Welcome to Destiny Architecture for Your Content Writing Business: Breaking Down Changes to Medium & 1 Place You Can Go To Instead (+More)

A Warning for Typeshare/Medium Writers

Most of Medium freaked out last week upon receiving an email about being booted from the Medium Partner Program (MPP) if they had fewer than 100 followers.

I wrote this story for the under 100 folks.

What's Up With The Medium-Typeshare Integration?

I watched for the past three weeks as my February MPP earnings fell short of January's whopping $3.29 payout. (This is why no one new to Medium with fewer than 100 followers should freak out, but let's stay on task here about Typeshare).

I thought maybe my shorter atomic essays from Typeshare could be the culprit because maybe only longer stories do well on Medium? I'd been auto-publishing direct to Medium from Typeshare.

Pro tip: Don't do that.

I was way off! Here's why. There's now a new checkbox on Medium before you publish. It's placed at the same box where you enter your tags, but now you need to check a box if you want the article counted in your earnings (as if you wouldn't?!?!)

Pro Tip: It appears that auto-publishing bypasses this checkbox and therefore excludes you from MPP earnings.

This seems to be TWO stupid things Medium has added lately—booting writers with fewer than 100 followers and adding another layer of friction to the MPP by requiring an extra check box. ✅

I have nearly 300 followers, but find it obnoxious that Medium is booting those who don't have "enough" followers. Medium has been a nice place for writers to network and grow. It gives some a start. This decision seems snobby.

Also, if you have any other automation going, with Zapier, IFTTT (or low-code for you devs), you're likely to see the same result.

Is anyone else having this experience?

Since I'm earning bupkiss from Medium and since they always have (and always will) move the goal post for writers, I decided to look into Ghost.

Here's the Deal with Ghost

I've moved the newsletter from Revue to Ghost (which is how you're seeing this online or receiving it via email).

Ghost is cool because it posts the newsletter native to the site, but I can also write email newsletter-exclusive content in it!

Ghost is open-source and solves a lot of the problems I've faced in creating content so far

For example, Substack was supposed to be so great according to many but brought me fewer views than any platform. Patreon brought in plenty of views, but hokey analytics, no way to lose their branding, and they take a big percentage of your earnings.

I feel like I'm treading water on Wordpress, Squarespace, Substack, Medium, Patreon... etc.

Ghost lets me consolidate all of that.

Utilizing all Ghost can do will factor heavily into my efforts during the March cohort of Ship 30 for 30 for this shipper. I'll be sharing my learnings here.

The cohort begins March 7th!

“Not “be positive” but learn to be ceaselessly creative and opportunistic.
Not: This is not so bad.
But: I can make this good.”

Excerpt From
The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
Ryan Holiday

Join 🚢 #Ship30for30 with my affiliate link: enroll.ship30for30.com/a/6ssm4