100 Personal Thoughts About the Medium Life

Tips, trials and tribulations of the Medium.com world

I’ve been at this Medium thing for a while now. In past careers, I’ve been a workaholic, a lazy procrastinator, and everything in between. And all these aspects have surprisingly reared their heads while on Medium too.

I’ve had some success with articles going mini-viral. I have a couple that are ranked 1 on Google for their search areas. I’ve also had articles that got 5 views after spending an entire day working on them. But I still can’t call this a proper side hustle.

It can be a frustrating journey here, but if you’ve also been a writer on Medium, you know that don’t you?

Maybe you can also relate to these 100 other Medium things I’ve felt?

1. Your work on Medium isn’t a salaried job. 1 hour of work ≠ $X rate of pay. That can suck, but it can also be the fun of it.
2. The exchange rate of a $5 coffee for 2 hours of Medium writing sometimes doesn’t feel worth it.
3. But the cute waitress that flashes an occasional extra smile my way is.
4. You never know what article will take off. This can be a wild ride for the ego in us. From pleasant surprises to sheer disappointing I-want-to-quit moments.
5. Gary Vaynerchuk kind of scares me.
6. Dealing with Editors is a love-hate-love relationship – depending on the editor – and more importantly — you.
7. Other authors on the platform are an excellent source of encouragement and learning.
8. I’m tired of posting my articles on Facebook for 4 views. But occasionally I’ll get 40 so I keep doing it.
9. Headlines matter a hell of a lot – but your content matters even more.
10. A bad performing headline will also ruin your day though.
11. If your views are high your title is probably fine. If the view-read ratio is high then something is wrong. Unless you wrote a massive 100 point listicle, but who would do that?
12. There’s a lot of fantastic advice on Medium.
13. There’s a lot of shit advice too.
14. I’ve seen only 2 proven ways to be successful on Medium: A) Go back in time and join the platform 5 years ago, and B) write consistently high-quality work – whatever your niche – for the next 5 years (whenever that starts)
15. I’m happier on days I forget to check my stats.
16. A random encounter with a friend who likes your work — especially when you didn’t know they read your stuff — is worth more than 10,000 claps any day of the week.
17. Controversy sells. And so do mistakes. Why? Because everyone likes to tell a person they’re wrong and that = engagement. Social media platforms love engagement.
18. Multiples of 5 in listicles tend to do a lot better. This point is heavily debated though, some people prefer odd numbers in headlines. I just like sticking to what works better for me.
19. Humor articles are really hard to get a lot of reads without a following.
20. The most successful humor writers on Medium actually mix humor into their serious articles – and not the other way around. Kyrie Gray, Jessica Wildfire, and Sean Kernan do an amazing job at this.
21. I’ll still write nonsensical short humor because I’m a god damn delight.
22. Curation is an interesting beast to conquer. I write a lot about Medium and almost got banned once for an (in my head) innocent humor series. So I have not conquered curation. I still get curated sometimes, though, but I’m no Tim Denning.
23. Publications are hugely important to the new writer on Medium.
24. Here are 43 active ones with very useful associated information.
25. Social media platforms like Medium value genuineness and honest engagement. Go look at popular Medium authors that have big followings on Twitter or Facebook to see my point. You can use these platforms to bring back views to your articles — but it’s just as hard as writing on Medium to do it well.
26. So, external social media helps, but not nearly as much as you think. Until you have 50,000+ followers you’ll only get occasional bursts of views from it.
27. Being genuine – no clickbait, backing up opinions, citing your work, not plagiarising – should be the basis of your work if you want to be successful here.
28. Writing interesting shit and not being as boring as a sleeping cat also goes a long way. Unless you're a sleepy cat. Then you’re feline fine.
29. Writing about sex or something embarrassing also works really well. (But often doesn’t apply to feline writers)
30. Email lists are one way people make a lot of money blogging, eventually.
31. But there are other types of blogging to make money too. (Affiliates, ads, paid work, content marketing, freelancing, etc). Shaunta Grimes has an incredible collection of really informative articles on the subject.
32. Long-form content (10–15+ minutes) rules Google. And I suspect it trends better on Medium too. But an often cited magic number is 7 minutes.
33. But, I often skip long-form content as a reader because I have the attention span of a pregnant mosquito at a blood bank.
34. It’s hard to get into some of the bigger publications.
35. You should still try.
36. I have yet to try to get into one of the Medium owned publications because of the aforementioned mosquito attention span. I’ve heard stories of upwards of a month before replies sometimes.
37. Not self-publishing can also limit your chances to get discovered by Medium owned publications. If you self-publish and get curated, your work potentially gets seen by big editors. But, they won’t poach your piece about saving money by performing DIY Vasectomies At Home if it’s in any form of publication – even small ones. It’s always a trade-off. So mix it up.
38. A large chunk of people read Medium at work – and they’re not at the office these days. But that means your work will get a lot more views when they are in the future — if you stick around.
39. Getting your article ranked by Google is fun but doesn’t equal a lot of money all the time. I’ve seen author-friends with 50,000 external views and earn less money than I’ve got from writing about my fear of squirrels.
40. Medium won’t make you rich, but you can get a nice side hustle going.
41. More importantly, Medium can be a super fun hobby that may pay you. I like getting paid for hobbies.
42. If you can bring a big audience from another social media platform to this one, you can ignore most of my advice – Medium will make you richer.
43. There are a lot of shortcuts on Medium to make things easier to read and write.
44. Use Grammarly or Hemingway Editor – just do it, it catches mistakes even the real Hemingway Writer could miss.
45. Specific music genres and playlists can go a long way to getting you in the write mood when switching writing topics each day. It’s not easy switching from writing about walking as a form of meditation to writing a humorous take on getting botched knee surgery in Asia.
46. There’s a lot of statistics supporting the premise of the more time you put into an article the more views you’ll get. Anecdotally I’ve found this to be 100% true. This article by Michael Simmons does a great job of explaining it.
47. This article is probably not one of those examples.
48. It’s tricky to syndicate work between private blogs and social media platforms – despite what anyone tells you. There’s a lot of frustration to be had dealing with canonical links and different editors. But maybe I’m just missing out on an easy workaround.
49. I also don’t think the real Hemingway had to deal with canonical links.
50. Beer and coffee (sold separately) can help a hell of a lot when writing 100 point listicles.
51. Dealing with my own fallacies and having to keep myself motivated has been the hardest part of blogging on Medium.
52. Sex stories get way more views than humor. But my mom might be reading this. So Here’s a guide to urinating on furniture for cats.
53. Stop using ‘that’ in your sentences as much as possible. The fact that I use it more than I’d like makes that point not-all-that useful for me. But Dascha Paylor makes some really great points about that here.
54. Mixing up your sentence length can really help readability. People like variety. You agree? Yes!
55. Countless authors say you should write every day.
56. Equally countless focus on quality over quantity and write once a week.
57. I can’t count very high.
58. I follow several authors on here religiously. In addition to the ones I’ve mentioned already, please, please, go check out Benjamin Davis, Ayodeji Awosika, Mauro Sacramento, Casey Botticello, Jeff Goins, Liz Huber, Niklas Göke, Robert Turner, and John Gorman. (I’d love any recommendations for new authors to read, too!)
59. Medium doesn’t often tell me often when they post stuff though.
60. I also follow way too many people. These two points are probably related.
61. Your username and your profile name are different data points. But only your username (aka your name in your URL) is searchable using the @ function.
62. It’s easy enough to create an article that makes $20 if it’s informed, easy to read, has a good title, and is factual.
63. It’s not so easy to create a $1000 article.
64. I haven’t yet created a $1000 article.
65. This guy ☕️ Rolli creates some cool looking comics-with-stories on Medium. And also talks a lot about Medium’s drug problem.
66. I relate a lot to Tom Kuegler as he also lives and works in Asia as an ex-pat. Even cooler, he’s a super friendly guy on Twitter and runs a cool publication called The Post Grad Survival Guide.
67. I’ve been accepted to two huge publications but keep getting submissions ignored or rejected by them. This irks me.
68. My favorite publications to work with as a writer are Better Marketing, Publishous, and PGSG. I also personally love Feedium and a Tinge of Cringe.
69. That’s because those last 2 I run myself.
70. Mixing in promotional links is a great strategy when not pointed out in an obvious manner.
71. When you first sign up on Medium I’m pretty sure your first few articles are manually reviewed for curation. They’re figuring out if you should be curated regularly or sent to curation jail. I was sent to writing prison for some (now) obvious mistakes.
72. I sometimes wonder if Ev Williams will ever highlight one of my articles. I’ve highlighted his. It’s only fair, right?
73. 1 hour of Medium writing on the mobile phone app = 20 minutes of extra editing in a browser later.
74. 20 potential headlines are better than sticking to the 1 you initially think is great.
75. I still don’t know what my niche should be – or if I really need one. But I prefer being a ‘generalist’ because it’s more enjoyable.
76. The Startup doesn’t only publish about startups. Or ‘The’ startup, whatever company that is.
77. The Writing Cooperative only publishes about writing. In a cooperative fashion. Except when I submit stories to them.
78. Writing listicles feels like a waste of time until you see people finding value from them.
79. I don’t like telling people I occasionally write listicles for a living.
80. Nor that I’m a blogger.
81. I also can’t call $240 a month a living – especially with expensive $5 coffees and cute smiles.
82. I still struggle to choose a path for blogging outside of Medium.
83. The paths to success in blogging were paved by successful people.
84. The failed bloggers never blog about failing — probably because they failed.
85. Point 84 keeps me awake some nights.
86. I love the idea of writing an ebook collection of a niche topic.
87. 10 hours of research into chances of success for ebooks brought me running back to Medium.
88. I’m learning the ins and outs of Substack as a first foray into email lists for my humor articles. It seems like a good first step in this direction. I’ll have to wait and see.
89. If you keep at this writing game on Medium or your own blog for a long enough time in a consistent manner, I’m sure some success will come.
90. This thought puts me to sleep some nights.
91. A $5 coffee feels like a better value than a $5 tea. The sunshine at a coffee shop makes both really good deals.
92. I enjoy creating helpful articles for people because it combines the joy of teaching into the act of writing.
93. I used to teach a long time ago but hated rooms full of screaming kids.
94. Medium Writers can’t scream at me – yet. Maybe that is a future product update though. Ev Williams?
95. This list is almost over.
96. Writing on Medium is and isn’t about the money. Authors get surprisingly angry and argumentative over this subject.
97. If you don’t have an ounce of passion for writing – whether it’s listicles, how-to articles, trying to become the Tiger King, or any other subject – you won’t succeed. Because you’ll stop.
98. Hobbies are supposed to be fun. It’s even better when that hobby can be paid. If you find writing fun, make it your side hustle.
99. Stick with it. Eventually, you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t. You’ll learn what you enjoy and what you don’t. You’ll find the reason to sit down at your computer and type out something. The reason won’t let it feel like work. And that’s what I think is the most important part of all of this. It’s why I think there’s such a strong response from people when they say writing shouldn’t be about the money. Passion first, money later. Hell, even Steve Jobs said it. And Tony Montana, sort of. I like both money and passion. But the passion keeps me at it. Otherwise, I’d still be an unhappy workaholic in the corporate world slowly wasting away.
100. YOLO.

J.J. Pryor

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