There’s NO Damn Excuse for Such Low Stats!
Is Medium just a social club or what?
There’s nothing better that I love to hear, than fellow writers all sharing their success.
It makes me excited and happy, because I can relate to their struggles, and what it takes to get positive results.
But I’d be lying if I said that I don’t get a bit envious, when I hear about such staggering high earnings.
Many writers in the community who share their three and four figured earnings, sometimes indicate they don’t write that much or that often.
Needless to say, that just blows me away, considering the hundreds of stories that I’ve published.
Out of more than one thousand stories, I’m quite sure I’ve got at least a few that are worthy of higher earnings than I generally receive.
I’m not just prolific because I publish a lot of crap, or content that no one can use.
I do my best to saturate my niche with the type of stories that contain some type of value, like a helpful writing resource.
But even when I’m not writing about Medium, or the challenges of being a writer, I cover all types of diverse topics, worthy of a few minutes of a reader’s time.
So the statement I made in the title of my story is valid, and the question in the subtitle is a fitting one.
If earning more money on Medium is not about the story output, the only thing that leaves is engagement.
But just how much engagement in the community is needed, before you see it start to benefit you?
Is Medium just a social club or what?
I saw a major decline in stats
Over the nearly two years that I’ve been writing on Medium, I took note of something several months ago.
After getting rubbed the wrong way by a rude comment that a reader had written, I went through a period where I stopped reading Responses on my stories.
I know I shouldn’t take things like that so personal, but I have issues that I can’t afford to let other people trigger, so I do what I can to safeguard and maintain my mental stability.
At the time, that meant giving the Medium water cooler a break for a while.
I didn’t give up reading stories and leaving my own comments for others; I just simply stopped reading comments left on my own stories.
I must admit, this was hard and even made me a little depressed, because up until then, reading and replying to comments was a joy for me.
Even though I was disappointed when my stats began to plummet, I expected something like that (though not to that extent).
This showed me just what an important variable community engagement is, when it comes to your earnings.
Your stories matter to some degree, but apparently, engagement matters a whole lot more.
Compensating by promoting fellow writers
Being the fair-minded person that I am, I needed to find a way to compensate for choosing to bypass my reader’s comments.
One way, was by always creating opportunities to promote my fellow writers in whatever way I could.
This helped me not to feel like I was shirking an important obligation to connect with my followers.
But no matter how much reading, commenting and promoting other writers I did, my stats never seriously reversed their trajectory.
This ultimately led to the kind of moment that I find myself having now, only back then, I was actually pissed.
I wrote the story: This is Why I Won’t Be Busting My Ass on Medium Any More!
And for a little while, I actually did slow down the production of stories, and took yet another step back.
Since then, I’ve calmed down, cooled off, and accepted the fact that my earnings are only going to rise so high, and never truly be relative to my productivity.
Surpassing the $100 mark every month should be a given when you have a large portfolio of stories and a decent amount of followers.
But now I’m starting to suspect that if I really want to see a much bigger increase, I have to get more active in the Medium social club.
Final Thoughts
In case anyone thinks this story is an unnecessary rant, then I challenge you to publish over 1,000 stories, and share them with 3,700 followers.
Help promote other writers, and try to be as visible and considerate to members in the community as possible.
If the results of your efforts are anything like mine, I guarantee, you’ll be ready to do a little ranting yourself.
But now that I got all that off my chest, I feel a little better, I’m ready to implement a new plan that involves dong a lot more engagement in the community.
I’ve already shared a recent story about trying new ways to reply to comments.
I’ve made up my mind, that if Medium is a social club and I want to stick around for awhile, I guess I’m going to have to get a lot more social.
Thanks for reading…
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