12 Different Income $treams You Can Earn From Your Medium $tories

Why it’s critical not to reply on all your writing income from one source

Writers are at a unique advantage when it comes to multiple streams of income. We can write a piece of work once and get paid from it forever. Those income streams add-up over time.

While Medium is a nice place to earn extra monthly income, most writers won’t earn a full-time living here.

…but most writers can build multiple income streams from their Medium stories.

I’ve compiled a list of 12 of my favorites. This may be one of those stories you’ll want to bookmark and refer-to later, as your indie publishing business grows.

While I doubt most writers will use all 12 of these (I don’t), we can all add more income streams to our writing businesses. It’s important we move as far from trading hours for dollars as we can.

Multiple income streams are an insurance policy against financial loss.

There’s a large amount of freedom available when you no longer have to rely on one source for all your money.

12 income streams from your Medium writing:

1. The Medium Partner Program —

This one’s obvious, but overlooked. Through targeted, relentless writing and building a unique niche for your work, you can earn more than a thousand dollars month from your writing here. Medium-alone is an excellent income stream for freelance writers.

Aim your Medium content towards the rest of your income streams. Not only can you provide helpful content here, but you’ll also help the reader with more information, should she want a deeper-dive into the topic you mention.

2. Your email list —

This is both your bread and your butter. Your email list is the main hub where you keep your tribe close to your chest. This the place where you provide as much value as possible, while entertaining your readers and keep them coming back tomorrow.

Your email list is a great place to sell your books and other work, automatically, through the use of automated email sequences.

3. Re-packaged content —

A book becomes and e-book, a podcast, and an audio book. You can take you Medium content and turn it into podcasts scrips, book chapters, and blog posts.

Never use anything you write once. We spend a lot of time writing. We don’t get that time back. If you can re-purpose your Medium writing into additional income streams you should do so. You’ll serve more people in different content niches.

4. Recipes, formulas, and done-for-you content —

While how-to content is very popular, some readers won’t have the spare time to do the work, but they may have the money to pay you to give them a turnkey system.

Sell a package of done-for-you tools and services the buyer can start using the day she buys it from you. Your customers are busy. If you make their lives easier with a finished solution, they’ll gladly pay you for it.

5. Influencer income —

If you earn enough of a following on Medium, you can use your status to become an influencer other platforms, earning money for product placement. Sure, this might sound far-fetched for a writer. But there are plenty of companies willing to pay to get in front of your audience.

While you shouldn’t advertise directly in you Medium stories, you can build a following and encourage them to follow you on all your platforms, like Instagram (which is a great place for writers).

6. Affiliate income —

Not only can you sell your own work through your Medium writing, you can also sell the work of others. With the appropriate disclosures, of course, you can earn additional income streams by recommending your readers to someone else’s product.

I do this with my own publishing business. I don’t recommend many affiliate offers, but the ones I do provide an extra consistent, monthly income. As long as you believe and trust the product you recommend, your readers will trust you too.

Do not barrage your readers with any affiliate offer you can find. This is a quick way to make yourself look like a chump.

7. Coaching —

Help people in small groups remotely. Even one-on-one. Here, you help your tribe become their best selves. You take a look at their work, provide feedback, and help them improve their lives from where they are now to where they want to be.

Coaching is a flexible business model. Whether you want to help people in a group or one-on-one, in-person or remote — there might be a coaching model for you.

8. Consulting —

Many writers get corporate consulting gigs from their writing. You knew know who’s reading. Might be that CEO on her lunch break. You can turn one great set of concepts into an entire consulting business on a larger scale.

You can earn thousands of dollars per month from consulting clients alone. It only takes a few of these clients to boost your annual income a lot. If you’re in the non-fiction business, there are tens of thousands of niches for consulting in almost every genre.

Be prepared to travel. If you’re going to get paid big bucks to consult, the buyer will most-likely want to see your face on-site. Skype probably won’t cut it.

9. Merch —

Writers shouldn’t forget merchandise too. Like t-shirts and mugs with your best sayings. You can take pictures of yourself wearing the merchandise and link to it at the bottom of your stories, or through the content in your email, once they join your list from the Medium link.

10. Coursework —

Medium stories are a positive way to entice readers to invest in your courses. Give small pieces of your content free in each Medium story. If the reader is happy with what she gained from you free content, she may be interested in the deeper-dive of your flagship course.

Courses are a great way to expand you influence to a large audience. You can create the entire product yourself and sell it to thousands of people, multiplying your efforts in an unlimited way. I love courses. I’ve bought hundreds. The best ones have changed my life. Your readers will like them too.

11. Books —

Medium is a great place to encourage your readers to buy your books. Not only can you use Medium stories to enhance certain parts of your book, but you can also use the embedded links to take readers straight to your books, where they can buy them.

12. Monthly insider’s groups and masterminds—

Your best readers may become part of a mastermind, or inner-circle group. Here, you charge a recurring, monthly fee in exchange for a specific value — available only to those who subscribe to the group. By acting as one, hive-mind you can pool the knowledge of your readers together and accomplish great things through a mastermind group. Not only will you help them, but they’ll help you… and you’ll get paid for it.

It’s time to build YOUR email list

Earning money from your direct Medium stories in only 1/12th of the potential income streams you can derive from your Medium content. The partnership income is just the beginning.

Most of these other options are available through your tribe.

You grow your tribe by building an email list.

Medium is a great place to build your tribe. All you have to do is link to your free offer at the bottom of every Medium story. You’ll entice a portion of your readers to join.

Practice this with everything you write and you’ll soon have a small army of stories all working to help you grow your list, so you can serve your tribe in bigger ways.

Not only will you earn money from your best writing, but you’ll also earn a portion of these readers over to your list. When you’ve got a loyal tribe, they’ll be there — ready for when you finish your next book.

The tribe is part of the process. They get to watch you rise among the ranks. Your tribe wants you to succeed. They’re vested in your content.

If you want to build your own tribe, I’ve created an email masterclass to help you get your first 1,000 readers (or your next 1,000) without spending a sour penny on ads.

Tap the link. Today is the best time to start. Before you’re ready. Before the work is finished.

We’re waiting for you.

Enroll in my Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers

August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indies how to make work that sells and how to sell more of that work once it’s created. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing, August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.