Publishing Comedy on Substack, Medium, or Your Website

A reader question about where to publish (and re-publish) your funny writing

A reader had a question about where to publish and re-publish her funny writing:

I still struggle a bit with herding all these comedy pieces. I’ve got my Substack, and I’m trying to publish on Medium and elsewhere as well. When I do, I wait a week or so and then re-publish the piece on my Substack (crediting the original). That means all my stuff is living on Substack right now. I’m not sure I love that, but I feel as though a standalone website would just muddy everything or be redundant. What do you think? - Lynn V

Good herding questions, Lynn.

Substack and Medium are the two best online and social platforms for creative writers to post long-form work, so it’s good to think about this.

Two issues here:

One, If you publish first on Medium or Substack, should you cross-publish on the other one?

(Answer: yes, this is smart—if you have the time.)

Two, should you also have your own standalone website?

(Answer: yes, but as a portfolio site—probably not as a blogging or comedy site.)

Now let me explain why.

First issue: cross-publishing. Substack and Medium both have large and semi-distinct platform audiences. “Platform audiences” meaning people who have accounts on Medium or Substack and browse those sites and follow writers on those sites.

Obviously, both sites also exist on the web and pick up random readers who aren’t regular Medium or Substack users.

When you publish on either Medium or Substack you can potentially pick up some of those platform readers, and there’s a small chance you’ll also pick up random organic readers from the internet more broadly. Then, when you cross-publish to other site, you can pick up more readers who didn’t see see your piece the first time.

So, main the benefit of cross-publishing is that you can reach more readers.

More readers, more followers, more fun.

Downsides? Just time and complexity. That’s it.

Which site—Substack or Medium—should you publish to first? I’d say whichever site is “primary” for you: the site where you want to grow more. But I don’t think it matters much.

If you publish with a Medium (or Substack) publication, they often want the piece to be previously unpublished. If so, just publish there first, then cross-publish later to the other platform.

Cross-publishing is a way to reach more readers if you have the time.

Perhaps try it out for a few months and see what actually happens. Does the same story on both sites actually get readers both places? If so, that’s an argument to keep doing it.

I did a big deep dive on Medium vs. Substack for comedy writing. Check it out here:

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Second issue: Should you also run your own stand-alone website, aside from Medium and Substack?

Yes, I think so. But as a personal writing portfolio site and homepage, and not necessarily as a comedy “blog” that duplicates your Medium and Substack writing.

The value of a stand alone site is that it’s your home base.

When someone Googles “Alex Baia,” I’m happy if they find my Medium profile or this Substack. But I don’t want that to be the first thing they see.

I want that to be my homepage that I own.

I want to direct new readers to my best work, and I want them to sign up for my personal newsletter. Philosophically, I want people to find me first on a platform I 100% own and control.

This is the main value of a personal-professional writing site: it’s your curated, owned portal to your work.

The other way you could potentially use a standalone site is as a secondary (or tertiary) destination for your funny writing. You could re-publish all your work on your own site, alongside Medium and Substack.

I don’t think this is worth it. I think it’s (a) redundant, and (b) way too much work, for too little payoff. Cross publishing posts in three places sounds like a pain in the ass.

Unless you’re trying to build your own humor site or blog as a distinct project, which is a very big project, just let your readers read your self-published stuff on Substack or Medium or both. Both sites look good and are simple to use and publish on. They’re already optimized for what you want to do.

So, in Lynn’s case, she says, “I feel as though a standalone website would just muddy everything or be redundant.”

If you mean, “redundant as yet another publishing location besides my Medium and Substack,” then I agree: redundant. Just use Medium or Substack.

But if you mean “it’s redundant to have my own website, because I already have a Medium or Substack,” then no, I don’t agree.

Keep your own site as a portal to your work.

If this is all overwhelming, and you think “I can’t keep up with all this shit, and I don’t have the time. I just want to write.” Then, yeah I hear you.

In that case, do this: pick Medium or Substack, whichever one appeals to you. Then publish on that and don’t worry about anything else.

The important thing is to get your writing out there. Hit publish.

If you’re not even publishing to begin with, then all this cross-publishing jiujitsu isn’t worth a damn.

By the way, I did a deep dive on creating your personal-professional writing website, with lots of recommendations here: