I actually re-read this and had some additional thoughts to share that I think would be good for the readers in the comments to understand.
One, before I even sold courses I had already made about $300,000 just from writing articles on Medium. I've been on medium for seven years, the first five of which I spent both writing for free and then writing for the partner program. Always built my list, of course, because it's just wise, but didn't really even try to sell anything until 2021.
The reason the course came about honestly was from demand. People kept asking me if I offered coaching and I was reluctant to it at first, but I figured since I had so much experience I might as well help people out. And no way in hell I was going to do it for free.
Let me tell you guys all something about writiing courses. Based on what I've seen from looking at the profiles of most of the people in the comments. You NEED writing education. You have tons of blindspots.
Doesn't matter what style you're trying to write. A lot of you guys are trying to write memoir and personal essays with no story arcs to them at all, no stylistic devices to get readers from point a to b. No structure. The topic selection is, frankly, odd. And, the titles on those posts are horrific. I'm being frank because these things just need to be said.
Last, as I suspected, when I go through your profiles I see little to no productivity. You don't have to publish a story per day, but most of you guys aren't publishing nearly enough. Most aren't even reaching the bar of say, 2 well constructed stories per week, with good headlines, in solid publicaitons. The vast majority of people in the comments don't deserve to make money. Linda, I feel for you. But, for the vast majority of the rest of you, you wouldn't have made a ton of money even at the peak of Medium earnings. The percentage of writers who earned more than $100 was exactly the same back then as it is now for the exact same reasons. Most of you could take your writing to any platform on planet earth and it still wouldn't do well.
Nothing to do with you Linda, but I felt these words would be helpful to the peanut gallery.
