackercrews 5y ago
  Step 1: put them behind Medium's paywall. Step 2: I don't know what Step 2 is because I'm unwilling to do Step 1.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - chokeartist 5y ago
    Top lel. You a bright future in Executive Consulting.
- aoleinik 5y ago
  There are content curators for the publications - essentially, you just submit them and if your article is good enough they’ll publish it.
soheil 5y ago
$20 CPM is indeed very high. Just a cursory look at your blog I think 25k page views/mo is actually pretty low given the number of likes/user interactions you get on your posts and how frequently you post. I don't know how Medium is counting a view but usually 3 views translate to a unique user for blogs. I wouldn't be surprised if you counted your views with something like Google Analytics and saw numbers 10x more views than what Medium is reporting. If true then even a $10 CPM would put you in $2,500/mo range.
- jefftk 5y ago
  $20 CPM is very high for advertising, but it's not all that high for a paywall that is working well, no?
steve_adams_86 5y ago
Wow, that’s a significant return. I used to have a blog in which I wrote technical content, and the traffic was considerably more than 25,000 per month. I only spent money on that, never made a cent. It did help me get jobs, but I can’t say with certainty that it got me better jobs than I would have without it. I’ve done far better since without a blog attached to my name. Anyway, that’s a lot of money to make off of something I associated with costing money.
epicureanideal 5y ago
Sounds like someone should create a discoverability and curation service for independent blogs, independently of the hosting platform.
- dmamills 5y ago
  And we shall call it: Real Simple Syndication
  - deepakkarki 5y ago
    RSS is as you mentioned, syndication. Not discovery. I guess apps like feedly have RSS recommendations, but that's not the same thing.
    - ricardobeat 5y ago
      RSS made building discovery apps extremely easy. Today you can’t aggregate content at all most of the time unless you are the platform.
  - imbnwa 5y ago
    RSS was only part of the solution, the other half... was Google Reader: the homepage's "Suggested" section learned what you were starring/following and provided new content. I found tons of new stuff to read with that.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  It was called Technorati.
  - stereoradonc 5y ago
    Good ole days
skratlo 5y ago
You work for medium and you only care about yourself, not about your readership if you have any > I don’t think switching to a stand alone website would be good for me
- mananaysiempre 5y ago
  > you only care about yourself, not about your readership if you have any Well, that’s how capitalism is supposed to work innit? :) Producers care about themselves and consumers choose, competition ensues, the producers are therefore forced to conform to the consumers’ preferences. What I mean is “you only care about yourself”, in a business setting, is not an accusation by itself, however unvirtuous it sounds. The opposite of “capitalism” in the first sentence is not “social democracy” or “welfare state”, it’s “planned economy”, and I’d say that every ethical judgment that moves us towards that has to go. Except this works only when there’s (a lot of) competition, which is exactly what platforms attempt to exploit: you (a producer) move according to your best interest at each point, like everyone else, only to find yourself in a mono- (or oligo-) psony market where you have to sell through the platform(s) or perish, and now the platform(s) can enforce whatever they wish on you. The consumers aren’t feeling that spiffy, either. The laws of competition no longer apply. (Huh, is moving to a platform essentially a prisoner’s dilemma with the (defect,defect) state obscured by marketing?)
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  "I don't agree with you, therefore you're a greedy jerk" why didn't you just come out and say what you meant.
estaseuropano 5y ago
Does medium force you to be exclusive? Else why not do both, it takes a fre hours to set up and afterward 5min per post to post it nicely on both medium and your own site. In return you can have your own newsletter signups, freely link to ehatever you want, ... and have some independence if medium ever decides they don't like you (or you decide you don't like them).
simonebrunozzi 5y ago
> If I were to make my own website, I’d lose a ton of discoverability. This is why I still (occasionally) write on Medium.

cpach 5y ago

I’m not a fan of Medium but I do admit that those are compelling arguments.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hmlongco 5y ago
I'm with aoleinik. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away, I had a stand-alone blog that--to put it bluntly--no one visited. Today I put the same type of content on Medium and get thousands of readers on almost each and every article. So much, in fact, that I've consistently been in the top 1,000 creators on Medium several months running. Yes, I understand that I'm simply part of their platform. but that's the same for anyone who attempts to create monetized content on Medium, YouTube, Twitch, or any of the many other platforms that pay creators for content. As far as I can tell, articles and sites like the one above exist because some people simply believe that they should never have to pay for content, and that everything should be free. Fair enough. And, that being the case, those people are never going to see my work. Also fair. But Medium drives enough people to my content to make the exchange work for me. Plus it provides enough incentive to get me off my butt and create things that I probably won't have created otherwise. If anyone who reads this doesn't like Medium. Fine. If you want to go elsewhere... also fine. But thus far, the value proposition works for me, and it apparently also works for all of the people who read my articles and stories and tutorials each and every day. To them, thanks.
- jonahx 5y ago
  Do you give up rights to your work by posting on Medium? Also, do you have a link to your work?
  - sunny--tech 5y ago
    No you don't give up rights. You own everything you write and publish. Medium has a setting where you can download all of your files at once as HTML files and there are tools for converting those html files into markdown. https://www.npmjs.com/package/mediumexporter https://www.npmjs.com/package/mediumexporter

smoldesu 5y ago

For what it's worth, you're currently losing my discoverability by using a platform that I don't. Me (and many, many other people) will get redirected to your site, see a big intrusive banner on our screen, and leave. It doesn't matter if you were about to disclose the panacea or secrets to life, there's simply no writing on Medium that's worth the royal asspain of stepping through your digital metal detector. You're increasing the amount of complexity in your reader's stack to reduce the complexity of your stack. Much like how nobody clicks the 'Reddit is better in the app!' button, you should be conscious that most people nope-out when they click a link and don't get your article.

1123581321 5y ago
Your observation is worth nothing because you also aren’t reading his personal blog, or wherever he would publish instead. You don’t even try to suggest other places you’d happily read.
- Retric 5y ago
  Except he is reading HN which will link to personal blogs. I am not saying write good context and they will find you, but Medium isn’t that great. Only ~9% of the writers made over $100 in a month, and the top earner fluctuates between 20 and 30k/month. You basically get a handful of people making a living and most people getting little more than free hosting.
shados 5y ago
Yes, they're losing yours, but that's a small cost to pay vs NO ONE discovering their stuff. Basically what this comes down to is that there's a market for something like Medium's earlier days, back when it was decent. Someone just needs to figure out a better way to monetize it, while still having the mind share Medium used to have.
- AniseAbyss 5y ago
  Ah yes the monetisation. That's always been a problem on the internet. Yes you can reach millions of people but not earn a single €. Many such cases! Newspapers almost went broke because of the digital future until they decided to do something completely anti web 2.0: PAYWALL IT. And it worked newspapers were saved.

cloudking 5y ago

How do you get your posts into publications?

crackercrews 5y ago
Step 1: put them behind Medium's paywall. Step 2: I don't know what Step 2 is because I'm unwilling to do Step 1.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- chokeartist 5y ago
  Top lel. You a bright future in Executive Consulting.
aoleinik 5y ago
There are content curators for the publications - essentially, you just submit them and if your article is good enough they’ll publish it.

soheil 5y ago

$20 CPM is indeed very high. Just a cursory look at your blog I think 25k page views/mo is actually pretty low given the number of likes/user interactions you get on your posts and how frequently you post. I don't know how Medium is counting a view but usually 3 views translate to a unique user for blogs. I wouldn't be surprised if you counted your views with something like Google Analytics and saw numbers 10x more views than what Medium is reporting. If true then even a $10 CPM would put you in $2,500/mo range.

jefftk 5y ago
$20 CPM is very high for advertising, but it's not all that high for a paywall that is working well, no?

steve_adams_86 5y ago

Wow, that’s a significant return. I used to have a blog in which I wrote technical content, and the traffic was considerably more than 25,000 per month. I only spent money on that, never made a cent. It did help me get jobs, but I can’t say with certainty that it got me better jobs than I would have without it. I’ve done far better since without a blog attached to my name. Anyway, that’s a lot of money to make off of something I associated with costing money.

epicureanideal 5y ago

Sounds like someone should create a discoverability and curation service for independent blogs, independently of the hosting platform.

dmamills 5y ago
And we shall call it: Real Simple Syndication
- deepakkarki 5y ago
  RSS is as you mentioned, syndication. Not discovery. I guess apps like feedly have RSS recommendations, but that's not the same thing.
  - ricardobeat 5y ago
    RSS made building discovery apps extremely easy. Today you can’t aggregate content at all most of the time unless you are the platform.
- imbnwa 5y ago
  RSS was only part of the solution, the other half... was Google Reader: the homepage's "Suggested" section learned what you were starring/following and provided new content. I found tons of new stuff to read with that.
mkr-hn 5y ago
It was called Technorati.
- stereoradonc 5y ago
  Good ole days

skratlo 5y ago

You work for medium and you only care about yourself, not about your readership if you have any > I don’t think switching to a stand alone website would be good for me

mananaysiempre 5y ago
> you only care about yourself, not about your readership if you have any Well, that’s how capitalism is supposed to work innit? :) Producers care about themselves and consumers choose, competition ensues, the producers are therefore forced to conform to the consumers’ preferences. What I mean is “you only care about yourself”, in a business setting, is not an accusation by itself, however unvirtuous it sounds. The opposite of “capitalism” in the first sentence is not “social democracy” or “welfare state”, it’s “planned economy”, and I’d say that every ethical judgment that moves us towards that has to go. Except this works only when there’s (a lot of) competition, which is exactly what platforms attempt to exploit: you (a producer) move according to your best interest at each point, like everyone else, only to find yourself in a mono- (or oligo-) psony market where you have to sell through the platform(s) or perish, and now the platform(s) can enforce whatever they wish on you. The consumers aren’t feeling that spiffy, either. The laws of competition no longer apply. (Huh, is moving to a platform essentially a prisoner’s dilemma with the (defect,defect) state obscured by marketing?)
stjohnswarts 5y ago
"I don't agree with you, therefore you're a greedy jerk" why didn't you just come out and say what you meant.

estaseuropano 5y ago

Does medium force you to be exclusive? Else why not do both, it takes a fre hours to set up and afterward 5min per post to post it nicely on both medium and your own site. In return you can have your own newsletter signups, freely link to ehatever you want, ... and have some independence if medium ever decides they don't like you (or you decide you don't like them).

simonebrunozzi 5y ago

> If I were to make my own website, I’d lose a ton of discoverability. This is why I still (occasionally) write on Medium.