A Tale of Two Writing Platforms
NewsBreak versus Medium
Technically, I’m not writing for News Break. More like cutting and pasting like an insane idiot. Since I got an invite to join in January 2021 I’ve started moving my Medium stuff over there.
When I first received the email from NB inviting me to join I thought it was just another scam. I emailed them back and said something like, “Uh, have you guys actually read my stuff? Because I’m no journalist.” They responded by sending me another invite a few days later, so I said, “What the hell, if they are potentially going to pay me, I may as well give it a whirl.”
Lots of articles have already been written about NB, so this is just my take on some of the differences I’ve noticed between Medium and NB.
Reach
Medium: Like many creative writers on Medium ever since the new MPP was started my stats have been shit. More like shit that has been sitting at the bottom of my septic tank for over a year.
NB: So far the impressions and page views on NB have been skyrocketing. I often get more page views in one day on NB then I do in an entire month on Medium. I went from a high of 3500 impressions on Jan 1st to over 200k impression on Feb 9th. I had one short and silly rant rant hit 11,000 page views in less than a week. That is slightly lower than my all time monthly high on Medium (before the MPP change of course).
My daily page views on NB regularly match or exceed Medium’s monthly views by 2–3 times as much.
Comments
Medium: This is one area in which Medium has always excelled. Generally, most of the readers on Medium are also writers who understand good writing when they read it I think. (Unfortunately, Medium’s algorithms don’t see it that way most of the time.) I’ve had a hand full of nasty and stupid comments on my stuff since 2017, but it is pretty rare. Medium has what I think are some big flaws, but the quality of its readership isn’t one of them.
NB: If someone were to ask me based on the comments on NB who my target audience is I think I’d have to say as a writer it is probably best to imagine yourself ghostwriting Florida Man’s autobiography.
It is pretty clear from the comments that a lot of people using the app only read the headline before they let the insane voices in their heads start commenting. The comments sometimes feel like they are using a speech to text app and just screaming into their phones whatever crazy gibberish pops into their heads. It is hard to imagine many of them can actually read or write at all.
The comments sections might be a good place for a writer that feels like they need to toughen up. A Gordon Lish style work shop has got nothing on the comment section on Newsbreak. My best advice when it comes to comments there though is be the anti-Captain Picard, in other words, Don’t Engage!
Though if you feel like you need to build up a strong back bone as a writer NB is good for that. One run through the comments in that place and you’ll skin will be as thick as Klingon Hull plate armor.
Money
Medium: Dismal. Need I say more.
NB: Well, here’s where things get weird probably disappointing since I imagine many of you wanted to hear about the earnings on NB. NB has a strange Fight Clubish rule about “The First Rule of the NB Payment System is that you Don’t Talk About the NB Payment System”. So, I can’t say much about it other than I earned way more my first month on NB than I ever have on Medium. Like, more in one month on NB than an entire year on Medium.
Will this continue? I have no idea. My first few months on Medium were my best ever too. Some other writers that I have read that are way more in the know about all things SEO and internet platforms than I am think that NB might just be a short term money grab for most writers.
I kind of suspect the same thing. They have already changed their “NB thingy that we aren’t supposed to talk about” once in just three months. My guess is once they identify who the top writers are in terms of page views they will use those gods as their standard to decide who gets paid and who doesn’t. I’m an idiot when it comes to these sort of things, but from a business perspective it would make sense to only pay those that are actually earning your business money.
Again, because of NB’s “First rule of NB’s Payment System” I can’t say exactly what the differences in earnings are, but I will say this:
One story on Medium that has earned exactly $0.00 since Oct 2017 has earned me as much as one of my very best months from Medium’s payment system in three days.
One side note though, if you are depending on a timely cash flow then NB will be pretty frustrating for you. Compared with Medium NB is like a sloth caught in a glacier when it comes to how quickly they pay out. Maybe this will improve with time, I hope, but for now you could end up shattering your finger bones stabbing the refresh button while waiting for NB to show that they have actually paid you.
Types of Stories that Do Well
Medium: I think most people writing on Medium already know which topics do well on Medium (read as favored by the fucking algorithms.) and which ones don’t. If you are a creative writer on Medium you are mostly shit out of luck when it comes to your stuff getting much attention compared with a tech listicle article.
NB: Despite claiming to be all about local news articles, NB actually really shines when it comes to short stories and personal essays. And, I have published some narrative poems on their as well. NB recommends 500–1000 word stories, but most of my stuff that is between 250–500 words seems to do the best. NB has been great for flash and micro fiction for me so far.
As many other writers have mentioned the weird stories are king on News Break. The weirder the better it seems. Or at least a weird headline since it is debatable whether most of the people using NB ever read beyond that.
Also, since NB is solely a US app and because NB allows you to chose where you want your story to be seen stories that take place in the US tend to get more attention.
Strategy
Medium: None that work very well that I know of. Though you can bet your ass there are probably a dozen articles published every day that will claim they have the “winning strategy: this week.
NB: It is really hard to come up with one since things have changed dramatically in the last few months on NB. For now my plan is to post 2–3 stories a day until I burn through all of my content on Medium. That should take me into the next big change that NB has announced in about a month and a half at which point I’ll need to start writing brand new content.
Other than posting weird flash fiction stories that take place in the US I don’t know what works. Some writers have said that stuff about relationships and family seem to do well on NB too.
Looking at all the stories that have had 1k page views or more I’d have to say stories about guns, jet skis, Ninjas, the Vietnam War, and ease dropping on old Japanese men seem to do the best. Yeah, I know, try and make a comprehensive plot and publishing strategy out of that mess, lol.
Like I said, weird is king and so far there doesn’t seem to be any great techniques for attracting readers other than throwing a lot of stuff out there and seeing what lands and what doesn’t.
One thing I don’t like about NB is that there is currently no way to schedule your stories to be published. I assume this has something to do with the AI approval system they use. This makes it a little more challenging for me since I’m in Japan and I have to be online during the right hours to make sure people in the US are awake to read my stuff. I hope maybe NB will make some upgrades in the future that make the platform more like some of the better qualities Medium has.
Thankfully our back list of stories can still earn on NB just like Medium, so if an older story was to suddenly go viral you could still make a lot of cash from it.
Final Thoughts
Overall, as a creative writer, at the moment, I think NB is far better than Medium. In fact, NB, at least in terms if potential earnings, NB is far better than submitting your work to literary journals too.
The base pay from NB for stories on NB is about the same as say your middle of the road literary journal, but the difference is your stories on NB get accepted or rejected (though with some tweaking you can re-submit them and get them accepted) the same day. Whereas most literary journals take at least three months before they even respond.
I plan to continue putting my work on both Medium and NB for the foreseeable future, Medium for the great readership and NB for the higher earning potential, but I think once I have burned through all my older stories that I’m currently transferring to NB I will probably start putting stuff on NB first.
UPDATE: If anyone wants to try and join NB this is my referral code. Full disclosure, NB pays me $50 if you qualify and full fill some other stuff.
http://creators.newsbreak.com/register?referral_code=6e2b799