We're constantly being encouraged by 'success coaches' to send our readers elsewhere - build a list, tell people about your course (as if I had a course lol), promote your blog.

Often I fall for this and start to think I really should be cross-linking to Elsewhere. I should send people off to a squeeze page, I should have somewhere people can read my content for free, I should have somewhere people can pay more for my content, I should have a link where people can buy me a coffee...

But all of these things seem to BUSY... and desperate. What's more, they also seem unnecessary. Medium builds our list for us. If people like what we write, they can subscribe to get our stories by email. We can download those emails so if we ever lose Medium as a platform, we don't lose contact with those who enjoy reading our work.

We don't need to be in readers' faces with a 'tip jar' - Medium has a subtle Tips button we can add. Readers know it's there - most of them just don't want to tip every time they read a story they enjoy.

Let's face it, who among us gets more enjoyment from a story when it is full of banners and links to the writer's ebook, course, newsletter and blog? It's off-putting and crass and I'd like to apologise to everyone who finds such nonsense in any of my previous articles from the times past when I've been swayed by those people whose sole topic of writing seems to be telling people how to monetise more.