avatarMira Lucas

Summarize

3 Viral Stories With Earnings From $162 — $1.100

And what they have in common

Photo by Isaac Smith on Unsplash

You don’t have to go viral to make money on Medium, but it sure helps. A lot.

I’ve been writing consistently on Medium for a little over three months now, and I’ve not had any viral stories yet.

As I write in my story about my Medium earnings in the past three months, my three best earning stories have made me:

My most earning story so far, the story about atomic habits, has had 727 views and a total member reading time of 10 hours and 41 minutes:

Stats for my best-earning story (image by author)

And even though I’m very grateful for the fact that I almost made 40 dollars with this story, and even more grateful for the fact that so many people took the time to read this story and comment on it, this story is still far from being a viral story.

So I decided to do a little research on some viral stories of other writers on Medium.

How much does a viral story earn?

And what do viral stories have in common?

1. A viral story by Nikhil Vemu

In November, Nikhil Vemu published a story about why you should never shut down your MacBook:

Earnings and stats:

The story started going viral after a few days and kept making (a lot of) money for a month.

It made $ 567 by the end of the month. By then, it had 10,9k views and a total member reading time of over 226 hours.

What made it go viral?

According to Nikhil Vemu, part of the reason the story went viral might have something to with the title.

In his story on going viral, he writes that successful stories usually have a negative word in the title:

Most viral pieces I’ve read on Medium had this One thing in common: A negative word. Ex: Died, Cheated, Killed, Ditched etc.

And the title apparently dispels a strong, age-old belief of the readers. It suggests them not to shut down their MacBooks, which they’ve been doing for years. This might have evoked curiosity in their minds and made them click.

2. A viral story by Jenn Leach

In October, Jenn Leach wrote a story about her earnings from a faceless YouTube video:

Earnings and stats:

The story went viral and made over $1,100 in less than a month. By this time it had 92k views, 45k reads, 606 fans, and a read ratio of 49%.

What made it go viral?

As Jenn Leach wrote, the title probably had something to do with it again:

I like to use facts and figures in my titles. Numbers tend to do well, too.

The subtitle can be equally as important. It should compliment the title nicely and in all, I like a crisp, clean short title and subtitle.

And, of course, the content is important. According to Jenn Leach, 500–1000 words might be the ideal length for a story.

No short form stories here. You want to educate, inspire, and/or entertain in your stories. Make it at least 500 words.

But stories longer than 1000 words might discourage people from reading and encourage them to scan the text instead.

3. A viral story by Peter White

In January, Peter White published this story about the most attractive male body according to science:

Earnings and stats:

The story started going viral after a few days.

It made him $162 by the end of January, with $73,74 in a single day. By this time, the story had 10k views and a total member reading time of over 114 hours.

What made it go viral?

Peter White also writes that the headline might have had something to do with the fact that this story has gone viral. It’s a topic that attracts attention and the story has a catchy headline.

Other than that, the story is clearly well written, and it refers to scientific research to make a point.

Summary

So what can you learn from these viral stories?

  • The title matters. It has to attract attention. It might also help to put a number and/or a negative word in the title.
  • Story length matters. Stories of 500–1000 words tend to do well.
  • Content matters. You can’t fake quality. All of these stories are well-written by writers who are clearly good at what they do. If you make a claim, back it up with scientific evidence. And make sure to edit your stories before you publish.
  • Lay-out matters. These stories all have relatively short paragraphs. Some have pictures or other media (videos, for example) in the story. As Jenn Leach writes: It’s nice to give your eyes a break when you’re reading.
  • Quantity matters. You can’t force a viral story. You can’t force the algorithm. But you can increase your odds by simply writing more.

Of course, your story doesn’t have to go viral.

To me, what’s most important is that I can write about things that interest me. If a story doesn’t do well in terms of money, but people enjoy it, comment on it or benefit from it, it’s well worth it.

But it’s interesting to see which stories do well and to see if we can learn a bit more about the mysterious algorithm.

I hope you enjoyed reading this. If you’d like to support me as a writer, consider signing up to become a Medium member. It’s just $5 a month and you get unlimited access to Medium.

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