Medium Writer Interview
Medium All-Star Writer Zita Fontaine
Welcome to Medium Interviews!
Medium Interviews is brand new series from Blogging Guide, featuring interviews with some of Medium’s top writers.
My hope is that these interviews will serve as a useful resource for writers who are still trying to understand Medium and how to find success on the platform.
Our first profile is on writer Zita Fontaine!
Can you tell us a little more about you?
Zita Fontaine:
I discovered Medium at the end of 2018, because I was gathering sources for a writing project. I had just started freelancing and to my first client I offered to write a couple of articles about customer engagement and marketing strategy. Medium was a great place to be inspired — so I started to read articles. First just professional ones, then also the personal ones — the ones about writing and self-help and productivity.
It took me four months of reading and lurking before I started to write. I published my first article in April 2019.
I am not a writer, really. Or maybe now I should say that I am. I am a marketing professional. I spent almost 2 decades working in advertising with huge clients before I started freelancing. I have been writing on the side, but no one knew about it. I wrote poems and short stories, I had my own blog at some point — but just to gather my thoughts, not to get any readers.
I never believed that writing could be something lucrative — but I always dreamt about writing a book, publishing articles, you know, having a name for it.
Now, to my own surprise, I have close to 4k followers (okay, 3.8k), 200 subscribers to my newsletter, I wrote 350 articles and I have close to 300k of total views.
I know that there are huge influencers and viral writers who do this in a month, but it’s a big deal for me.
Why do you write on Medium, in particular?
When I started to write, I had been already a fan of the platform. I really like how it looks and how there is no advertisements disrupting the reading experience. The versatility of the topics also appealed to me — as a reader. I went from non-paying member to paying one in 2 days.
I started to write and publish here, because it was easy and straightforward to set it up. I read articles about people making money with their writing and I was curious if I could do it or not. I published my first article and before I even knew anything about curation, it was curated in three topics.
It gave me the confidence to go further and I challenged myself to write one article a day for a month.
What are your favorite topics to write about on Medium?
I usually write in three different areas.
1. Writing, creativity and productivity because I am passionate about these.
How To Evaluate Your Own Writing
What advertising taught me about recognizing good ideasmedium.com
2. Relationships, love and dating, including my experience with a narcissistic partner. That’s a bottomless well, the narcissistic abuse — with all its layers and learnings.
When the Empath Meets the Narcissist
3. Professional topics coming from my marketing and communication background. It can be anything from design briefs to leadership.
Becoming As Authentic as Michelle Obama
Do you have your own publication? What are some of your favorite Medium publications that you follow or contribute to?
I have a publication; it is called Your life. Your voice.
Your Life. Your Voice.
The message behind the words is the voice of the heart.medium.com
I use it to collect my articles that have no home. I don’t really use it actively — although it has 500 followers and I could do something about it.
I am proud to be a contributing writer of Human Parts — I had two pieces with them and it had been my dream from the get-go to write for them. I write for PS I Love you regularly. My new favourite is Mind Cafe, I had the chance to meet its editor, Adrian in person — and he is such a great guy — of course I love the publication! I also write for Better Marketing — I have a column with them that I sort of abandoned, about role models in personal branding.
I sometimes also write for Sexography — they are great. And if The Startup asks for my article, or some smaller publication reaches out, I am happy to add my work there.
I don’t actively reach out to Medium publications, I tried Forge and Modus a few times, but no luck. I think my style is too personal for them. But I might get in there too, we’ll see. Honestly, I stopped worrying about it.
I am very happy with Mind Cafe and Better Marketing and Ps I Love you to be my main go-to pubs. Not to mention that they are all Medium Partner Publications with curators who I know personally, so it is a great way to assure curation and distribution.
What advice do you have for new Medium writers?
My advice for new writers would be to understand that Medium is a company with business goals. It will curate your articles if there is something in it for them. It is paying us, writers, because it is in its business interests. Medium is not against anyone personally — but might favour those who help grow their business.
This is a great platform, that provides a unique opportunity for beginners — just like me — to get views and reads with almost no effort. But it means that we get to use a system that is not set up to cater to all of our needs.
If you are here to write, then write. If you are here for the money, then be sure that you comply with everything what the platform requests from you and hope that it will be enough. Quality matters more than quantity, but you need to be consistently present to build a following that is already a critical mass.
How did the shift in the MPP payment structure affect your earnings?
There are quite a few different strategies that you can follow on Medium and be successful with — in terms of earning. I am writing in limited topics and I write quite lengthy, essay-like pieces. I used to publish daily for 9 months, so I have a back catalog of hundreds of articles that keep earning me money even if now I skip one or two days. For me, the long pieces work — I am kind of storytelling in each article I write.
Before the MPP change, the length didn’t really matter, and I was told to try to write shorter pieces. I tried but it didn’t really work for me — I always felt that they were incomplete or lacking my voice. After the MPP change I actually came out as a winner — the longer, engaging pieces work really well.
The new system is good to me, I am around $1.5k per month — which I never thought would be possible. It is slowly growing, which I like because it means it is sustainable. I had a mini-viral article in January, that’s why there was a peak there, but if I disregard that, I am growing steadily. My goal would be to get to a sustainable $2–3k a month.
Medium is not my main income source — so it is a very nice bonus. But I treat it with scepticism — it might disappear tomorrow or change something major again. Who knows? I am happy that it works now.
Source: Zita Fontaine
If you could make one suggestion to Medium about how they could improve their platform, what would it be?
The only thing I dislike about the platform — which is not like a minor why don’t you show this or that in the stats — is that the comments count as stories. It screws up my mild OCD and it holds me back from commenting.
What have been some of your Medium goals that you have accomplished? What goals are you still working toward?
My dream was to get into Human Parts — I did it. I would like to write for them more regularly but it’s difficult. I also wanted to have a column somewhere — I have it with Better Marketing.
I am now trying to get back into publishing daily — for the past two months were a bit rough for me. So, basically my goal is what I set for myself on the first day — publish quality articles daily, hoping to provide value to the readers and crossing fingers to be curated.
Where can readers connect with or follow you outside of Medium?
I have an email list, I’m on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. I’m everywhere!
Zita’s Medium Profile:
Zita’s Newsletter: