Just to Start
Combining Substack and Medium for fame and glory.
Here I go.
As you can see, I’ve started a newsletter again. Why? Because I wanted a space to work things out in public. I don’t have a specific “niche.” I’m not launching a product (yet). I just wanted to write regularly and have it go somewhere, preferably to people who choose to read it.
I’ve worked on newsletters, blogs, and various other creative endeavors, but my goal is to streamline. This time, I’m planning on sticking around, and part of the calculus for sticking around is finding the right platform.
Substack made sense. You write, you send, and it lands directly in inboxes. Email newsletters are compelling. No middlemen. No SEO. No personal blog no one reads. No threading twenty tweets to get a half-thought across. Just: write → send → done. Additionally, there was the potential to attract new readers who were already quite familiar with Substack. I liked the idea of joining the Substack community, especially if it might lead to more engagement with each post.
Another option I considered was using the Ghost platform. It’s robust. It has some incredible templates. However, it’s far too expensive to justify.
As I mentioned earlier, the goal is to clarify my thinking and establish a small group of readers who appreciate my writing style, not just the subject matter. I don’t foresee adding a paid newsletter in the future. Maybe, after a while, I’ll collect all the essays into book form and do a little (read: very little) monetization that way.
We’ll see.
In the meantime, I noticed how Will Leitch had set up his personal writing ecosystem. Every Saturday, he sends out a personal Substack email that includes an essay, links to his other content (writing, podcasts), an article he recommends everyone read that he didn’t write, and a bit of music. A few days later, the personal essay goes up on his Medium page. That sounded perfect. Simple, really. Elegant.
I have used Medium, off and on, for a long time. I moved practically all my writing there a while ago, but made the articles unlisted. I happily pay my $5 a month to stay on the platform.
On more than one occasion, I’d come across a great personal essay on Medium. Something that felt real, thoughtful, and not SEO-optimized. I've discovered some exceptional writers who consistently produce high-quality content.
Additionally, there were numerous comments. Some posts featured back-and-forths with readers and authors. I admit I liked the little dopamine hit when readers I didn’t know liked a comment I made on someone else’s article.
It made me realize Medium had a healthy community. The vibe was more magazine and less personal blog. And maybe that was a good thing.
There was a time when I wrote a weekly post on Medium. Nothing much ever gathered much traction, but it was a good habit. I abandoned it when I thought I needed a “personal space” to write.
I still think having your own personal space online is important, but I have that with seanmcdevitt.com.
However, if I want to write regularly and have the potential for readers to find my work, then having it on Substack and Medium makes sense.
Not because it’ll explode my subscriber count or drive thousands of views. It won’t. That’s not the point. But if I’m already doing the work—writing every week (fingers-crossed), editing, sending—why not give those pieces a second life? Why not put them in a place where people outside my circle might find them?
In my opinion, Substack is somewhat akin to writing a letter. It goes to people who’ve already said, “Yeah, I want to hear from you.” There’s more freedom there. More room to ramble, be casual, or personal. Medium, on the other hand, is more like a public Post-it note: clear, focused, and maybe a little cleaner. You still say what you mean, just in a slightly more refined way.
That’s what this is, really. The regulars read me at seanmcdevitt.substack.com. Everyone else can find me at seanmcdevitt.medium.com.
So I’ve made it part of the process: write the newsletter, send it, and a few days later, I republish it on Medium. I’m sure I will update the headline or cut a paragraph that feels too inside baseball. I’ll just give it a second pass and drop it on Medium.
And to be fair, I hope it helps my writing. Knowing that something might live in more than one place forces me to tighten the loose ends a bit. I’m not trying to be perfect, just clear.
What am I going to write about? That’s the million-dollar question. I want to blend humor and insight with emotional depth in my writing. I do not feel like tying myself down with one particular focus. With this writing ecosystem I’m creating, my goal is to write personal essays that encompass a range of topics, including music, movies, television, politics, and sports commentary, as well as occasionally including a short piece of fiction.
At least with this first one, I’m including my Saturday Night Five, which is the five stories, songs, blog posts, videos, or whatever that caught my eye during the week.
I’m also trying to finish my short story/essay collection, Captured Ghosts, so I might detail how that’s going, mostly because I hope some of you might buy it when it’s ready.
Does any of that sound enjoyable to you, dear reader? I hope so.
Be seeing you.
The five things I wanted to share this week. Enjoy.
1. James Gunn's 'Superman' movie is corny. Which is why it gets Superman right
Glen Weldon has written the best review of Superman that I’ve read, and I’ve read a lot of them in preparation for seeing the film. Aside from maybe Mark Waid, Weldon is probably the smartest man in the room in regard to Superman. He understands the character, the DC Universe, and sees exactly what writer/director James Gunn is doing with this film. Most importantly, he loved it. Looking forward to it myself.
2. We’re Not Ready For Superintelligence
AI 2027 depicts a possible future where artificial intelligence radically transforms the world in just a few intense years. This video is a research paper turned into a scary video. It lays out a scenario of how artificial intelligence can, over the next two years, turn into something truly frightening. Check out the video and judge it for yourself.
3. The Ruthless Ambition of Stephen Miller
Stephen Miller is the embodiment of the cruelty we see in this administration. There is something deeply damaged about this man, and I think people should learn more about him. The hatred and the joy of making people suffer are not normal, no matter where you are on the political spectrum. Everything you need to know about him is contained in his claim that janitors in his high school should work harder to pick up his trash. He’s clearly still that angry, privileged kid, taking out his insecurities on others. What a sad, small, pathetic individual.
4. A Day in the Life of a Gen-Z Worker
I think I lost it with the term “microdeath,” and from that point on, I was laughing hysterically. To be fair, I had to look again to make sure this was from The Atlantic and not McSweeney’s, which is a site that would knock this sort of thing right out of the ballpark. Overall, it’s really one of the best pieces of satire I think I’ve read in ages. Pitch perfect.
5 Jack White’s “Archbishop Harold Holmes”
The video for Jack White’s “Archbishop Harold Holmes” is literally crazy. Of course, getting John C Reilly is genius. When I heard the No Name album, this was my favorite track. The guitar tone just grabs you by the collar and shakes you into a frenzy. Watching this video, I suddenly realized that Jack White’s exaggerated "s" sounds like a snake and is totally on purpose. Subtle.
