As I mentioned in my last post, I’d like to try a little cartoon series about Pearl as a stand up comic and another little cartoon series about Bessie as a professional chef. But those are still “on the drawing board.”
In the meantime, I’ve been working on compiling my posts onto a separate website called Medium. (To be honest, I’m still working on catching up so both are synchronized, but I should be finished soon. Pearl’s dream of being a standup comedian has gotten me sidetracked!)
You can take a look here: “My Life With Gracie” Publication on Medium
Here’s what I like about Medium (based on my understanding of how the website works).
You can publish individual posts as a “story” or add them to a “series” or a “publication.” I am adding my main weekly posts from WordPress to a publication titled “My Life With Gracie.” Where in WordPress, each week’s three main posts are individual items, in my Medium publication, they are combined into one longer story with about a five to six minute reading time.
In Medium, there is a consistency across stories because the format is basically the same for every story regardless of who wrote it. To me this avoids distracting fonts and formatting which can get in the way of the actual words and pictures.
The reading experience on Medium, is much easier for me. This may be just my personal preference. I do find it easier to explore other writers and other ideas through the suggested reading based on what I’ve read in the past. This makes the reading experience more personalized.
There are also no paid advertisements on Medium. With WordPress, you must pay to have them removed. For me, I don’t mind paying with WordPress because I don’t want to see an advertisement for a chicken fast food restaurant underneath my story about Gracie and my other chickens!
While there are some stories which are “locked” unless you have a Medium subscription, many of the stories (such as mine) are not. Purchasing a subscription allows you to read everything found on Medium. The subscription funds are shared among the writers who have signed up to be paid authors. The amount received is based on “claps.” The greater number of claps they receive for a story, the greater their share of the subscription funds.
When you like a story, you can give it from one to fifty claps. This allows you to do more than simply “like” since you can also indicate how much you liked the story. (I’m pointing this out because some new users don’t realize this and a single clap is almost as bad as no claps at all. It’s sort of a “pathetic pity clap” to me!)
You can highlight portions of the text which are saved for you on your own profile. This lets you go back to those passages later. You can also add comments to the highlighted portions or comments at the end of a story. Since your highlights and comments are also visible to others on your profile, if you find a writer you enjoy, you can use those to find out more about them and what they are thinking.
With Medium, I think you have a better idea of who has actually read your story. Medium uses the average reading time and compares this with how long someone spends with your story. It can then identify whether someone just looked or actually read your story. To me, that’s very important in knowing how well you have engaged your readers.
You can take a look here, and I’d like to know what you think. (You only need to login if you want to give claps, make comments, highlight text, or save to your personal reading list to come back to again.) “My Life With Gracie” Publication on Medium
So my suggestion for today is to check out Medium and consider becoming a writer there yourself! You do not need a subscription either! I’d really enjoy finding my favorite WordPress writers on Medium as well!
One additional note…If you are someone who tends to share different kinds of content, using Medium for different publications might be good for you. I think this might help you focus on different audiences. For example, if I do decide to do some “Bessie’s Best Ever Recipe” posts, I would want those separated out from “My Life With Gracie.” The same would be true for “Pearl’s Big Night At The Comedy Coop.” Oh, and I don’t want to forget “The Rose Garden Princess” ballet!
