Writing for Medium after 11 years of blogging

I have decided to write for Medium. It can’t hurt. I was a member anyway and decided to give it a bash after realising that The Word of Ward has been going since April 2009. Which is a bugger of a long time. This website has always been a combination of attention seeking and a place to vent. I write for a living and most of that has been for a variety of clients and publishers. I have been doing this lark (alongside a broadcast TV career) since 1990 when a was a mere 18-year-old. It is a fun job but it has some annoyances.

My problem is that I am somewhat set in my ways, (based on the above you can probably work out my age if you’re ever so smart,) and so I have never really put in all the effort younger types seem to be doing in addition to writing. People now market themselves, maximise their brand and monetise things. Or something. For most of my career I have written an article, sent it to an editor, it gets published in a magazine and I then get paid. A bit later, a new edition comes out and what I wrote in glorious print is gone forever – like tears in rain. (Sorry, just watched Blade Runner again.)

Writing for clients means you get paid, which is great, but you have to conform to their style. Which can be frustrating. ‘Can you make it sexier?’ ‘I want more zing.’ ‘More colloquial.’ ‘Less colloquial.’ And so forth. After a while, you learn to automatically adapt but I started this site as a way to write whatever the hell I wanted in whatever sexy, zing filled style I fancied. It is why it’s pretty random. Back in the day, it made money because Google Adsense was pretty good back then. Now, not so much. I have removed it. I publicise my own books but brilliant as they are, most of my earnings come from writing ‘for the man’. That will probably still continue. But there are new models and online publications like Medium that you can now write for.

I wrote briefly for a content mill but christ that was depressing. I lasted a a week. Other things like Upwork seem like a lot of effort. Medium seems to the best of the bunch and so I’ll give it a go. It will be strange to switch from writing something, getting paid, then its done. I hope this model will mean that things build into untold riches. We’ll see. I only mention it in case anyone is in the same boat and thinking of taking a plunge. I will update here how it is all going until I am so wealthy that I won’t.