Writing
I Deleted My Personal Publication
For a better alternative
I started a personal publication (Mark Starlin Writes!) a couple of years ago, mainly because I wanted a way to organize my writing. The Medium single-column feed is fine for current events and news commentary, but terrible for stories that have lasting value like fiction, humor, poetry, etc.
I was tired of watching my stories vanish down the feed, and I thought a personal publication would be a way to combat that. I could organize my writing into seven categories, each with a separate menu. And I would have control over the layout to an extent.
I enjoyed the experience of creating the publication, but here is what I learned. A personal publication on Medium doesn’t work. At least, mine didn’t.
I tried featuring old stories. No bites.
I tried sending out newsletters with links to current stories each month. Waste of time. They were mostly ignored.
The people who followed my personal pub were mostly the same people who followed me. It was redundant.
The organizing geek in me liked the publication, but not many readers followed or visited. And why should they when they could just follow me?
