Get that ev williams money babes
You guys all know we have conflicted feelings about Medium dressing up as a publisher after a history of bailing on outlets, but A) we’ve heard a rumor that some of these new Medium verticals are paying around $1/word so UMmmMmm gogogogogogo get that Ev Williams money all you fearsome freelance warriors!!! and also B) we’ll admit that the larger platform/niche vertical system does work out in the case of publishing former Teen Vogue EIC Elaine Welteroth’s book excerpt on Zora, Medium’s totally new publication for women of color.
Memoir-type stuff from women of power always runs a risk of being 99% platitudes and a little too much ra-ra-everything-was-a-challenge-it-was-tough-but-mostly-great narrative (understandable, since I guess they likely want to continue holding that power), so we were particularly struck by how Welteroth got pretty frank and detailed about both the pleasure of feeling like “Black Alice in an all-new corporate Wonderland” as well as the slimier encounters she had as Conde Nast’s second black editor, ever. It’s definitely worth a read, and if getting to publish this highly anticipated excerpt = a sign of how Medium plans to use its new publisher-platform might, then okay, we can def. work with this.