Exclusive: Medium will begin offering writers a 50% cut of the subscriber revenue their content generates

By Max Willens

As the creator services arms race intensifies across digital media, Medium is hoping to stand out by sharing more of its spoils with a smaller, more motivated collection of authors.

On Wednesday, the digital publishing platform is expected to announce a number of changes to the Medium Partner Program, the system that compensates Medium writers. Chief among them is the launch of a referral program that will give program participants a 50% cut of the new subscriber revenue their content generates, after payment processing fees. Program participants are currently compensated based on how much time Medium users spend reading their content, and will continue to be, even with the referral program in place.

Medium also plans to introduce more stringent eligibility requirements that will require new Partner Program participants to secure a modicum of traction on the platform before they can make any money.

Relative to other digital platforms, Medium was early to the idea of directly compensating the creators who used it, and it has successfully scaled the program out: To date, Medium’s Partner Program has attracted more than 200,000 enrollees and paid out some $28 million to participants since the program’s launch in 2017.

Today, “tens of thousands” of authors get paid through the program every month, Medium founder and CEO Ev Williams said, including many who had never made any money from writing prior to joining the program.

“It’s one of the things I’m most proud of within Medium in general,” Williams said.

But with the creator economy beginning to bloom, Medium also faces unprecedented competition. Its Partner Program now competes with Substack for professional writers and with Vocal for more amateur ones.

It must also continue to attract subscribers as more digital content subscriptions proliferate. The venture-backed startup, which has raised $132 million in venture capital, had about 725,000 subscribers as of this spring. The company declined to comment on how many subscribers it currently has. A subscription to Medium costs either $5 per month or $50 per year.

But if the new changes work as intended, the referral program and eligibility requirements could solve several problems at once for Medium, allowing authors to drive more revenue for themselves while better leveraging the network — and the technology that girds it — to minimize subscriber churn.

“With most subscribers, it mostly comes down to, ‘Are they sticking around?’” Williams said. “Now a Medium creator can say, ‘Look at all these other writers we enjoy,’ really share the love and pass them around.”

Stronger relations

The changes mark a significant milestone in Medium’s move toward what Williams described as “relational media” in 2020. In addition to several user-facing product changes, such as the ability to follow individual authors and — blast from the past! — blogrolls, Medium gave Partner Program participants the ability to build newsletter-esque direct connections with Medium users. Newsletter subscribers that convert to paying Medium members will see half that fee go to that specific member; program participants are free to take the email addresses with them if they decide …read more

Source:: Digiday