These things are sent to try us.

Welcome back to another blog hop, with #OpenBook. Here’s this week’s prompt.

Don’t forget to click the link to see what everyone else has to say on this week’s subject. It’s at the end of my post.

Did you face any hiccups in your publishing this year? How did you navigate that?

The biggest issue I’ve had this year has been my performance on Medium. Last year, I posted one or two things every day and saw steady progress, an increase in audience, reads, comments and earnings, month on month.

Then, just before Christmas, 2024, it all stopped. Views and reads dwindled and earned me less. I assumed it was just due to the holidays and carried on creating and posting as usual.

But it never recovered. It seems to me that the platform has moved away from the sort of short fiction that I write. Factual, opinion and political pieces appear to be in vogue, and they are not subjects I want to write about.

Now I’m lucky to earn one or two cents a month. Some posts get reads and pay nothing at all. This is clearly unsustainable, not that I’m greedy, but the reward has ceased to be worth the effort. If I can’t even make enough each month to cover my membership, what’s the point?

I’ve made the decision not to renew my subscription and have downloaded all my published content. I’ll be deciding what to do with it over the next few weeks.

Other than that, things this year carried on much as usual.

I released three novels, with a fourth one ready to go on December 1st..

I’ve written at least half a million words.

There have been practically zero sales.

I’ve spent a lot of time shouting into the void that is social media.

What do you think about this week’s subject?

Let me know by leaving me a comment.

While you’re here, please click the InLinkz link to check out what my fellow writers have to say about this week’s topic.

I’ll be back with another post on Thursday, see you then. Meanwhile, have a great week.

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