So, Am I Leaving Medium or Not? And Why?

After nearly 1400 articles, it’s time to move on

I had planned to be out by the end of August, but I write daily about the election and it seemed like a bad idea to leave in the middle of the craziness. But I’ve been duplicating my work on my Substack newsletter, The Witness Chronicles, and hoping many of my readers here would follow me there.

Many have, which I am grateful for. But I think it might be a good idea to clarify why I won’t be staying here. It’s not because this is a bad place and it has been good to me over the years, but I feel stalled and I think I know why.

My writing is very timely, as I cover ongoing news and political trends. A piece may only be relevant for a few days and they often build on a theme I’m seeing emerge. For example, this past week I’ve been writing about how the constant lying on the right is a calculated strategy, in a series of pieces.

Medium serves you articles based on your reading history and other parameters, calculated with an algorithm, a kind of software formula. So there is no guarantee a regular reader of mine will see my work. They have a workaround for this. I could start a publication but, frankly, Substack is perfectly conceived for serial writing like mine.

For those unfamiliar with the Substack model, readers can subscribe to a writer’s newsletter at either free or paid levels of the writer’s choosing. The writer gets a direct path into your inbox and that email list remains my property. It means every article is sent directly to you when you subscribe. No randomness.

Of course you can unsubscribe anytime. And in my case, I have chosen to serve the same content to both free and paid subscribers. This effectively turns a paid subscription into a gesture of support for my work. I have been pleasantly surprised by how many readers choose to donate via a paid sub.

I have about seven thousand followers on Medium, a larger than average number, but it has not grown and I feel a very limited connection with many of you. Substack was designed to help writers build a community of readers who appreciate our work and that community function is real.

My subscriber list is a fraction of the size of my Medium follower list, about one third, but those subscribers all see all my work and many comment and share the work. They are far more engaged and the platform makes that…