Clarification on Publishing My Articles on Medium, SubStack and Vocal

1. Medium: the main

Medium is a good platform for technical bloggers. I started blogging in January 2021, with 150+ of my articles featured in leading software testing newsletters.

However, I think the recent changes to Medium were wrong, such as:

Restricted access
There was a well-known trick to view Medium articles behind the paywall, but no longer possible since the last month (2023–07). Frankly, as a content author makes earnings, I don’t mind that (and it has existed for years). I think it will help reach more audiences. (People who pay will pay, People who don’t pay will not pay)
For this reason, the curator of the Software Testing Newsletter stopped to feature Medium Member-Only articles.
Confusing and Unfair New Partner Program
Like the video blogger (below), I also noticed a significant drop in my Medium earnings, maybe 50–70%. It was pretty clear before the change; earning for an article was mostly based on reading time, and now it is quite complex. I have no clue now.

On some days, less than $1, unbelievable given I have 350 articles with ~2200 followers. A logical explanation by someone: when a reader clicks a link in your article before reading for 30 seconds, the reading time is reset to 0. He went to remove many links, and the earnings backed up a lot. If so, that’s too bad; that’s my writing style, and it seems my readers like it. I don’t want to remove the convenient links for money.

If you are a Medium member and like my articles, to support me, read at least 30 seconds before clicking a link, or right-click to open a link in another tab. Thanks!

According to this YouTuber, the new partner favours new and short articles, which definitely bad news for me. My 350+ articles over the last 2.5 years are generally quite long. I don’t want to change my existing articles (many of my readers have bookmarked them).

The Change to my publishing on Medium

Shorter Articles
I will break a long article into two or three parts if it fits. Maybe readers like this way.
About half of my articles will be freely on Vocal Media.
As you have seen earlier, showing a link to the same article on Vocal.

Question for Medium Members: “This takes some privilege of mine!”

Maybe a tiny bit, mostly NO. Five reasons:

Medium members can access all contents (by any author), so there is no “specific XXX’s members” concept on Medium.
Medium’s referral program ends next month, i.e., there won’t be a reader-to-author connection on the Medium platform.
Prior to the last month, there was a well-known way (Incognito) to access member-only. I just implemented it in a different way (many links will be back to my Medium articles anyway, which is good for Meidum in terms of bringing more customers)
A fair percentage of my articles will be exclusive on Medium only.
I am publishing articles more frequently, considering the extra work is for the public.

For my Medium Followers (I don’t like this term used by Medium) who are not paid Members, I suggest you subscribe my Vocal Media to my articles (~50% of existing + regular new ones). If you want to upgrade to be a Member member, there are still ten days left to get my two free ebooks using my referral link. This offer won’t be repeated as Medium is about to drop this referral program.

2. SubStack: the newsletter

I started SubStack with the hope of better communication with my readers, as suggested by some. I copied over 300 Medium articles over. Frankly, the outcome was below my expectations, very low percentage of paid subscribers.

The Change to my publishing on SubStack

From today, I will cease to mirror Medium articles to SubStack. Instead, I will focus on exclusive Substack content, specifically :

Selenium Training Workbook
Practical guided test automation exercises, a bite-sized web test automation training series with Selenium WebDriver. 21 so far, 50 planned.
Highly recommended for beginners!
Idiom Stories for Software Professionals
Insightful stories from ancient wisdom for software professionals, 33 of them in total. I might add a few more in the future.
Micro-ISV, a new series!
Mico-ISV is an independent software vendor with fewer than ten or even just one software developer. I have developed and been maintaining several highly acclaimed apps, such as BuildWise, TestWise, WhenWise and TestWisely, solo and mostly in my spare time. This series shares my lessons and things I wish I had known earlier. This will be of great valuable for ambitious software professionals to achieve their utmost dream: Be your own boss!

Please note the complete set of the above will be only available on SubStack for Paid Subscribers.

More Benefits to Paid SubStack Subscribers

In the future, I will offer specials, discounts, and opportunities to my SubStack paid subscribers.

The first special one is already on: Three My Free eBooks for Paid Subscribers (annual payment) before 2023–09–01. This effectively reduced the annual fee to ~$10 (from $50). Hurry! Subscribe Today.

If you are already a free subscriber, which is fine, there are few changes. But I recommend you’d better subscribe to my Vocal Media for free articles, especially taking up the above limited-time offer.

3. Vocal Media: Free

I put my articles (existing and future ones) on Vocal Media to reach more audiences while still gaining a little passive income.

I like Vocal’s model:

Free access
No Ads (i.e. truly free)
Wonder how? Check out this article, “Here’s How Vocal Media Can Pay Per Read — Without Ads”.
Pay content author by reads, even just $3.8/1000 views.
There are some writing challenges with small awards.
Some authors recommended Vocal for its Pledges, i.e. a continuous tipping system, such as readers paying $2.99/month to support authors. From my observation, my readers have been quite careful with spending, so I don’t count on that at all.

However, there are some limitations with Vocal:

Less formatting options, compared to Medium
Lacking some features, such as TOC generation via extension
Not well-known, i.e., very low inbuilt traffic
No code-formatting.
This is a big one for me, meaning a good percentage of my articles are unsuitable there. I already raised one ticket and got the reply, “Feedback sent to the development team.”
No custom tagging

But, hey, it is totally free for readers without annoying ads, can’t complain.

Wrap Up

My writing links:

Medium: https://zhiminzhan.medium.com
Recommended for Medium Members, as most of my articles are behind the paywall. Otherwise, two reads per month, as Medium recently restricted the access.
SubStack: https://agileway.substack.com/
Recommended for motivated software engineers and test automation engineers who are willing to be my paid subscribers, gaining access to a range of exclusive benefits.
Vocal Media: https://vocal.media/authors/zhimin-zhan
To read a fair percentage of my articles free and with no Ads.