Member-only story
The Future Of Digital Writing: Why 80,000 Followers On Medium Means Nothing
Dear Writers on Medium,
Let me tell you a little story.
I started writing on Medium in 2018.
I’d heard about the site, but from 2014 to 2017 I was a obsessed with writing on Quora. Started near the end of 2014, 24 years old and fresh out of college, I challenged myself to write one Quora answer per day, every day, for a year straight to see what would happen. Best-case scenario, I thought, I’d launch my career as a writer (I had no idea how this would actually play out, but I figured something would happen). Worst-case scenario, I’d spend a year doing what I loved (writing), practicing my craft.
Win-win.
Well, about a month into my Daily Writing Habit challenge, I scored my first Quora answer with 10,000 views.
A month after that, I scored my next big hit—this time 100,000 views.
And then a month after that, I hit it big. One of my Quora answers landed on the front page of Reddit, accumulating 1,000,000 views in 48 hours. This Quora answer put me on the map, helped me launch my first eBook (I made $5,000 in a couple weeks), and wouldn’t you know it, “launched my career as a digital writer.”
Fast-forward to today (almost 8 years later), and I’ve written 5 books including an Amazon best-seller for writers called, The Art & Business of Online Writing. I’ve accumulated hundreds of millions of views on my writing online (across Quora, Medium, dozens of industry publications, and more). I’ve built a 7-figure ghostwriting agency for founders and executives, called Digital Press. And most recently, I’ve been part of building the fastest-growing cohort-based writing community on the Internet, called Ship 30 for 30, helping people get started writing online—just like I did.
Writing every single day on Quora fundamentally changed my life.
And today, I have nearly 250,000 followers across Quora, Medium, Twitter, Instagram, and beyond.
Here’s why none of that matters—and what the future holds for digital writers.
