An important note

Valued readers, friends, private clients, and subscribers…

I’m emailing you today to inform you about an unfortunate but important change that’s been levied upon thousands of writers, myself included.

I’ll keep this brief out of respect for your time and give you the “sound bites” of the situation.

For nearly two years I have been one of the top ranked (and top earning - that is relevant) writers on ALL of the Medium platform. Some of you are subscribed to these emails because of that platform.

You already know I don’t talk about income or money in my writing, but there is a strong reason I bring this up…

While my primary focus has always been serving my private clients at the highest level, Medium has provided a supplemental but substantial additional revenue stream, equivalent to a full time salary. This is how I support my family, by providing (hopefully valuable) content and private services to you.

A few weeks ago, Medium announced radical changes to the way they’d be compensating writers, beginning August 1st. If you frequent the platform, you’ve likely noticed content changes, or changes to your statistics pages, etc.

The changes wore the disguise of “prioritizing human writing” and engaging content. Supposedly, there were a myriad of new ways writers would be rewarded for their work, and it was made to sound exciting.

And then…it was actually implemented.

After more than two weeks now, myself and countless of other writers - who’ve all been very loud and public about their dissatisfaction - have had revenue chopped by 70 - 90%. The numbers only continue to drop, and collective panic permeates the comment sections.

What was once a “full time” income can now barely make a monthly car payment.

Needless to say, writers (such as myself) no longer have incentive to spend hours per day writing on Medium, nor to drive traffic to the articles there.

The overall response from Medium’s CEO and executives to the floods of terrified writers who’ve lost their livelihoods is basically: “Meh, that’s the way we do it now.” You can see these public replies in their comments.

So, now what?

• I will continue, as I always have, prioritizing service to my private clients above all else.

• I will have time freedom to put even more thought and energy into The Next Level newsletter, which directly helps to support my family.

• I will be slowly but surely migrating the hundreds of articles I have on Medium over to JamesMSama.com, where there are already hundreds of other articles I’ve written over the years. This site has been visited by more than 40 million people and has always been my “hub.”

  • All of the content on JamesMSama.com is completely free. It is also undergoing design updates.

Given the extreme backlash Medium has received from these changes, I do have a small bit of hope that they will “right the wrongs,” and give their most prominent writers a reason to stay. If this happens, I will continue producing new content there as I always have.

But, for now, adjustments must be made, and they’re outlined above.

I am, more than ever, grateful for your time, attention, and support. I value the honor of serving you both publicly and privately, and improving your life is my life’s work.

Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you soon.

-James Michael Sama