Lost in the Content Jungle

My first impressions after using Medium, Wattpad and Inkitt

Avoiding content overload—but how?

In an attempt to spread my wings and expand my audience, recently I’ve started posting on Medium, Wattpad and Inkitt. Here are my first impressions, after joining them for a couple of weeks.

Medium—the Content Jungle

Medium is supposedly the second biggest blogging platform after Wordpress¹. I’m aware of it almost since its inception, but was reluctant to invest much time in it due to its paywall for non-members (about which more, later). Until I decided to try them out, if only to see if the grass at Medium is greener than at Substack.

Once you’ve joined—I joined as a writer—Medium sends you daily digests, basically listing the posts that should fit your stated interest (which you can fill in when you join, or later). To my surprise, the majority of those listed had very little to do with my stated interests, but were mainly posts either about reading ‘content²’, or ‘creating content’.

Medium logo

Just to get a feeling for them, I checked a few of those ‘content’ and ‘content-creation’ posts. It’s extremely discouraging. In those posts, writing is treated as being akin to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO); that is, it doesn’t matter what you write as long as you show up high in Google’s SEO algorithm.

On top of that, you should present yourself as the (not just ‘a’) specialist on the topic you’re discussing, and offer actions instead of suggestions, no options but a single one-fix-for-all solution. In other words, convince your targets, sorry readers, that your snake oil is better than the snake oil of all those other content creators.

Now if you excuse me, I am a rational human being who can think for himself. I love options, I prefer to see alternatives, I like to have a choice. Therefore, I try to treat my readers like I would like to be treated; that is, as a functional adult, not a sales target for a non-existent panacea.

Of course, this means that I have a limited list of followers,  but I do hope that those followers are critical-thinking human beings like me. Quality over quantity.

It also means that when I write an essay about a certain topic, I try not to make it sound like it is the final word on it. I do have an opinion, of course, but it is meant to make you—the reader—think and hopefully entices you to read more on that topic, informing yourself. I’d rather raise interest than accumulate mindless ‘followers’.

So far, I’m getting the impression that the majority of the posts of Medium are for internal consumption; that is, the people that are already part of Medium. If you’re not subscribed to Medium, you get—if I understand it correctly—one free article (per day?), and need to subscribe if you want to read more. This, in my not so humble opinion, discourages the inflow of new readers. I know that you get a pop-up that you have to click away by choosing “Not now” when you try to read a Substack post as a non-subscriber, but once you’ve done that, you can read all the posts of that author that are designated as free³. So it’s more welcoming to outside readers—basically easing the inflow of new subscribers.

Not so with Medium, as you get only one article. So I’m supposed to commit myself to a paying subscription on the basis of one single article? No, thank you very much. So while Medium is still quite a lot bigger than Substack, I suspect Substack is growing faster. Medium seems to preach to its, admittedly still big, choir (which seems to grow increasingly desperate), while Substack seems.   Roughly speaking, Medium appears to be the platform for wannabe content creators eager to make a quick buck, while Substack appears to house those who have been there, and failing to do that⁴, are willing to settle for a more limited, yet more involved, more dedicated audience.

Finally, as a writer I have more tools at my disposal on Substack. For example, it’s impossible—unless you use a workaround—to use footnotes on Medium. That might be better for those with a short attention span⁵, but these are not the readers I’m trying to reach. I’m (indirectly) promoting my novels, who need readers that can go beyond the first few paragraphs. In my case, using footnotes is my tool for sarcastic side notes, meaning that if you don’t want to indulge in my snark, you can simply skip them.

Which, I suspect, is the essential difference between Medium and Substack. Medium is focussed on the [something] of the day—like a firefly that shines brightly, yet only briefly. Substack—or at least the parts of Substack that I frequent—is more suitable for informed discourse, for finding things out, exploring illuminating opinions, or even find some serialised fiction—more like an owl that wants to contemplate what it just devoured.

Wattpad and Inkitt—the Romantasy Explosion

Wattpad logo

When having a few drinks with three science fiction writers at the recent Glasgow Worldcon—names withheld to protect the innocent—one of them mentioned that the current genre du jour was ‘romantasy’ (“All the new writers at the publisher’s parties were writing romantasy⁶.”). Romantasy is a portmanteau that combines romance and fantasy. I asked what ‘romantasy’ exactly comprised, the answer was ‘fantasy with romance—the romance can be between a huge variety of partners and sexual preferences—where the romance has a sharply defined hotness level.’

“How hot?” I enquired.

“Very, very hot,” was the answer. “Just short of vulgar or explicit⁷.”

It wasn’t what the four of us⁸ were—or had been—writing. I was the only one without a publisher, meaning that my pitch for my current SF novel would—most probably—fall on deaf ears, or, more likely, be like barking up the wrong tree.

Which brings me to Wattpad and Inkitt. On both platforms I’ve started to post chapters of my short novel “Forever Curious”, if only to check reactions and interest levels. Also, I checked both platforms for novels to read, and science fiction in particular.

Well, my overwhelming impression is that both platforms have been infected with the ‘romantasy’ virus. The main categories are indeed romance and fantasy—which both have become so ‘romantacised’ that they’re virtually indistinguishable. But also the other categories—thrillers, science fiction, and others—feature hot protagonists—of any kind, aliens included—that are always on the lookout for a hot antagonist.

So: romantic thrillers⁹? Oh yes. ‘Sci-fi romance’? Yes, most definitely, if Wattpad and Inkitt are any guide. I’m getting the sinking feeling that romance must be central to any genre, while the genre-specific elements¹⁰ have become nothing more than window dressings.

The intrepid explorer valiantly trying to uncover the secrets of the Universe? So last century. Will only work if this intrepid explorer eventually finds that their nemesis, their cunning adversary, their evil plotting antagonist was their perfect partner¹¹, all the time.

So after conquering fantasy, romance is occupying science fiction and thrillers. If this goes on, historical fiction writers better make sure Joan of Arc—despite her vow of chastity—has the hots for (soon to be) King Charles¹², Horror must take care that the main characters have had a spicy romance before they started haunting each other¹³, Mystery and Crime should take care that the prosecutors and persecuted rise above their official roles with relentless romantic overtures, and so on, and so forth¹⁴. Maybe literature is the last bastion of genre pureness? Never mind, who was I kidding?

Inkitt logo

So written science fiction is doomed?

I don’t think so, as there’s still quite a lot of it being published—that audience hasn’t suddenly gone away—while one also needs to consider that the pendulum can always swing back to it. SF has survived worse crises. For the moment, though, it’s quite hard—harder than it was, already—for new science fiction writers to find their audience. Yet I keep trying.

In any case, I have to do a lot of scrolling in Wattpad’s or Inkitt’s ‘science fiction’ categories before I find something approaching romance-free SF¹⁵. Similarly—see above—I have to do a lot of searching and scrolling on Medium before I find pieces that are not either trying to sell me ‘content’, or tell me how I should be creating ‘content’. Either the reading habits of this generation are very different from mine, or the actual readers are somewhere out of my sight¹⁶.

It’s early days still, yet I hope I can keep this up until the end of the year before I make up my mind to stay or to go. The early signs are not very encouraging. Also, if you do have some insider tips on who to check out on either one of these platforms, do feel free to tell me in the comments. I certainly don’t want to pretend my overview is complete, and I do wish to discover the writerly wheat from the content chaff.

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Thought-provoking insights setting your brain on fire

Author’s note:

Text.

1. After some web searching, I found that Wordpress had 478 million users in August 2023, Blogger had 37.6 million worldwide visits in December 2023, Medium had 125 million visitors in September 2024, while Substack supposedly has over 20 million monthly users (please take these numbers with a pinch of salt, as I didn’t want to research this too deeply);

2. Between brackets, as content in Medium is almost the polar opposite of informative, thought-provoking discourse;

3. And in my experience most authors have more free articles than paywalled ones;

4. With ‘that’, I mean making lots of easy money;

5. On which this whole content creation jungle seems to be focussed;

6. Or speculative fiction focussed on a very specific topic of which the writer was a specialist, who would ferociously defend their specialty;

7. Which reminded me of the way a British judge (was it a judge? Or a politician?) defined pornography: “We’ll know it when we see it.”;

8. Four science fiction writers. Only one of us has written fantasy—superb fantasy at that, I must add;

9. Thrillance anyone?

10. Which, after all, define the specific genre;

11. And the ensuing romance so hot it’ll set off the next Big Bang;

12. Or, in a delicious twist, for Henry V of England, or one of his generals;

13. Or in the final chapter where both die in an explosion of consummation;

14. In retrospect, the furries were way ahead of their time;

15. I suspect it’s next to impossible to find romance-free fantasy;

16. I certainly hope the latter;