And authors are already feeling the bite… — My long-time readers know that my loyalty to them extends to the platform they read my articles on — Medium. Having been around for over eight years, both as content consumer and creator, I have seen things change a good few times. Change, while humans tend to have an aversion…

Sorry, but I don’t think there is much hope — I can’t tell you how many posts I have read recently about the demise of Medium. According to what I have read, it’s Tony Stubblebine’s fault, or maybe it’s ChatGPT, or who knows what caused it, but views are down, money is shrinking, and everything is wrong, wrong, wrong. My…

And claims not to know things that it actually knows a lot about — I broke down and spent a little time playing with ChatGPT yesterday. I’d been putting it off because, well, because I just don’t care much about it. But then I had a thought: why don’t I find out what it knows about me? Who? Your first thought might be that it…

I’m beginning to think there is not — We dislike advertising, we dislike paying member dues, and we don’t want our demographic data to be used as the product. At one time, I thought micropayments might be a solution to those problems for content creators. It seems simple enough. Why wouldn’t you pay a tiny amount of money…

It’s time to bring the magic back to Medium — I’m sure many of you have noticed that Medium has been having some issues lately. Like many other social networks, our platform has been plagued by bots and spammers for months, and it’s become increasingly difficult to find stories that are worth reading. I’ve spent the past few days looking…

I am so sorry I’m eating into your earnings, get used to it — Tony Stubblebine has a difficult last name to spell. Other than that, I have no complaints about Medium’s new CEO. I wanted to give him a chance before declaring him the messiah or anti-christ. Fortunately, he’s neither. There’s no crazy new thing they are building that will revolutionize words on…

Ever heard of the “colash”? Or the “commash”? — Writers often worry about overusing punctuation. This is particularly true of the m-dash. Last year when I released the app Just The Punctuation — which, as the name suggests, takes a piece of your writing and strips out everything but the punctuation — some writers said they were too afraid…

Helping myself stay organized and future readers find related content — Follow my newsletter here! Up until recently, I didn’t utilize the list feature all that much. I will save stories and put them in private lists, like to-dos, inspiration, and to read. But, I didn’t have my own stories very organized. What do I mean by lists? Check out this…

Wanna get real about publications and what they do for your success? Alright. Let’s do it. Let’s get real… — Let’s cut the crap and look at where the real value of publications lies. Some claim they’re worthless, while many assume they’re the one sure golden fairy-dusted ticket to fame. The former is a very ignorant view, the latter is an incredibly naive one. …

Turns out one of the most vocal groups opposing digital accessibility, are writers… — The more time I spend dealing with digital accessibility, the more I find pockets of unexpected groups who oppose it. You’d think it’s common sense by now that we don’t want to discriminate against people, and especially not based on disability. I mean, one of the infamous people who did…

A debate over views, reads, and member reading time — Recently I had a little dispute with a fellow writer over some information he had imparted in an article here on Medium. It was an article by Robert Ralph that intended to explain to readers what constituted a “view” and what constituted a “read”. …

Chatbots, artificial intelligence, and community standard violations, oh my! — As a general rule, I like to handle conflict on my own without getting the authorities involved. I have a quick wit, and I enjoy crafting literary insults. There’s a precedent for writers creating colorful insults, check out this whopper from Shakespeare: “Why, thou clay brained guts, thou knotty pated…

Artificial intelligence has come on in leaps and bounds — I read. I write. I think. I was thinking I would like to up my game. Technology is moving at a pace. What is out there to help me? These could prove useful for you too: Beautiful.ai You won’t need to be an expert in design if it’s done by this…

That’s what I did until I didn’t — For a long time now, I’ve had a desire to take these posts I make at Medium to YouTube. Well, maybe desire is too strong a word. Let’s just say that the thought crosses my mind now and then. Whenever that thought has intruded, I have quickly brushed it away…

Is it an eye thing? Or an age thing? — White fonts on dark background make me squint. I click past those pages. They are most likely to occur on profile pages, the “about” pages Medium writers can design for themselves. I truly don’t know if this is an eye thing or an age thing or an idiosyncratic thing, although…

It told me that I’m closing in on $10K on Medium 🤯 — The Medium statistics pages severely lack data points. I’ve written about this extensively in the past, including some ideas and recommendations on additional stats that might be valuable for writers. I don’t think Medium will ever include these. But a man can dream. Better stats for Medium writers Still, don’t worry, we have a wonderful…

Here’s how I see the big picture of what happened and what is happening. — There have been many, many articles about how little money writers earn on Medium. There have also been a good few about how much less previously successful writers are earning. I thought I would give you my version of what is happening here. There are more writers than readers. That…

It would be easy to cast stones, but I had a different reaction — I don’t usually listen to interviews with successful entrepreneurs. Founder interviews can be boring and often infuriating as some accidentally wealthy person babbles on about their alleged business brilliance. I knew I needed to listen to Ev Williams because, well, I write here and he owns the place, so, duh…

Make Your Writing More Accessible to Others — Do you like to read? Do you buy a lot of books? Have you ever noticed how few of the books you own feature light text against a dark background? Why do you suppose that is? Those of us who work in educational settings are familiar with accessibility. We recognize…