Medium Writers: How to Gain More Reads on Medium in 2025(Without Getting Suspended)

So, Medium Screwed You Over? Here’s How to Fight Back…

You wake up, you check your MPP stats and realize you just lost 90% of your income overnight. No warning. No explanation. Just the new algorithm deciding your worth.

You try to connect with others on the platform, but you only risk getting suspended.

Yeah. It’s brutal. I’ve been there. We all are.

But there’s good news: You’re not powerless. If Medium is treating you like an afterthought, it’s time to own your audience.

How?

By starting a newsletter.

Why a newsletter?

Because email is the ONLY algorithm-proof platform. On Medium? Your articles are at the mercy of an ever-changing payout calculation changes. A newsletter lets you send your stories straight to your audience’s inbox. No middleman. No mystery math.

More control. More reads. More money.

So, how do you turn your Substack newsletter into a powerhouse traffic driver for your Medium stories?

The strategy in a nutshell

1. Choose a platform

2. Start building an audience

3. Send emails linking to your Medium stories

Let’s break it down.

1. Choose a platform.

Ultimately Substack. It’s the ONLY platform that allows you to grow email subscribers 10 times faster than growing followers on Medium or any other social media. Not a joke.

Right now I gain more than 10 new subscribers per day.

How?

By using Substack’s social media feature called Notes and the built-in recommendation system.

2. Start building an audience

All you need to do is this:

• Post at least one Note per day. The more the better.

• Engage with at least 5 to 10 people on the platform — comment on their Notes and posts, like and restack.

• Subscribe and recommend other people you like. Some will recommend you back and you’ll grow on autopilot.

Unlike Medium, Substack has a lot of built in features that help you grow. For example: when you recommend someone, they receive an automatic email asking them to recommend you back! How cool is that!

3. Send emails linking to your Medium stories

A lot of Medium writers think Substack is hard to do.

But Substack can be simple. You don’t need to run a paid newsletter, so you don’t need to overcomplicate it by building a content strategy or a paid tier offer. Simply start a free newsletter.

Here’re some examples:

1. Run an atomic newsletter: share curated links to valuable reads daily or weekly. Here’s my atomic newsletter as an example. I built it on Kit because of the better design and automation, but you can check Jamie’s version on Substack.

2. Run it as a Medium newsletter: every time you post on Medium, send a Substack email with the title, the intro and add a link for the subscribers to read the rest. This is the email format Medium sends to your Medium email subscribers. The goal is to bring people on the platform and eventually keep them paying their subscriptions.

3. Run a weekly summary newsletter: send one email weekly with a short summary of each of your stories and links for people to read them.

Here’s what NOT to do:

• DO NOT post the same stories on Substack. People won’t have a reason to come to Medium.

I do this but for another reason: my strategy is to gain subscribers from Medium, so sometimes I post my free Substack stories to Medium and add a canonical link. I also add the Substack link at the beginning of the story for non-members to read for free. But my focus is Substack, not Medium.

Stay strategic on this.

Yes, but what if they’re not Medium members?

Many Medium writers are already on Substack. And many more will go there. So you’ll definitely reach some members with your newsletter.

Still, it’s a good question. There are a lot others who are not members. The solution: Friend of Medium membership.

Two ways you can do it:

1. Share your FOM link. Non-members will read for free, but at least you’ll build an audience that you can monetize with digital products. You’ll make much more than you can make on Medium in 2025.

2. Find a FOM buddy. Exchange FOM links and share their link to your stories. This way you monetize non-member reads and build an audience which you can further monetize with digital products.

Even if you don’t monetize these reads, you are building an audience you own. That’s real asset.

Bottom line.

A lot of writers are overthinking it. Should I write on Medium or on Substack. Substack is too hard, I need to sell, I don’t want to sell…

The truth: run both. They work together very well.

Don’t try to ruin your Medium account by interacting too much with others. Take control of your audience instead.

The best part: you build a healthy and engaged audience that will pay you when you have offers.

The best time to start is NOW. Not a joke. Substack is growing exponentially right now. And fast-growing platforms don’t stay that way forever.

Like every platform, it will mature.

Early adopters will win big.

Latecomers will struggle.

Don’t wait for too long…

I see you there!

Yana

👉 If you aim to really monetize your writing, start a Substack. It works great with Medium. I’m gaining 10+ new subscribers per day from Notes & Recommendations and I mapped my strategy in a FREE 10-Day crash course.