By Jesse Karjalainen

(Not a Medium member? Go to the Retro Tech Series. Join me on all your favourite social platforms: YouTube | TikTok.)

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It is exactly one year since I decided to give Medium a try. I had been on Substack for three months and got no love there (5 followers). I searched online for ‘alternatives to Substack’, and the Google gods sent me here.

This turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. It was here that I found the love that every writer craves. So, over the past 12 months, I have poured my heart and soul into this account.

A full year later, here are the results.

· 122 article posts
· 260,000 words published
· An average of 10 articles a month
· 64,000 reads
· 1390 followers
· 839 subscribers
· 2 viral articles (10K and 9K reads)

To celebrate this first anniversary, I have also published these (edited) articles as the first four books in a series on the history of tech. (See the Amazon book series here, including Kindle Unlimited.)

My journey

I have joined countless social and creative platforms in my lifetime. These include Anglefire, Blogger, Myspace, WordPress, Twitter, Flickr, Pinterest, Behance, Vine, Arca, Instagram, TikTok, BlueSky and many floundering YouTube accounts. And, of course, Substack. The result is that I have only found success on Medium and TikTok (and iStock, if you can count that — 30,000 photos sold. Today, that platform is dead. AI killed it.).

This all proves the adage that you have to fail a ton of times before you succeed.

While I have mastered the art of prolific writing — I have been called “a machine” several times in my professional life — my key ingredient has always been to use a small device with a good portable keyboard. I got myself a Remarkable with a keyboard when I turned 50, and I have written close to 500,000 words on it in three years (including my upcoming debut thriller novel).

The reasons I swear by my Remarkable for writing (I don’t use it as a tablet at all) are that it doesn’t have any distractions on it. No emails, no internet, no sounds or colours. It also has a remarkable battery life. I charge it once a month, despite using it constantly. Yet it syncs with the cloud. It works for me!

My workflow is: have the Remarkable with me when I know I might get some writing time (train travel, cafe sessions, etc.) > write all main texts on it > import to Word for final editing (99% of what I write the first time, stays as it is) > add photos, write headings and captions > grammar check > paste into Medium > publish. And never look back.

People have asked me where I “get my ideas for what to write” from. The way I have conceived this series, I am writing a history-slash-memoir of tech in chronological order. I have a Note in my iPhone with a LONG list of topics by year. Every time I come up with something, I add it to the list. It grows over time. Meanwhile, I work on the next article at the top of my list as I work my way through them.

I also add links to articles and videos that feature key historic info so that I have it when I start writing. In addition, I read a lot of books ahead of time. Right now, I am reading ‘Becoming Steve Jobs’, ‘Boo Hoo — a dot.com story from concept to catastrophe’ and ‘How music got free — the end of an industry, the turn of the century and the patient zero of piracy’. (Note to self: write an article on all the tech-history books I have read.)

My final tip for anyone wanting to write prolifically is: don’t agonise over your words. Write, express, fix typos (I also miss a few), publish and write the next one. You get good by writing lots, not by never letting your words out into the world.

When all is said, I could never have written 250,000 words for this platform if it wasn’t for all the likes, follows and such kind words that readers have given me along the way. Your love has been the fire to my fire. And for that, I thank all of you.

I made a small list of people to thank for all of their long-term support over this first year. (NO love to the one guy in the Netherlands who accused me of writing with AI.) I would like to send a shout-out to: Adrian, Anthony Gliddon, Vladas Saulis, Eric Pascual, Kuiloonvoon, Grace Mary Power, Mohammed Brückner, NTTP, Sierra Sunset, Bob Lacovara, Sofia K, Jim Krasnansky, Sampath Manage, Mario Rodriguez, Reo Kurasawa, Maria Alessandra Ferrari, Vedat Güven, Makarenko Roman, Attila Vago, Blase Ciabton, Mohamad Shahkhajeh, Narghiza Ergashova, MD Kawsar, Senter Reinhardt, Keith Bertrand, Dimos Dennis, Anil Kumar Bakkashetti, David Wilson, Sierra Sunset, A Martin, Nithidol Vacharotayan, Maciej Duraj, Jannis, Filipe Pereira, Anna Holmgren, Victor F Kingsley, Manolis Kiagias, Retro Jogador, Garima Sharma, Pablo Navarrete, Mehmet Aykut, Kevin McNamee, C.S. Voll, Mario Villar, Ian Mote, Hernan Castro, John Lee Johnson, Kevin Asuquo, Rob Grimmett, David Lewis, Robin Wilding, Dave Otis, Yevgeniy Maliyev, PW Murphy, Kamrun Nahar, Anaya, Markus Maier, Richard Pendered, Tomasz Konecki, Anwar Bellem, Abdul Ahad Zahid, Sriharsha Donthireddy, David Raygoza Gomez, Dan Smith, Michael Ludvig, Philip S. Naudus, Jean-Antoine Moreau, John Parker, Carl St. James, Petri Livonen, Joe Campbell, Zoltan Groska and Roman Lihhavtsuk and Zulie. (Apologies to anyone I have missed.) Each one of you has been a long-time supporter, clapper and follower of my articles on this platform. As I put together this list, I realise just how many of you there are. Thank you.

I have also added you all to the acknowledgements page of my series of books. I uploaded these books yesterday and have just uploaded my A+ content onto my Amazon book pages.

I would like to thank everyone who has liked, reposted, subscribed, followed, commented and boosted my articles. Mwah!

Here’s to Year Two on Medium.com.

See you next time.

Join me on all your favourite social platforms: YouTube | TikTok | Substack | Bluesky | Gumroad.

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Jesse is an author, illustrator and content creator currently based in Sweden. The Retro Tech show aims in chronological order to chart how the world went from the analogue age to the digital age. This is a personal memoir, starting in 1973, of every major technology I encountered in each year of my life.

None of the words in this series have been written by AI. This is 100% human sweat and toil. This content may not be used for AI training, so bots can stay away.