After 1 Month of Publishing On Medium Here’s My Takeaways

After One Month of Publishing On Medium Here Are My Takeaways

I wanted to share my 30 days experience here on Medium. This is not intended to be a review of Medium, but instead a monthly reflection on where I am. I also love reviewing statistics and I’m sure that you love seeing other people’s statistics too otherwise you wouldn’t have clicked on this post! I’m going to cover my statistics, why I like Medium, my first publication experience, finding my vibe and reflections on the last and next 30 days. Read on if you want to hear about my realistic first month.

Overall statistics from 30 days on Medium

I want to start with my numbers because it provides a realistic insight as to where I am coming from. I’m sure there will be people out there who expect a ‘larger return on investment’ as it were. But I’m a realist and these statistics reflect that.

- Published Stories: 11 (an average of 1 every 3 days)
- Views: 250
- Reads: 115
- Fans: 23
- Followers: 16
- Successful publication submissions: 1
- Most read post: Three Essential Obsidian Community Plugins My PhD Couldn’t Do Without (<- not the one that got into the publication I might add)
- Time invested: about 20 writing and editing hours, at a guess

Medium is not my ‘life priority’ right now and these statistics also reflect this. It’s very important that writing on Medium adds something valuable onto an already busy lifestyle! I’ve certainly found the experience of the last 30 days fulfilling and useful. My writing quality has improved and I created a blog pipeline which have both generally increased my speed too. These writing improvements apply both in my PhD and in my personal writing. I found that releasing myself from the constraints of content type opens the mind to other avenues of writing.

Medium as a platform to write

I really warmed to Medium as a platform to write on. I have another blog (annetteraffan.co.uk) which has a more formalised ‘niche’ if you like. But I realised that I needed a place where I could be more experimental in my writing. Medium offered me that opportunity. It’s not a complicated blogging platform, like for example, Wordpress. It’s an unadulterated place to write with minimal distractions. The formatting options are basic and the user interface, friendly to grasp. Image use is minimal also; it’s a place for words and personal experience, not ‘commercial content’.

The community aspect was another strong draw for me; there are so many writers! So, so many writers! I also feel that there are a lot of readers too though, so there is a balance. Even though Medium’s domain rank is high I do feel that the ranking power of most posts here is limited. But that’s no different from trying to make your own way in the blogging space. I’m here for the community, the inspiration and well, the stage.

Publications are fun but not essential

I gathered from reading around that (running) and submitting to a publication is part of the fun on Medium. Therefore I thought I had to give it a go sooner rather than later.

I aimed high when it came to my first submission to a publication; I submitted to The Writing Co-operative. I suspect (from my statistics) that it is not the highest engagement publication out there, but judging by the number of articles and the turnaround time, it is one of the harder publications to get published in. So imagine my surprise when my article The Curse of the Blank Page is a Conflict Between Love and Hate got accepted! It’s all downhill from here!! No in all seriousness, it was a really great ‘pat-on-the-back’ confirmation that I am heading in the right direction, however in terms of building a community around my writing, the engagement was poorer than several of my other posts which weren’t in a publication. The publication time was about 2 weeks which was a bit crazy, especially if the content is time sensitive. I wrote about love, with one eye on Valentines Day, but it didn’t get published until the 18th…four days after the fact. I know others try to be quicker, but it’s something I need to bear in mind in future.

I’ve requested writing for some other publications too, but I haven’t heard anything yet. I held a few articles back with the intention of submitting them to a publication, but I no longer do this. I’d rather have them out there than sitting waiting in a queue. I find it quite difficult navigating and finding appropriate publications with large enough audiences that make it a worthwhile exercise. I did make some effort to make a list, but it’s something I need to work on more over the next month.

Finding my vibe

Even though I only published 11 articles, I could start to see articles that resonated more than others. I posted a creative writing post that has no views whereas others seemed to go down well, all things considered. In fact as a general rule, the more creative ones received poorer engagement. The ones that did better were more ‘constructive’ or ‘experiential’, if that makes sense?

It’s really nice to see the stats evolve over time even at this early stage. Although the stats are super simple, compared to say Google Analytics, I can rest safe in the knowledge that they are actual views and not bots trawling the content. I can see that the stats are linked to how often I published. If I had published more, then my stats would be higher. But I only have so much time and energy I want dedicate to Medium, so I have to have realistic expectations. What is most exciting is that there is a general upward trend. Here consistency will be key. My vibe will only continue to get better with time.

Personal milestones for the last 30 days

If I had to reflect on what went well over my first month, I think posting 11 blogs has to be up there. Yes, they vary in quality a bit, but as I mentioned above, part of the reason I joined Medium was to be more experimental. It frees me from the structure of a more niche-driven blog. I also LOVE the fact that I got published on The Writing Cooperative. I think I may have set the bar kind of high there! I’m also very happy that 16 of you clicked on the follow button!

Things I need to work on in the next 30 days

The first 30 days has been a blast and I hope that the next 30 will be the same. The amount of time I will allocate to Medium will be similar over the next month. It’s not going to be a case of ‘publish more’ or ‘write more’, instead its about keeping up consistency, getting ‘better’ and more efficient. It doesn’t matter if it translates into more or less posts.

That being said, here’s a list of things I want to work on in the next month:

1. Learn the tricks and techniques to format posts properly including linking to other posts
2. Develop a consistent bio
3. Work on tags (I suspect my creative writing suffered due to the tags I picked)
4. Request writing submissions for more publications (after I find some relevant ones)
5. Maintain a similar average publishing consistency (realistically I can’t do more)
6. Get out there more on Medium and get to know more of you
7. Use my own images
8. Continue building my vibe

That, I think is plenty for me to work on! And with that, I will see you for a similar post towards the end of March 2023.

I’d love for you to follow on this experimental journey with me!