Medium Readers Don’t Always Care What Matters to You
Catering to the market is important in blogging.
When I first decided to write here on Medium, the original plan was to make this sort of a political blog. Literally, the first piece I’ve posted here was about Trump:
but of course, that didn’t last long, obviously, I barely post any political content here on Medium; in my opinion, Medium isn’t the right platform for it but that’s just me.
The beauty of Medium is that we could write whatever the hell we want and still make a couple of bucks from it, provided that you know how and where to promote your articles:
Recently, I’ve been writing about what’s important to me — philosophy, world news, personal stories — I always think about if that’s something my thousand lovely followers would care to read.
I tried being empathetic and putting myself in their shoes and realized, why the hell would they want to read a story about me being kicked out of my apartment?
Or why would they care if I’m an existentialist or not?
My Toxic Relationship with Medium
Medium is a platform that, at first, I just enjoyed writing on. I mean, the readers and writers here are so diverse you’d be surprised by the range of jobs and ages of people you could interact with.
I have had casual conversations with doctors, physicists, and professors all thanks to Medium — and that’s super cool for me.
As time passed by, I started earning actual money here:
and on my last birthday, it even paid for my out-of-the-country vacation:
I started taking Medium seriously and it was a major source of income for me at one point, it helped with rent and groceries, but my love for Medium eventually burned out.
I kept writing and writing but not about the things that I actually care about.
I wrote on Medium for money and it took away the fun.
I was severely burnt out from writing not just on Medium but outside of the platform as well. I didn’t have the energy to do my actual writing jobs and it sucked.
Writing is something that I’ve always loved but was diluted by worldly things like money and pressure and I was just drained.
I realized I needed to make some changes to how I view writing and when to separate the writing job from just plain writing out of enjoyment, and Medium is a great platform to do the latter.
If you’re wondering about what niches work well on Medium, here’s my top paying article ever:
I guess you can tell from the title what its tag is. It was a paid article that I had to do to promote a dating website, I didn’t know it would actually do well here — Medium definitely is a mystery.
Write What Matters
Medium definitely is a fun place to write on; the community is great and the platform is liberating in terms of writing.
One thing that I’ve learned throughout my almost 6 months of writing here is that Medium readers don’t always care about what’s important to you, but Medium readers do care about things that matter.
If you want to write engaging stories that you think will get a good amount of reads, then do so.
It’s not selling out, it’s just being smart — hell, if you want to call me a sell-out you’re more than welcome to, as long as I’m selling, babe, all is well.
But writing about what’s important to you, about things that not a lot of people will relate to, for me, is what’s important.
That just means your fresh eyes are what would make it unique, and there are few but very real people that can be touched by your stories.
Keep writing your stories, you’ll never know whose life you’ll touch.
Hey! If you’re looking for a platform to start your writing journey on and get paid for it, Medium is one of the best places to start. Sign up here to get unlimited access to stories on Medium.
Signing up using my link gives me a small commission, and as a freelance writer, it’s always appreciated.
Want to know where to submit your articles on Medium? Check these out:
