Will this be my last story on Medium? Sadly, I think so.
(WELL, WE’LL SEE ABOUT IT)
I remember when, in January if I recall correctly, I got an email from Medium telling me I was in the top 10% of users. I was happy but surprised: my stories are usually read only by a handful of people. Even if that handful has (slowly) become larger, it’s still just that: my most successful story has 94 views and 51 reads, and only three or four more are in that league; the rest stay in the 20s for reads and 10s for reads. Top writers on Medium get reads in the thousands.
Therefore, I guessed that I must have earned my position within the top 10% through the stories I’ve read and liked instead. Or maybe those writers with the thousands of reads are really just a handful of people, and then us with the hundreds and tens come in, with an impressive 90% of users behind us.
Like others, today I also received my “ invitation to become a founding member of Medium”. I supposed that my 10% membership granted that invitation.
It still doesn’t sit well with me.
Before moving on, let me say I fully understand Medium’s needs. Like other succesful enterprises (Twitter?) they need to monetize their effort. And after all, they laid off one third of their staff back in January. This is supposed to be a business, after all, and businesses tend not to go well unless they generate some revenue, or so I’m told.
And Medium offers a vast range of articles. I’ve read amazing pieces on science by several of my favourite authors. I’ve enjoyed fiction that I wish I had written myself. I’ve got angry and happy at the life stories people shared. I’ve laughed with some clever cartoons.
But the problem’s still there: even though it’s a great reading platform, I didn’t join Medium to read.
I joined Medium to write.
A few years ago, I decided I had had enough of reposting videos or other people’s works in my social networks: I wanted to offer some measure of creative output. I wanted to give something back. And there was only one real option: I’ve always liked writing. So writing it was. I challenged myself to write, just to see if I could.
To cut a (not so) long story short, now I write, and therefore, I consider myself a writer. Not an aspiring writer, mind you, but a writer. I have to thank Chuck Wendig and Delilah S. Dawson for that input. What I’m not is a professional writer, paid for my works. Or a published one (yet, I hope). But still a writer.
So, all of this is my personal experience, but know what? I came here to test the waters. To see if I could write and get some traction. I got some traction. Every story I write I cross-reference via Twitter, Facebook and Google+, which is where I’m more active. I’ve got a a few faithful followers, for whom I’m most thankful.
The point is I’ve got an advantage. If you ask me if I’d like to be the next John Scalzi, hell, why not, that would be nice. But I set out to ultimately satisfy one person: me. If along the road I can make some other people happy, I’ll take that. I’ve got a day job that pays the bills, and I’m not going to leave it. I’m happy as I am right now.
And that includes a free Medium.
Please let me remind you this is my personal view about the new subscription model for Medium. I don’t know how it’s really going to work out, though Katy Jacobs seems to be more certain that I am about the details. And I don’t like those details, not the ones involving how a subscription model affects people who, like me, consider ourself writers (even if, on the whole, I do more reading than writing. Reading is faster and takes less effort), or how our realtionship with Publications will pan out (thank you Fiction Hub, by the way).
I also didn’t feel happy with that invitation I received. I was invited to pay for a service I had so far got for free (I know this sounds terribly selfish. First paragraphs, please), under the promise that my reader experience would be improved. But whatever happens to my writer experience? I don’t know, but I don’t like what I‘m not allowed to see.
And ultimately, I cannot afford the subscription rate. Yes, it’s only $5 a month. But that’s $60 per year. For much less than that, I can buy my own domain and set up a blog, something I discarded doing because I wanted to try out the Medium experience. If only my followers kept reading my stories there, I’d be happy. If it was only a few acquaintances, I’d still be happy. Low expectations are an advantage, but I’m realistic: I never thought I’d get to the point I’d be a famous novelist. Or even a mediocre one.
I just set out to discover whether I could write.
And I discovered I could. That doesn’t mean I’m a good writer; it simply tells me I can do it, and I can make some readers happy for a while, and that’s enough for me. Medium has been one of the tools that has allowed me to find out: the others have been 750words.com and The Writer’s Discussion Group Google+ Community.
I’m sad that Medium have had to take this step, but I’m not sure I can keep following them. All my works here are linked through Facebook, Twitter and Google+. If I have to remove them, and reupload them elsewhere, I’ll do it. That domain name looks fantastic right now.
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EDIT (March 28), Changing My Mind: Today I read Shaunta Grimes’ take on this membership community, My Take on the Whole Medium Membership Thing. Apparently things will remain the same for regular members, and premium ones will have access to, quite obviously, premium features and contents.
I’m still not completely sure what the membership scheme entails for writers. I don’t know whether Medium can pull one of my stories and put it behind the paywall without my consent: even though the fact I always publish under CC-BY-SA means they can, it’d be nice if they ask first, since my intention is to reach the widest audience possible.
However, for now I think I’ll take the “wait and see” approach and keep on as I was. And we’ll see how it goes.
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EDIT (April 11): I’ve just read Why Medium Partnership/Membership Idea Sucks by Mateja Klaric. She summarizes my feelings about this new move by Medium even better than I have done.
Moreover, reading her article I realized there are two new Medium programs: the Membership where readers pay to get better content, and the Partnership where writers will get a (certain) amount of money for what they write. I understand now that I was invited to enter the Membership program because of the number of articles I read, while the reason I joined was to write in a different platform, one that was original and devoid of the clutter other venues offer.
But you see, as I suppose it happens to many of us writers, we’re avid readers as well. I cannot log into Medium withour checking the front cover. I’ve followed a number of tags and people. In short, I read what interests me. And honestly, the pieces here are often short and to the point, so I read a lot. Obviously, much more than I get read.
Maybe I’m obtuse, but somehow I missed there were two programs, and not one, but it seems to me Medium could have made a better work of explaining that to us users. But it may be me, I insist. With that clear, it makes more sense to me that Medium invited me to become a Member but not a Partner, as I suppose my reads outweigh my readers.
I just wanted to let that out.
But I still will remain using the free version, I’m afraid. The rest of my reasons, plus the ones Mateja Klaric cites, are still valid.
