Celebrating a Decade on Medium

I published my first Medium story on February 24, 2014. Ten years is a long time when it comes to the internet. Here's my history, what I learned, and what I think comes next for Medium.

The Early Years

I originally joined Medium sometime in late 2012 or early 2013. At the time, the site was invite-only, and somehow, I managed a spot. I don't remember much about the very early days other than being unimpressed. So much so that I never wrote anything and deleted my account.

For some reason, I rejoined Medium in early 2014. At the time, I was naively trying to make blogging on Tumblr a thing. The Tumblr interface was slick and simple and strangely hasn't been changed in fifteen years. Despite my attempts, no one wanted to read anything on Tumblr. So, I figured Medium was worth a shot.

Memories From My First Job was re-published from Tumblr to Medium in February of 2014. Being a new user on a relatively new site, the story did about what you'd expect: a view or two a day for about a month. It wasn't great.

Being young and nieve and conditioned by the burgeoning social media sphere to chase metrics, I was about to call Medium a bust and delete my account. Again. Then, one day, my views skyrocketed.

Greg Gueldner, an early Medium team member, found and promoted my story. Suddenly, the story was getting views and likes -- back then, you liked a story instead of clapping for it, and you could only like it once. Greg published a Medium writing prompt to share stories from our jobs the following week. It was all a bit surreal.

My second story, Remembering My First Time, tried to capitalize on the whole witty memory lane thing. It didn't work. But this time I wasn't deterred. I realized that not every story would find virality, and thanks to the success of my first piece, I was starting to connect with some interesting writers.

The Early Community

In those early days, Medium was a slightly different place. For one, it wasn't anywhere near as big as the site is now. The user count was low and led to interesting connections being formed.

The fifth story I published on Medium was From Seinfeld to Snapchat on November 21, 2014. It explored the evolution of media and what it means to be social.

At the time, Backchannel was a Medium publication run by the legendary Steven Levy, editor at Wired. Somehow, Steven saw my post and offered to edit it and evaluate it for Backchannel! I was floored and immediately said yes! He could have absolutely destroyed the article for all I cared, his feedback would be invaluable.

Instead, he was gracious and kind and provided simple feedback to help emphasize my points. I took his suggestions to heart and updated the story. He also accepted the story into the Backchannel publication.

A few years later, Backchannel would be reabsorbed by Wired and, as a result, so did all of the Backchannel stories. So, now, From Seinfeld to Snapchat lives on at Wired.com!

But connections with famous writers weren't the only community being formed in the early days. Whether by design or by accident, early Medium private notes weren't exactly private. Anyone who had the story's draft link could see any private note.

Capitalizing on this loophole, a group of writers like myself used the feature to help edit each other's stories. It was a fantastic, collaborative, supportive system.

Then, as would be a common feature over the past ten years, Medium changed things.

The Launch

Medium closed the loophole, and, all of a sudden, private notes were actually private. Publication editors could read notes, but no one else could. So, we adapted.

In late October of 2014, Sand Farnia, Jessica Jungton, the mysterious Stella J. McKenna, and I formed The Writing Cooperative as a publication to house drafts for editing. Our goal was to have a centralized place where writers could request edits from other writers. We affectionately called it The Draft List.

The Draft List was a published story that people could leave a private note on and request a story for editing. We'd manually edit the story and add the link, and then others could see the post for editing. While the private notes were no longer public, the writer would still get feedback from multiple people.

The founding team was dedicated to supporting everyone in our community as much as possible. We were personally editing every story shared in The Draft List to ensure everyone received some feedback.

Just a few months after The Writing Cooperative launched, our ranks were already swelling. In February 2015, I launched The Finished Product, a monthly newsletter to share interesting stories that came from The Draft List, a monthly writer spotlight, and interesting stories from The Adoption List, which highlighted quality stories looking for a publication. My current newsletter and weekly Write Now interviews were conceptually birthed in The Finished Product all those years ago.

To promote what we were doing, The Writing Cooperative publication started curating Medium stories on writing. Back then, a published story could be in more than one publication, so people gladly posted their stories in The Writing Cooperative to try and capture new eyes. We published stories on writing and added a banner at the bottom to promote The Draft List.

As a result, The Writing Cooperative grew. Fast. And with the publication’s growth, my personal audience grew as well.

These early days were a lot of fun and a huge part of why I'm the writer I am today. All that editing, both giving and receiving feedback, only strengthened my voice and my writing ability. It was a self-imposed crash course in online writing. It also quickly grew unmanageable.

The founders and I were essentially full-time volunteers for The Writing Cooperative. This was, of course, on top of our actual jobs. We spent nearly three years running full-speed, building the publication and community on Medium. We needed to slow down and, to try and keep things going, find ways to fund this out-of-hand passion project.

That led us to Patreon.

The Growth Era

The Writing Cooperative launched a Patreon on December 30, 2016. The initial response was, quite frankly, overwhelming. I remember publishing the story and watching Patreon, nervous if we'd get a single supporter. Instead, it was a literal flood. After a few hours and dozens of paying patrons later, I finally walked away from the computer to celebrate what had just happened.

Sand, Jess, Stella, and I were floored with the response our little community that could generated. To coincide with our Patreon, we launched a Slack community for our new members, providing direct access to our team to request edits and feedback. The Draft List moved from Medium to Slack, enabling members to directly request feedback from the community.

We continued to grow, hosting writing challenges with real prizes. We managed to get companies like Scrivener, Ulysses, and ProWritingAid to award licenses based on submission quality and reader feedback. I didn't have any experience hosting a writing contest, but we figured it out and read through hundreds of submissions to crown our winners.

Throughout 2017, we hosted a 52-week writing challenge encouraging people to write and publish something every week. When we conceived the challenge in December 2016, we had no idea that by July 2017, there would be thousands of participants! We didn't even know if there'd be a prize or an end goal!

During 2017, my personal Medium audience grew from 1,276 to 4,995 people. Publishing regularly directly correlated with my engagement and ability to connect with other writers. While Medium doesn't publish audience stats for publications, we crested the 50,000 follower mark in early 2018. Flush with growth and naivety, we developed a new, novel concept.

In March of 2017, with a bit of money coming in from Patreon, The Writing Cooperative launched a legal business equally owned by Sand, Jess, Stella, and me. Shortly after forming the company in March 2017, we began work on our next idea: paying writers.

We wanted to use our Patreon funds to account for the time we spent and try to support our growing community of writers. It seemed simple enough and, having never met in person or even via video call, the four of aimed to figure it out.

Being quick to act and a little naive, we wanted to give our writers a percentage of our monthly income. Through Slack chats, we devised a plan to base individual writers' earnings on their story engagement in the publication.

We maintained detailed records of published stories, what the authors' views were, who the author was, and then the percentage the story earned. I can't tell you how complicated these spreadsheets were!

At the end of each month, we'd PayPal writers their take. It was an absolute mess, and we got flagged by PayPal on more than one occasion for “unusual” activity, but we were committed to supporting our writers.

Without intending, we launched an international company paying writers in over a dozen countries. Looking back, it's amazing. I never slowed down enough to realize the scope or scale of what we created. But The Writing Cooperative's whole goal was to support and encourage writers. Being able to pay them, too, was a huge success.

Granted, we weren't making a lot of money, and none of our writers were getting rich, but our little Robin Hood-esq cooperative was helping a lot of people get paid for their writing, something most of us hadn't ever dreamed possible.

Then, Medium did something that felt a little familiar.

The Game Changes

On August 10, 2017, Medium announced a new subscription for story access. In essence, the paywall was coming. But, with it was a promise: writers would get paid for their stories.

Frankly, I was too in the weeds at the time to realize it, but Medium basically announced the exact same thing we were doing. I guess you could say The Writing Cooperative beat Medium to the Partner Program game by a few months!

I was one of the first invitees to Medium's Partner Program. At the time, I had no idea what would be a "payment-worthy" story. To date, I had a few articles that were picked up and republished on various sites for small stipends.

The Grand Unified Theory of Scarlett Johansson Movies was picked up by Film School Rejects for $25 and I Paid Off My Student Loans and I Feel Nothing was acquired for $50. Despite these meager payouts, nothing I wrote had intentionally been written for money. What would that even mean?!

Doing what I often do in a situation like this, I didn't think too hard and just wrote something. Granted, ‌I'm A Slave To My Wrist is not my best work. In fact, the Medium team sent me an email asking what compelled me to submit it behind the paywall. The answer? I didn’t know. I wanted to see what would happen.

What happened was Medium paid me over $350 for that nonsense story. It was insane. At that point, I decided everything I wrote was going behind the paywall; potential impact on audience growth be damned!

Coming off the heels of the first real hurricane to hit Orlando in over a decade, I published How Was Your Hurricane. It was a recap of a harrowing 24 hours. The story did ok in its first few days. Then, while standing in line at Disney a week later, my notifications started exploding. Medium featured the story in their newsletter. That story earned nearly $200 as a result.

I couldn't believe what Medium was doing. While the Partner Program was invite-only, the pay rates were simply insane. It made the few dollar PayPal transfers we were sending in The Writing Cooperative look like peanuts. But, hey, paying writers was still a novel concept, and those few dollars we managed to share were important to a lot of people, myself included!

While I was an early invitee into Medium's Partner Program, The Writing Cooperative was one of the first partner publications. In essence, Medium agreed to pay us for encouraging people to join Medium's new subscription program. So, on October 1, 2017, just six months after its launch, we temporarily shut down The Writing Cooperative's payment plan to retool our system.

A month later, on November 6, 2017, we announced a new, Medium-powered Partner Program for our writers. Medium paid The Writing Cooperative based on how many members joined using our affiliate link. As a result, we committed to turning 70% of that around to pay our writers. All of a sudden, our small pool of Patreon funds turned into an ocean. Medium's payments were signficanly larger than our Patreon funds and our spreadsheets got even more crazy.

Thankfully, the insanity of sending dozens of monthly PayPal payments, tracking hundreds of stories, and managing international contractors wouldn't last forever. On August 10, 2018, Medium opened the Partner Program up and began paying writers directly. While it was a lot of fun, managing all of those payments for over a year was nuts. We constantly worried about our personal tax implications and all the 1099 paperwork. Our international corporation could finally get out of the contractor business and focus solely on building the publication and community.

It was time for a new project.

The Simple Request

From the early days of The Finished Product, I enjoyed talking to other writers. I liked learning about how they thought, what tools they used, and where they found inspiration. These questions led me to a wild idea: could I interview some of my favorite authors on a regular basis?

In the Fall of 2018, I started outlining what would become my Write Now column. Working with Sand, Jess, and Stella, I crafted the interview questions and pitch emails. Then, one evening, I put all my cards on the table.

Opening a dozen tabs, I paste my pitch email into the contact forms on as many author websites as I could find. I didn't know what would happen, but I figured if I got ghosted or rejected, it would tell me the idea wasn't worth pursuing. And, at least, I had tried.

Instead, the opposite happened.

Less than 24 hours after sending the emails, Andy Weir responded. Like, actually, him. Not a publicist or agent. Andy Weir, author of The Martian. From his personal email account, no less! I didn't care if another author ever responded; I knew my idea was a success.

The first Write Now interview, featuring Andy Weir, was published on January 9, 2019. Since then, I've published over 218 Write Now interviews featuring first-time writers and New York Times bestselling authors.

Pierce Brown talked about the Roman Empire's influence on Red Rising. Rebecca Yarros shared how the world fell away while she engrossed herself in writing Fourth Wing. Karen Dionne explained how her motivation for characters in The Marsh King's Daughter aligned with the depiction in the film adaptation. And R.L. Stine, legandary author of Goosbumps, highlghted his inpiration for writing: "Greed and stupidity."

An unexpected twist to requesting interviews is establishing relationships with publicists and agents. Over the years, I've formed connections with people at multiple companies and publishers. These days, I look at the seasonal publishing list and request interviews directly instead of trying to hunt down authors. Learning about books not yet published and connecting with authors worldwide is a lot of fun. Plus, I have an impossibly endless stack of advance reader copies. Who doesn't like more books?!

Write Now is one of the things I'm most proud of. I don't know if the weekly interviews will continue forever, but it's really exciting to share a glimpse into the world of authors.

The Rapid Acceleration

In December 2020, The Writing Cooperative company reduced to Jessica and myself. Stella had left the company a year or so before to persue other adventures and the time had come for Sand to exit. Now a 50% owner of the corporation, I aimed to take the publication and my personal writing to a new level.

I launched my full-time freelance writing career in January 2021. In addition to working with clients off Medium, I focused more on consistently connecting with my audience. I was publishing three weekly articles at the time: a personal newsletter, a publication newsletter, and a Write Now interview. To make things even more nuts, I also added a monthly publication newsletter! The pace was crazy, and so was my detailed publishing calendar to ensure I never missed a self-imposed deadline.

My approach to the online writing community changed throughout my stint in full-time freelance work. Jessica and I met via video call for the first time and hosted live comedy writing showcases that featured standup comedians. I dabbled at a weekly writing-themed podcast and even coached a few cohorts of writers, again stepping back into personal editing.

My weekly newsletter habits led me to land a personal coaching gig with Tony Stubblebine. We chatted monthly about writing, consistency, and motivation. I remember my jaw dropping when Tony told me the news that he had been tapped as the new CEO of Medium. I was ecstatic for him and the direction I knew he had the ability to take the company.

During this period, I even managed to write a book about writing. Borrowing from my weekly column, Write Now wasn't your typical book on writing. I didn't want to talk about growth hacks and instead focused on the power of showing up and putting in the hard work.

On April 7, 2022, Jessica left The Writing Cooperative. As the sole remaining editor, I continued to pour myself into the publication, its community, and my writing schedule. Three newsletters, a weekly interview, and reviewing hundreds of submissions became the norm. After all, my entire journey on Medium had been about pushing forward and never stopping long enough to realize what I was doing.

During this period my Medium growth skyrocked. I began 2021 with 10,450 followers. When I left full-time freelance work in August 2022, I had 49,493. In the same period, The Writing Cooperative surpassed 200,000 followers. Pure insanity.

I don't often talk about numbers because, frankly, metrics aren't why I write. But I am grateful that so many people are interested in my thoughts and find encouragement through what I've been able to build.

The insane growth and pace I adhered to wouldn't (or couldn't) last forever.

The New Reality

Despite again working full-time, I still tried to maintain my insane writing pace. It worked, for awhile, but quickly became too much.

I let go of my personal and the publication's monthly newsletters, allowing me to focus on a single, high-quality newsletter and the weekly Write Now column. At the same time, the world of online creation started changing.

AI emerged. Twitter died. The attention economy imploded. The platform era came crashing down.

All this happened while I was going through some pretty heavy life changes. It was enough to turn even the most Pollyanna online writer into a cynical ogre talking about the "good ol' days."

Instead, I saw the changing landscape as an opportunity. The tenets that have guided my writing career still hold true. Writers deserve to be paid, and community is the most valuable metric of all. Everything I write is an opporutnity to connect with people, to share experiences, and learn from each other.

Throughout the years, I've connected with some amazing people. I've been fortunate to interact and learn from some of the best: Zulie, Sinem, and Eric. The OGs of the Medium community, Benjamin, Ernio, Chaz, Devon, and Tom have all helped me become the writer I am today. And let's not forget the amazing Medium staff for constantly trying to push the platform forward.

I am the writer I am today because of what Medium built.

The past ten years wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't signed up (the second time) and hit publish. It was a mixture of luck and hard work, people finding and enjoying my writing. Through it all, Medium has facilitated the process and made the journey worthwhile.

The Future

What comes next is a bit of anyone's guess.

I applaud that Medium is anti-AI scraping, but the bots are clearly an issue on the platform. Outside the "Google paid 99 dollars" comment spam, I've started to notice clearly AI copy-pasta comments that just summarize the article. Who is this for, and why does it even exist? Is it some kind of attention scam hoping I follow the "author" back?

Given the rise of AI, human curation is more powerful and important than ever. The Boost program and Medium's commitment to quality are ways to combat AI sludge. There are more that we all need to take, collectively, to ensure quality human voices are elevated.

While most platforms are dying or converting into some kind of AI-fueled hate cycle, Medium has a unique opportunity to stand out. It can continue to highlight and build upon the things it does really well: human curation and great writing.

Whatever happens, I hope Medium will continue to find its way and improve, and I am excited for the journey. After all, ten years is an eternity online and there's a reason I've stuck around depsite leaving almost everywhere else. Medium has enabled me to be the writer I am today, and I hope it continues to do so for writers well into the future.