I Tried Simily For One Week
It’s hard to judge Simily harshly when it’s new, but…
After reading Kristina God ‘s article Why It’s Smart To Write On Simily, I finally decided to give it a shot.
For those who do not know, I am first and foremost a fiction writer and reader, however, non-fiction is my mind’s exercise that has been surprisingly fruitful.
What is simily exactly?
Simily is a site dedicated to poetry and fiction writers.
Their platform is eerily similar to Medium’s in that you can see the relevant stories up front and your followers can be accessed through your Profile.
You are also paid based on traffic to your stories– I’m not sure if this is from external or internal traffic, either way I noticed that the more followers I reached, the more “pennies” I was being paid.
Some say Simily is a WordPress site because of its functionality and being that I had a blog for over 10 years on WordPress before writing for Medium, I can attest that it is true. It is definitely a clean, smooth design.
But I don’t want to discuss the design here.
What I posted and what happened
I had a verse novel that has been brewing in my mind for a while and I thought, “Hey, maybe I can post it in parts on this site!”
So far, I see that short stories, flash fiction and poetry does well.
Flash stories seem to do very well, but I do not have the stats to back up that statement.
- So, after posting up part 1 of my story, in 24 hours I had $0.02.
- I posted part 2 the next day and after another 24 hours, I had $0.12.
- I posted up a random humor poem and overnight it made $0.02 cents.
- Yesterday, there seem to have been zero changes, then all of sudden in the afternoon today, I see this:
What you see here is after one week of posting up only 3 stories.
With Simily, you have to have at least $10 before a payout and they only use PayPal.
Which brings me to the immediate downside to Simily…
The pros and the cons
I am not a fan of PayPal any longer and can’t stand that some sites still use them as an ONLY option.
Secondly, unlike Medium, Simily wants you to accrue a threshold before payout. That sucks.
Thirdly, the traffic is coming in slow, and I wonder…. where does my reader traffic REALLY come from?
Fourth and finally, it seems people have a hard time “snapping” or commenting on the simily platform. Snapping is Simily’s version of “claps”
I see followers but no comments. I just started on the platform and have snapped and commented on a few writer’s platforms because I know how important it is to have readers. Readers= dollars.
Last but not least, Simily has a membership platform similar to Medium’s paid partnership program. I’m using the free version for a month, thanks to Kristina’s discount code.
Hopefully, the next time I report on Simily, there will be even better news.
For now, I am all in with Medium. I love Medium. Stick with what you know. If you are not into fiction like that, stay with Medium.
Thank you for reading!
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