Some people condemn shortform as not being creative enough or worthy to be a part of Medium. I beg to differ but I do get the arguments. It’s easier to write shortform, yes. It’s faster, indeed. And depending on the style, the quality might be lower than that of long-form content, true.

BUT shortform has many upsides. I’ll give 8 reasons why I love writing shortform posts.

1. Staying in the habit of writing every day

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes struggle to write a long post (700+ words let’s say) every day. Shortform is a handy way to sidestep that.

2. Views and earnings

You might not know it…

1000 views. Kudos if you made it there. Depending on your progress, 1000 views is either business as usual or a milestone on your way up, a viral hit even. No matter the case, let’s break down what you can expect to earn for 1000 views.

For some context, Vocal Media pays $3.80 for 1000 views on their free plan and $6 with Vocal+ for 1000 views. Want to take a guess about Medium?

To make this easier, I only calculate internal views here, as external views don’t count. However, many articles get a mixture of internal and external views…

Big publications like P.S. I Love You, The Post-Grad Survival Guide, and The Ascent are closing. Smaller pubs are following.

Why? Because being an owner and/or editor of a huge publication sucks without getting paid. That’s the main reason. Unless publications compensate their editors themselves, they don’t earn a dime. That’s not good. But it’s the way Medium want it. They want to step away from publications.

However

I’m an editor for two publications. Thoughts and Ideas and The Shortform. In total, that’s 23,000 followers. Dozens of drafts each day.

With all that being said — and I do think editors…

Well, a load might be pushing it. But I stand by this feature request.

Imagine this! You’re reading a bloody awesome story by one of your favorite Medium writers. Now you want to support them for their work. What do you do?

Membership

If you’re a paying Medium member or even used the referral link* to sign up for Medium, you have already helped your favorite writer a lot. They get paid for your reading time and/or with a cut of the referral. That’s step number one. …

Lately, I’ve noticed a trend. Blatantly obvious. It’s all over my Medium home feed and even the weekly digest.

I’m not sure who the culprit is here. I might have read one or two posts in that niche but I don’t think that justifies my feed being flooded with similar content.

I'm talking about sex. And posts related to sex. Don’t get me wrong, I like a kinky story every now and then. But it’s gotten a little out of hand.

Or is sex the new trending topic now? It might be. Views and claps on these posts seem to…

Sometimes people question my intentions on this platform. They question whether or not I really read other writer’s posts.

In fact, I do. I read all the time. Here and in many other places. I frequently visit the blogs of my favorite creators, I’m subscribed to a few newsletters. I leave comments here and there. I engage. With good intentions.

But I get the skepticism as this platform and all the other ones I use are full of people who pretend to care, pretend to follow and engage when in reality, they only want you to engage with their content…

My first reaction is f*ck off. I’m sorry.

But there is a good marketing strategy behind it.

This Medium course is taught by one of the most popular and successful Medium writers. She knows her stuff, no doubt. I enjoy her writing. She’s awesome. That being said, $500 for a Medium course — however long or well-structured — is insanely… let’s call it optimistic.

This Medium writer markets her course through her enormous mailing list. This mailing list is a result of a successful Facebook Group. She has a good strategy going. …

Let’s say you’ve made it! You constantly get views in the thousands on your stories. A goal that’s not too farfetched in my book, considering the fact that high-profile writers make a few thousand dollars per month, even crossing 5 figures. It took them years to get there, so don’t panic after 3 posts.

Milestones

1000 views on a single story is a great first milestone to work towards. Crossing that the first time was a huge thing for me. I celebrated it like there was no tomorrow. The same happened when I crossed 10,000 views on a story for the…