Medium Is a Competitive Platform
Medium, as we all know it, is an online publishing platform developed by Evan Williams back in 2012.
I think I’ve written this before but I first stumbled upon Medium after a night of binge drinking gin with my high school friends.
For some reason, I wanted to read something about philosophy and came across an article here by Zat Rana — my all-time favorite Medium blogger.
That night basically started my semi-obsession with Medium. Although I’ve been here since June 2019, I didn’t start writing until August — 2 months later.
As per the own platform’s description, Medium is a place where words matter. The platform taps into the brains of the world’s most insightful writers, thinkers, and storytellers to bring you the smartest takes on topics that matter.
Granted that is arguably true — Medium is a place where words matter, does the weight of every writer’s words or pieces of equal importance on this site?
The DNA of Medium
Medium is estimated to currently have over 70 million paid and unpaid users as of 2018. Not everyone is a participant of the Medium Partner Program but the platform has 60 million readers monthly.
I’m not one of the writing pioneers here on Medium, what I know now is it’s current standing — the way I see it shifting and it’s implications.
Publications on Medium
Publications on Medium made by writers have different usage for them; some writers make one to put their writings into a single file, others to compile similar topics in one, and some are more interactive by opening theirs for submissions from other writers.
Then, there are Medium-owned publications like Human Parts, Elemental, Forge, etc.
Here’s a link to a list of Medium-owned publications excluding their latest one that’s named Marker
Competing on Medium-owned Publications
Medium-owned publications are typically harder to get a piece published with, and even harder now that Medium writers are competing with actual authors and Medium-hired writers.
Don’t believe me? Check out the homepage of Medium.
There are occasional writing prompts for Medium-owned publications like Human Parts, but a submission piece often have to compete with hundreds or even thousands of others to be published with the pub. Thus, making it harder to gain exposure.
Competing with Other Writers on Medium
There are thousands and thousands of writers on Medium and even more articles published daily to the point where I stopped and thought about how the heck do I get my writings noticed.
Even when I try to get my writings out on social media especially Facebook groups about Medium there are plenty of people who do the same, and there are a lot of talents out there.
Sometimes I think about selling my soul to Medium — publishing something with a click bait for a headline or just something I know will garner more readers. To be honest, I kind of had done it:
Those are helpful articles but I wrote it generally because I know people like to read about Medium.
Competitiveness is in the DNA of Medium
A part of Medium’s DNA is competitiveness whether you’d like to admit it or not. I get it though, some would just like to use it to blow off some steam and write.
But for the rest of us who’s in it to earn a few extra income for whatever reason, the competitiveness of the platform is obvious.
We have to write well and write consistently to gain momentum and traffic to our small blog here on Medium and a way to do that is to make sure you get noticed more than others — either by publications or marketing strategies, we have to be seen, otherwise our articles and stories are just compiled words existing in a void.
I’ll tell you this though, Medium might be a competitive platform but we don’t have to compete with each other. We can help other writers with their pieces and their edits and celebrate their wins with them.
We’re all just trying to make something. It won’t hurt anyone if you try to be kind to other writers.
Check out my other works:
