I've written on Medium for years and I never thought my partner earnings would increase to the 3 digits. Here are the 3 things I did to reach this.
Humble beginnings with zero expectations
I’ve been writing on Medium for over 3 years. At first, it started as just another avenue to get folks to read my stuff. I published here and there, not thinking much would happen. I rarely logged in and when I did, I would basically dump a bunch of old blog posts, schedule them out throughout the month and didn’t bother to check who’s read what. I’m a mom of 2 who works full-time so this was merely a place to express myself with zero expectations to make money from this.
Then in July 2019, I was about to hit publish when the platform asked if I wanted to join their Medium Partner Program. I read through what it was and clicked yes. I didn’t think much of it until about a year ago when I published an article titled, “Why People Are Overly Critical And How To Deal With Them.” It was a hit relative to my other pieces.
After that, I started to see a tiny bit of money come in consistently each month; I’m talking enough to buy myself a couple of cups of coffee type of cash. This was the first time I had ever made money doing what I love, writing personal stories and lessons learned to empower folks to talk about their feelings despite growing up in a culture that hid them. I even wrote a short article about what happened when I told my Asian parents about this and how unimpressed they were.
By the time I started making double digits per month, I almost had 100 articles published on Medium. That was when I decided to do three things to see if I could increase my monthly earnings. And boy I was surprised to see what happened.
1. Re-prioritized my time so I could write more…but not just a bit more, a ton more
At the time, I was in full-on content creation mode. I had figured out a way to publish 8 videos, 4 podcasts and 4 blog posts every month while working 6 hours a week; 80% of my time was focused on creating social media content, filming and editing videos and recording podcasts, appearing as a guest on other people’s podcasts, speaking on Facebook group live sessions etc. I was barely writing.
It was driving me insane because I felt like I was running in a hamster wheel, doing the same thing over and over again. Writing is my foundation and although it’s a valuable experience to make videos and podcasts, I wasn’t pushing myself creatively in these channels. I wasn’t getting what I put in.
That’s when I saw an article about a writer who was able to increase their Medium earnings from a few pennies to thousands of dollars per month. After reading one article, I was still skeptical so I read another one and then another one. It was truly inspiring to hear fellow writers document their journeys authentically and honestly. After reading dozens of these stories, guess what the common denominator was?
Write more. Duh! This is one of those no-brainer things that I knew would work but I didn’t have the guts to try.
I vowed to write an article every single day for the month of December. However, since I had a limited time to do this, I had to re-prioritize my time so that I could focus 100% on writing.
I put a full-stop on filming videos, recording podcasts, making guest appearances, speaking at virtual events etc. Posting on social media became ‘set it and forget it’. Instead of posting daily on Facebook and Instagram, I scheduled them to go out weekly. Using the Tailwind app, I spent about 2 hours scheduling all my pins on Pinterest for the next 2 months. Then I removed the Twitter and Pinterest apps on my phone so I wouldn’t get distracted and downloaded the Medium app instead.
I wrote and wrote and wrote some more. Instead of pumping out 4–5 articles a month, I increased my publishing frequency 4–5 times. I published 25 articles in December and 16 in January. I was writing so much at such an increased pace that I started forgetting what my last published article was about. My mind was drowning in words and ideas.
Before, I could tell you exactly what stories I worked on last month and possibly the date it was published; however, writing at this intensity and speed made me focus on the present, igniting my creativity and passion to keep moving forward instead of dwelling on the articles that flopped and reminiscing on the articles that hit it out of the park.
2. Submitted my unpublished drafts and published articles to publications
I noticed that the articles that had a lot of claps and comments were often published by a publication.
Before when I was self-publishing my articles, sometimes one of them would pique the interest of a publication and the editor would reach out and ask if they could publish it. I would accept and I noticed the number of views and reads would increase temporarily. So I doubled down on that observation, submitting all my unpublished drafts to publications.
There are some publications that accept already published articles so I started submitting my old articles to these as well.
My hypothesis was that submitting to publications will increase my exposure, leading to an increase in the number of views and reads which ultimately increases earnings.
And that’s exactly what happened.
Comparing November to January, the number of views increased 2.5 times and the number of reads increased 3.5 times. And this corresponded to an increase in earnings by over 20 times.
3. Documented my progress honestly and authentically
Even though I’ve been writing on Medium for years, I never wrote about my writing journey. However, it was only when I read stories about how other writers were achieving success that gave me the courage to try this; therefore, it made sense for me to do the same for others, hoping to inspire you to try it too.
80% of my earnings in January came from 2 stories, not just any story but specifically stories that documented my progress honestly and authentically. However, in order to write those stories, I had to do the work first.
For instance, I couldn’t have written “What Happened When I Published 25 Articles In One Month” without doing what the title says. To me, it was a mundane article that required little to no effort to write; I was merely sharing my experiences and telling it like it is. I didn’t do any research or ask myself any deep and convoluted questions. I just kept it real. But then the comments and claps started coming and I was frankly surprised.
Every step you take towards your goal leads you closer to it even when it doesn’t seem like it. I’ve written articles that took me days to fully flesh out and when it was published, the response was crickets. I’ve also written about how I’ve been rejected by over 20 different publications, how one of my articles was rejected 5 times before it found a home and why I still keep trying.
But without failures, I wouldn’t have stories to share that would empower my readers to keep trying. Your failures are just as important to write about as your successes; being realistic about what happened and sharing your journey with candour draws a crowd. And within that crowd is me, waiting to be inspired.
So Readers, what are you going to try to increase your earnings on Medium?
