Member-only story
Is Simily Stepping Up?
Tales from 9 weeks on the platform
I’ve been chronicling my journey publishing fiction on Simily for nine weeks now.
Last week, I wrote about stagnation on the platform. The growth remains slow. As of today, they still have less than 3200 members. I’ve read stories on Medium of writers who started there and have since left. The biggest complaint: Lack of engagement.
This is to be expected on a platform with just over 3000 members.
I’ve posted five stories there and gotten some engagement on each post, but that has slipped in recent weeks.
For reference, here’s my most viewed story on Simily so far:
I’ve taken to reposting my fiction here on Medium, too. I’ve actually earned slightly more from Medium engagement on these same posts.
Why do I think they might be stepping up?
Simily has been doing a round of 1:1 Zoom calls with members. They are seeking direct feedback about how to improve the platform. However, the call I had scheduled with them was not until April.
Now, they are doing small group calls with five people each. This means the calls will happen sooner and they’ll get feedback more quickly.
This indicates a sense of some urgency. They want feedback, they want to give everyone a voice, and they want to do it more quickly than originally planned.
The real question is: What are they going to do with this feedback? It seems pretty clear the site needs a technical upgrade. Load time is sometimes slow, there are reports of glitches and the site has been down at times when there’s an influx of new members.
