I Think It’s Time to Move On Over to Substack

It may not be the answer, but it beats stagnating on Medium

Photo by Handiwork NYC on Unsplash

It’s already been over two weeks since Medium began its death spiral; things haven’t gotten better; they’ve gotten worse. At the beginning of January, my reads and views more than doubled and tripled compared to previous months. But my earnings rapidly declined to where they are now, about 2 cents a day.

Every writer on this platform experienced the same devastating earnings and was searching for some answers that never came. Medium staff sent out a few emails that created more confusion. According to Medium, they were working on eliminating scammers, spammers, and other non-genuine members. This didn’t explain the extreme drop in earnings, though.

I cut back on publishing stories in hopes the situation would change for the better. They haven’t. In the past few days, my reads and views dropped significantly. My earnings amount to 1 cent per day.

What is annoying is the change in the number of notifications I receive daily. I now receive over a hundred notifications each day. The vast majority of these are “also highlighted” notifications. But I am getting more and more followers from people who haven’t read or interacted with my stories and have not published anything. I am also getting more replies to my older stories, asking me to “please read my work.” They must have escaped Medium’s spammer net.

I moved to Medium after spending years writing blogs that made little money and attracted only a few followers. I put in a lot of work and got little in return. Now, I have come to a complete circle on Medium. I have tried numerous strategies to increase my readership, including starting a newsletter on Kit in hopes of increasing readership. Unfortunately, most subscribers ignored my newsletters and didn’t open the emails.

I now see only three options left for me. Firstly, I can stay on Medium and do nothing but wait, hoping to survive on this site. Secondly, I can try to make a go at publishing on Substack. Or, as a last resort, I can return to my blogs, where I continue to maintain my custom domain. For now, I have decided to move over to Substack.

I am uncertain whether or not any of my followers or subscribers on Medium would see value in spending money for a paid subscription to my articles. Subscriptions to my Substack newsletter, Stephen Sovie’s World, are free. Hopefully, if enough people subscribe, I can offer a paid subscription in the future.

I apologize to my followers who have stuck with me for all the confusing changes I have subjected you to in my efforts to make my content more available and profitable. Once again, I am asking you for your support. If you would like to continue to read my articles, please subscribe. Thank you.

I’m moving to Substack. Please join me in Stephen Sovie’s World newsletter.