Why I Chose Substack Over Medium
I am no longer writing on Medium. I know, shocker. Or not. If you write erotic, sensual, steamy fiction, you have probably noticed a wave of writers moving over here to Substack.
Let me explain.
Day Job
First, writing is my day job. I don’t have a nine to five to back it up.
I’m blessed, right?
Well, maybe, but I’m going to take some credit here. I’ve worked hard throughout my entire career. Multiple jobs. Raged and won, OK, sometimes lost against the machine.
For years, I managed the single mum paying the mortgage thing. Overcame redundancy, more than once, life changes, the complete kit and caboodle. Now I indulge my passion, writing, as my full-time job.
#goals
Yay for me!
Indie Writer
I’m an introvert and I love being an independent writer.
Aren’t all writers introverted at heart?
Happier in a cabin in the woods than a room packed with voices. I love nothing more than closing a door on the world and escaping onto a page. Reading or writing, both fill my creative well. Words take us down rabbit holes we never imagined. Characters take the ball and run with it, and that’s the joy.
That said, we writers have to venture out into that big wide world, if only online, to sell our words. They won’t go alone, no matter how much we wish they would. They can stumble and fall into the abyss if we don’t work at marketing.
Despite the myths, that’s not just an indie thing. Traditionally published writers need to do the selling part, so no shame or judgment on how you choose to approach your writing and publishing career. Marketing is a requirement of any business, small, indie or otherwise.
It’s just made extra difficult for us writers of sensual fiction, under whatever niche or genre banner you find us.
Medium
I guess I should clarify. I’m still there, but with just a couple of ‘foot in the door’ promotional posts.
No new content will go to Medium.
I’m no longer paying Medium monthly fees for the privilege of sharing my work, so I won’t get paid by them either.
I originally found Medium via the recommendation of another writer who, coincidentally, has also left the platform. They too could no longer work with the ever-changing rules, lack of transparency and wildly unpredictable nature of income.
We write to pay the bills.
If I can’t even guess how much money my content could bring in, it’s difficult to manage the business at all. Yes, business, not a hobby.
Medium is, by default, an adult platform. You need to sign up, give relevant ID, bank details, etc. You can read a couple of posts for free, but most Medium subscribers pay to read the content.
If we are all grown-ups, why censor or effectively hide adult fiction?
It’s great to have choices, and I’m not bitter about Medium. It served me well, but they have changed the rules too many times, and steamy fiction has been pushed very firmly and definitely to the sidelines.
I guess all relationships have a natural curve of blind enthusiasm, lust, love, realism, cynicism, then an end date. Online platforms are no different. It was my time to leave.
Gilead or Censorship In Any Other Name
Sex sells, but not easily. Adult fiction is hard to market. It is. Trust me. And it’s getting harder, that’s harder not in a good way.
We steamy writers can sell our stories within strict guidelines, but did you even know we can’t even pay to advertise our books on most major platforms?
Across the globe, we all see how the US is pushing the censorship agenda. I’m a believer in free speech, not hate speech. The fear of books, of education, or literature and knowledge is not a road I want to travel down.
It starts with banning, hiding, even deleting or punishing sexual content, but where will it end?
Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m all for making sure my grandbabies don’t see adult fiction when browsing the toy section, but there are ways to apply adult filters. They could work and stop the content from dropping into the black hole, sometimes referred to as the dungeon.
We can, and do, get thrown off the major platforms at the whim of an unseen algorithm, without notice and without the option to appeal. Thinking about it, how could we, we don’t know what we are appealing against half the time.
Why do we get the boot?
It could be a word, literally one word used in a blurb. A hint of a nipple. Yes, I fell on that sword. My cover model wore a wet bikini. I was lucky that only one book got rejected. My entire account didn’t close, but it happens.
If we step over an invisible boundary ‘they’ don’t warn us about, we can lose not only access to and visibility of our work but also the income generated.
It’s why so many of us really push our email lists, the only data that keeps us sane, well OK, that’s a bit extreme, but you get the idea.
Why Do Writers Tolerate Lack of Transparency?
Imagine in any other business you design, draft and create a product, polish it, put your heart and soul into it. You overcome doubt and imposter syndrome to hand it over to a custodian, store, platform to sell it for you.
But they won’t tell you how much you will earn, or even the price they suggest. They won’t give you an hourly rate, a data-backed decision, not a bean.
But they want you to trust them and leave it with them, hoping it’ll sell.
Amazon, whose own rates have dropped significantly, tell you how it’s calculated. I love Amazon, despite it’s faults. They have given so many writers a good income over the years, but that’s for another post. Love isn’t blind but it’s tolerant.
Other platforms for example Google Play Books or Apple help you calculate and set your prices across the globe, and importantly, tell you exactly how much they will pay you for each book sold or page read.
We may not earn much per book, but we’ll be able to make informed choices, be a pro, budget and make financial predictions. We know how to price our books.
Call me naïve, but I’d have loved Medium to allow us to do the same with our shorter form content.
Paying for the Privilege
I could stick with Medium purely as a marketing tool, but why, when I can’t get a boost to reach new readers?
Hardly an effective marketing strategy.
If I had written about earning money on Medium, and the temptation was there, my content could have been boosted, shown to an entirely new audience. Medium seem to positively promote those articles above any other.
How to make money on Medium is a whole niche in itself. I understand why writers do it, they need to earn a living but it makes me sad. Medium could do so much better with and for its wealth of talent. It’s such a missed opportunity for writers producing great content across a wide spectrum of topics, including hot fiction. They seem to have forgotten both their writers and readers are paying clients.
Some writers now barely make back their monthly fees, hence the migration elsewhere. As professionals we should know where our subscription fees go, and how we can generate a reasonable return on investment.
What did Medium do to address criticism and their lack support for writers?
Offered them an even higher fee option.
Bans and Buckets
It’s not just Medium and Amazon who hide or ban us. I’ve lost my DD tip jar. Yep. Got closed down without a moment’s notice.
Why?
They told me, apologetically, that I might have posted inappropriate content. Oh, and their financial backers had told them to.
To give you context on what was on there, other than the opportunity to donate a coffee…
Book promotions, for my books that appear happily on the almost every other major multiple platform, Apple, Google, Amazon et al.
And three pictures of my toes.
Literally just my toes.
No other body parts on show!
Although I’d painted my toenails bright red so I guess I was pushing it!
Substack
Substack allows you, the reader, to find content you like and support those who produce it. It’s way more transparent than many other platforms.
Years ago, I read of a high-profile writer’s move to Substack. I’d never heard of it. Sad but true.
The writer in question had a huge Medium following. They knew the writing business inside out. They ran firmly ahead of the curve.
Substack is free to write and share content, it’s transparent and supportive.
It even gives writers things like customised social media images to promote their work. Genius!
Their data is amazing, easy to find, interpret and use. It’s everything Medium isn’t right now. It’s not perfect, is anything, probably not, but Substack’s sure as heck trying!
They have a chat room facility, choice of subscriber payment levels, support networks, just about everything we need, and, importantly it positively encourages work to be seen, shared and enjoyed.
I hate writing into a void!