Here’s How to Use Medium to Build an Audience for Your Books by Guest @ShauntaGrimes
Building an audience is one of the hardest parts of being a writer.
It’s hard for a lot of reasons. We want to create. We don’t want to be marketers. It feels weird and wrong to sell these stories that we’ve poured our hearts and souls into. We want to just write our books and leave the rest up to fate.
Sadly, it doesn’t work that way. At least not most of the time. For most of us, building an audience and learning how to interact with that audience is an important part of our job.
Building an Audience Through Medium
One of the best ways I’ve found to do that is through blogging. My favorite platform right now is Medium, for a couple of reasons:
- It’s super simple.
- It’s free.
- There’s almost no tech-knowledge required.
- And there’s already a large audience there.
Medium also makes it so easy and intuitive for readers to share your posts via Twitter and Facebook.
What to Blog About on Medium
You might be tempted to blog about your own fiction writing. Posting cover reveals and process logs and updates on your progress. The problem with that is that there are very few people who are interested in that. Especially if you’re a new or aspiring writer.
Ask yourself how many blogs like that you read.
You’re better off writing about all of the other things that make you awesome. Build a fan base for yourself not the particular book you’re working on.
I have a simple method for figuring out what to blog about. It involves asking yourself these four questions:
- What are you good at?
- What do you want to be good at?
- What interests you?
- What is interesting about you?
Make a list of answers for each one. Those are your topics. Think about things you can teach. Think about things you can learn, and write about as you go. Thinks about stories you can tell about your life or about your passions that other people will be interested in.
Remember that when you blog — and when you write books, for that matter — you are writing for your reader. Not for yourself. Write to draw your reader in, and they’ll want more. Give them ways to follow you. An email list sign-up form. Your social media links. On Medium you can start your own publication (I wrote about that here) where you can gain subscribers who are interested in you and your posts.
Building Your Fan Base on Medium
Be consistent. Teach your readers that they can rely on you. If you blog weekly, show up every week. If you blog daily, show up at least most days. Pay attention to what your readers are responding to and give them more of that.
Start doing that now and when you have a book ready to publish, you’ll have a fan base ready to receive it.
If you’d like step-by-step help getting started on Medium, check out my free course–Anti-Blogging for Creatives.
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The Astonishing Maybe by Shaunta Grimes
Middle-schooler Gideon Quinton wasn’t thrilled about moving with his family across the U.S. to nowhere Nevada right at the start of summer break. When he arrives to his new neighborhood, he notices there’s a girl next door about his age … and she takes him on (un-Quinton-like) wild, Hobbit-like adventures. For the reader, especially any adult reader, this story is heartbreaking.
Booklist Magazine
rocket
THE GIVEAWAY
A one-hour phone consultation about writing on Medium, (Valued at $150)
Want to win this giveaway? Simply leave a comment WHY below!
All comments must be left prior to midnight on Monday, May 20th, 2019 in order to be eligible to win. Winners for the week announced on Tuesday, May 21st.
Good luck!
Shaunta Grimes
Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, two dementia patients, a good friend, Alfred the cat, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. Her latest novel is The Astonishing Maybe. She’s on Twitter @shauntagrimes and is the original Ninja Writer. Here are several free guides to help you and a free course as well!
- A Guide to Self-Promotion for Medium Writers – The Write Brain – Medium
- A Guide to Starting a Medium Publication – The Write Brain – Medium
- A Guide to Medium Curation – The Write Brain – Medium
Sign up for my free course Anti-Blogging for Creatives
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I just started with Medium, so I’d love to win this! Still learning the platform, but I’m hoping to make it a good income stream in the future.
I am going to check out Medium, thank you for the advice and what a fab giveaway.
Now I know what Medium is. I saw it used before but this clarifies it. Thanks for the info.
I like this idea. Slowly but surely taking to Medium. Cool platform for spreading the word.
I’ve been writing on Medium for almost 2 years now but always forget to place my blog posts on there. I love the idea of building a blog but I admit I’m lazy but reading this really resonates with me and speaks to me. It makes me want to try harder on Medium and see if I can build off it. Great article, you tell it like it is, you give the basics but also say hey you can do this just like anyone else can and it’s free.
This couldn’t have come at a better time! I was just talking to someone about getting started blogging again. Thank you for giving me a new avenue to check into!
I struggle to come up with consistent blogs. I have things to say, but writing it feels daunting.
I’d love to win in order to figure out what I’m missing. I’ve gone around and around about it, but I just seem to be missing something key. I’ve used Medium in the past to ‘repost’ content from my site to get it on more platforms. That got a little bit of interest, but not a whole lot–probably not even enough to mention.
I really feel like I’m yelling into the hurricane, and can’t figure out how to get above the noise. The readers I do have are diehard. I really just want to add to them, so I can make my writing career a go. For now, it’s a hobby I fund from a day job, which means less time for writing–and with a toddler on deck, even less time. I figure out what I can as I go. But I can’t just keep running in the same circle. I gotta break out and get to the next steps, the next goals.
What would be the advantage of using Medium in addition to or instead of a blog? I have Missing Lettr attached to my blog account and have the ability to post to Medium through that app. I don’t do that with all of my blog posts but just chosen ones. I try and post weekly to my blog but can’t always do that. As a writer would it be worth my time to write and post content for both my blog and medium or would it be better to keep using the Missing Lettr plugin as i have been.
I’ve used Medium for about 2 years now but haven’t really made it work for me at least not in the sense of how you build it up and use it in your post. Medium is a place where people can blog in hopes of building their blog followers assuming they have the ability to get blog followers. I’m curious as to whether or not an author can truly do something on Medium or if it’s just another place to post your blog and see no results.
I could probably learn how to use Medium better. I wonder based off what is said in this article if its truly possible for an author to capitalize on it. Aside from using it as a platform to blog can it serve another purpose? Can it truly gain you blog followers assuming you have the ability to gain blog followers?
Shaunta,
I loved your #bookmarketingchat info last night. This blog highlights your great knowledge. I need all the help I can get and I’d love to learn from you.
Dr. J.
Shaunta,
I’m writing my first novel and creating an author website that will have a blog. The blog has definitely been a rough spot. I appreciate the points you made in your article and have signed up for your course. Thanks so much for reducing my stress levels over starting this blog.
Sincerely,
Dana Lemaster
I’ve been following Shaunta’s journey on Medium for a while now and I enjoy reading her posts. Keep up the great work!
Awesome post and advice. I’ve been posting to Medium for a while and have always thought it was a wonderful place, but haven’t had a ton of traction.
I’ve been writing a weekly blog on my own website since September and really want to expand my platform. I will be trying Medium soon. Thanks for this!
I’ve been following Shaunta for a while now (off and on Medium). After reading a lot of her posts about putting your writing on Medium, I started doing so. I know I need to get more on Medium. Like other commenters above, I struggle with the decision of writing on Medium and my blogs or just on my blogs to re-post on Medium. The phone consult would be awesome to win. I would love to get Shaunta’s thoughts about how I can increase my presence on Medium. ~Adrienne
I’d love to have the chance to pick Shaunta’s brain! I’ve been writing on Medium for 2-3 months and I’ve definitely got a lot to learn.
I’ve read a few blog posts about writing on Medium, and I even visit on occasion. I do have a couple of questions:
1. Does it cost to blog on Medium?
2. What are the advantages of blogging on Medium vs. posting on your own blog or website?
Thank you 🙂
Hi Iola! Shaunta is the expert here, however, here is the FAQs section which is pretty comprehensive: https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us (hopefully you can access from your part of the world).
Let me know if this answers your questions (basically, you can earn money by blogging on Medium).
Shaunta,
I want to thank you for this advice. The part about figuring out what to blog on really works! I’ve had so much resistance to blogging. I was super stuck. But now I have a solid list of 34 topics to write about from doing your exercise. I’m looking forward to jumping into the other parts of the process.
Cheers,
Bonni