Most of my blog posts this month have been on Medium.com under my name. I had another good month on the platform with over 4300 hundred views and 2.1K reads with still a few days left in the month. This is well over the readership I accrue on WordPress.
There were two separate periods when my writing must have been picked up for further distribution because my stats soared during a cluster of days each time. Medium administration has decided to not label articles as “picked for further distribution” any longer so one has to intuit when it happens. I am doing that by following my stats.
The days with the most views/reads this month were September 5th, September 10th, and September 23rd. The days following those dates were also high-view/read days. Some of the posts that have contributed to these stats are:
Tremendous Nature Scapes: Scenes from Maine, Part II.
I’ve been pleased with the reception I’ve gotten on Medium as well. So far, the money has not flowed in, but nor did I expect it to. I will make slightly more this month than last. It shows some progress.
I have contributed to three publications, which I did not do in August. This has helped bring me exposure as those that are regular readers of the publication are seeing my stories as well as those that are already following me.
Medium seems to be undergoing some changes right now, but since I don’t know any different I’m going with the flow. One does need to read (daily) on the sight and comment, clap, and/or follow other writers. I will say that comments, in general, seem to have more substance and, due to the site’s size, it is less clicky than some other groups I’m involved with. I see that as an advantage. Even though the site is bigger, I feel like I’m a part of it and not on the fringe – which unfortunately I’m still feeling with the other writing pages/groups to which I’ve belonged for a long time.
There are quite a few Medium members who write about nature and the outdoors and I feel like I might have a better outlet for my environmental education articles on Medium than on WordPress. That said, I am not trying to pigeonhole myself into one writing topic niche. I might not get to top writer status that way, but I like some variety and thus, I write on a lot of different topics.
I look forward to continuing to write on both Medium and WordPress. But as far as growing as a writer, I think Medium has been better for me, personally. It’s nice to see some really “big” numbers in my stats – especially since I’ve been writing daily for five years!
On other writing topics, I submitted three poems to a literary magazine and am awaiting their decision. I have also been tossing around ideas of being the publisher of my own poetry anthology (not for kids, necessarily, but could be shared with them). There’ll be more on that if I decide to pursue it. And, finally, I think I might have found a way to work on both my blog posts and other, “non-blog” writing. I’d like to work on some other projects and will use October to try and do that with blog writing in the morning (before noon) and the pursuit of other writing in the afternoon. It’ll take some discipline but I think it might work!
Lastly, I’d like to thank my readers on both sites. Your comments keep me going and I have thoroughly enjoyed connecting with some new people, as well as continuing to hear from those that have read my posts for years!
You can follow me on medium.com via email or subscribe to Medium for $5.00 a month and not only read my posts but any other posts on the site. If you join via my subscription link, available at the end of all my medium.com articles, I will receive a small portion of your membership fee. Just use the link highlighted in the first sentence of this article and go to the end of one of my posts. There are further links there to become a medium member or just get my posts via email. Thanks, again!
The Apples in My Orchard 