That's great money you earned on NewsBreak for a while. I'm cutting NewsBreak loose, because they have discontinued their base pay and it's not worth it. I spent too much time on those articles to continue writing them without a minimum guarantee.

Addressing some of the issues you brought up about Medium, I don't participate as much in the Facebook groups as I used to because I would read and clap for other articles but participating didn't seem to generate any extra traffic for mine. But that's okay. We've all only got so much time in a day, so I understand. No big deal, but it just didn't seem to be worth my time. I still try to drop in from time to time, especially to support other writers and get to know them, but it doesn't do much for my stats.

I was one of the lucky ones invited into the program with a minimum guarantee, and I don't know why, because I've never been one of the major players on Medium and my more conservative leanings as a Christian writer are not what is most popular on this platform. But I've kept plugging away, writing, publishing, interacting, engaging, for a long time. The program only lasts through October, and then who knows?

The algorithm keeps changing. I wrote an article that was both distributed and featured, has over 1400 readers and many thousands of claps at this point, and its earnings are at around $36. This leads me to believe there are a lot more writers out there vying for a piece of the pie than there are readers contributing money.

So what's my conclusion through all this? Stay flexible. Look for different income streams. Keep writing, if that's what you love to do. Try to produce things that resonate, inspire, entertain, but steel yourself against the inevitable disappointment that comes from a crowded field of creators in an arena that has seldom been an easy career path.