How I Made Nothing During My First Six Months on Medium
When researching Medium to decide whether you want to write on the platform, you will come across plenty of success stories. People describing how their first article was curated or how they steadily built a following that allowed them to make a consistent profit month over month. This is not one of those stories.
In June, I published my first article on Medium. And it felt awesome. For the first time in years, I had created something purely because I wanted to. But I also wanted to experiment with the possibility of making money on Medium. Having read the success stories too, writing on Medium appeared to be a low-risk way to earn some extra money. At the minimum, I was hoping to recoup my membership fees. To date, I have not even accomplished that. But I have learned through the arc of my articles. And it is a story that may help you.
Article One
Prior to writing my first article, I had already done research on Medium. I had initially looked at it as a location for the car blog that I have always wanted to create. While I decided Medium was not the place for the blog, I was intrigued by their curation scheme. I have no following and no social media. Curation presented a possible way to circumvent these limitations. Maybe, if I was good enough, I could get my writing in front of people without the painful slog to acquire an audience. I was curious if I could measure up. I just needed a topic.
The inspiration for my first article, Lessons from a Shield Wall, came from the Black Lives Matter protests. Having received riot training, I felt I had a different take on a trending topic. This seemed like my chance and I took it seriously. I pored over Medium’s curation guidelines, had a few friends edit my draft, and generally spent a stupid amount of time on it. It languished in the We’re processing this story, hang tight! phase for over a week. No curation (and no surprises), but it sure felt good to see something I had written on the website!
To date total: 17 views, 8 seconds member reading time, and nothing earned.
Article Two
My second article was a throwaway piece I created in the shower and then scrambled to jot down. It was pointless but fun. Plus, my dad (also blind as a bat) and I genuinely have wondered if the ancient artisans who created those wonderfully intricate carvings were severely nearsighted. Just remember, when a historian creates a thesis about that in 20 years, you read it here first.
Article Three
I had read that the first three articles from new authors automatically went to Medium’s curators. I do not know if that was, or is, true, but I felt I had better not squander my best shot if it was. And I had some genuinely strong emotions about the topic I wrote on. In The Army’s New Uniform Could Not Have Come at a Better Time, I discussed the Army’s new uniform (Shocker!).
It was not quite as topical as my first article, but with federal agents running around Portland cosplaying soldiers (not to mention the “militia” types) it still had a place in the conversation. It wasn’t picked up, but I did get my first clap! That felt cool. The clap came from a follower of mine and highlighted the importance of a native follower base. The problem is, I have no idea how most of my followers found me. Some came from comments I left on other articles. Most just materialized out of the ether.
To date total: 7 views, 4min 16sec member reading time, and 12 cents earned. As the meme goes: It ain’t much but it’s honest work.
Articles Four Through Six
Having missed out on the curation window my next few articles were just for fun. Two were rebukes of articles I had read on Medium and the third was a garden variety internet list. I did have an ulterior motive for that list though: I really wanted to explore usage rights of images. This meant playing around with Google's search parameters and Wikipedia Commons. This would be incredibly important as my next article was picture heavy and I was hoping to get it placed in a publication.
Article Seven
History of Yesterday is the first publication I found on Medium and one I enjoy regularly. As a lowkey history nerd, I really wanted to write for them. And now that my curation experiment had failed, I needed a new route to Medium success. Publications were the obvious choice.
If I felt I had spent a long time on my first article, then the time I put into The Pershing and the Panther was insane. In fact, even now I fear I will be retroactively stripped of my MBA for such a poor ROI. I had been familiar with the topic for years and it still took an awful lot of research. I even went so far as to reach out to my local library system for permission to use one of their images.
I must admit I was not blown away with my results, especially when compared to other articles on the publication. I also failed to garner a single new follower- that really surprised me. But I did recoup my membership fee for the month! That only increased my motivation to post there again and to explore some other publications.
To date total: 114 views, 4 hrs member reading time, and $6.00 earned.
Article Eight
This article is another experiment. It will be my first not behind Medium’s paywall. I am also not beating myself to death on editing. I will let Grammarly do its thing.
If something interesting happens I will let you know.
The Takeaways
The simplest thing I could do to improve on Medium is write more. This is often easier said than done. Like many of you, I have a full-time job and a spouse I like to spend time with. This article is a perfect example: when I started writing, it had been six months since I had published Lessons from a Shield Wall. It has now been eight. And even that is a minor miracle, last week I worked 75 hours.
So no, I will not suddenly begin publishing two articles a day.
I am also a slow, occasionally wordy (exhibit A, this article), writer. Some of you may not suffer from this affliction, but others certainly do. If you are brimming with ideas but struggle to pull them from your head onto a piece of paper in a cohesive manner then I fully empathize with you. I wish for nothing more than a modified version of Dumbledore’s Pensieve. One that pulls thoughts straight from my brain to Microsoft Word (looking at you Bill Gates).
I do not have a good solution here except to say that writing is a skill honed by use. So is editing. The more you do it, the better you will become. And when editing, make sure you are focusing on grammar and not second-guessing your article or entire existence. Ask for help if you need it.
I have yet to offer concrete takeaways so here are some:
Publications are your friend. Find ones you are interested in, write something of quality, don’t piss off the editor by being lazy, and submit. This is the surest path to getting eyeballs. Or, if you are interested in a topic that is not well represented on Medium, create your own publication. This will require more dedication though.
Find followers. The greatest irony of the internet age is that to get followers you need… followers. It is a frustrating Catch-22 for those starting out. Publications will help, but maybe not as fast as you think. Following writers you like will create follow-backs.
Other followers will just appear. Don’t ask questions, just appreciate. Finally, I have also accidentally gained followers by leaving comments on popular articles. This by itself will not lead you to hundreds of dollars on Medium, but it will not hurt. With time, hopefully those initial followers will snowball on you. That way you can enjoy writing and get paid for the pleasure.
Don’t worry about curation. Since I started on Medium, they have changed their business model to make curation more egalitarian while placing more emphasis on followers. But curation really doesn’t matter. Writing for publications has the same effect as curation and is something you have more control over. Having said that, if you are sent to the front page, right on!
At the end of the day, write because you want to. Sure, I have lost $33.88 during my eight months on Medium. I could very easily drop my membership and still write, but doing so would make it far more difficult for me to find publications to write for. I also genuinely enjoy many of the articles that appear here. But mostly, it feels good to put ideas out there. Instead of constantly allowing thoughts to recede into the abyss of my mind, now I get to share them with the abyss of the internet.
And that’s kinda cool.
If you have made it all the way to the bottom,
Have fun and good luck.
