The Biggest Mistake I Made Writing on Medium
It's something a lot of us do…
Meta-Medium stories.
The ones that are about Medium. They’re called “meta”, because you write on Medium about Medium.
Meta content is at the core of my creation strategy. All of my analyses prove this works:
writing on Medium about writing on Medium
publishing books on Amazon about publishing books on Amazon
making videos on YouTube about making videos on YouTube
selling courses on Udemy about selling courses on Udemy
And so on…
I decided to count on this with my strategy on Medium. So I wrote about it a lot — results, bugs, writing on Medium…you name it. Half of my stories are on that topic.
But I was wrong!
The reason: Network-only distribution.
Medium is special.
For some reason, it limits this kind of content. Not like any other platform.
Why?
Official statement: the reader’s interest.
My opinion? Not really. The reader is in full control of his interests on Medium. It’s more about the business model.
The more you earn, the less they earn. Not like any other platform.
Meta content is a major growth driver for creators on any platform and Medium was no exception.
I knew it was limited. But I still decided to go with it. With time I’d have enough following to maintain a sustainable readership.
I was wrong again!
Medium controls what to show to my followers too!
Take June for example — most creators reposted massive drops in earnings with lots of external and non-member views.
Still, that’s not enough to judge. I made an analysis. It revealed that my stories about Medium are the ones that earned less than almost any other topic I wrote about!
But I was also right!
Meta content does do well on the platform. It’s just not specifically about Medium, but about writing.
See, writing about writing is also meta, especially on a platform like Medium. That’s the better performer!
And that’s the biggest mistake I made with my writing on Medium.
You can read the full analysis here:
I Analyzed My 200+ Medium Articles by Lifetime Earnings!
And I had some shocking discoveries...yanagy.substack.com
Yup! I write about Medium a lot, and those stories used to do very well. But not so much anymore. I don't understand the "users don't like it." Don't we have a "for you" page for a reason? Although, it never works correctly.
Exactly! The users can control it. It’s just Medium trying to become profitable…