6 of the Best Moves to Make as a Brand New Writer on Medium
At least according to the squishy thing inside my head
I’ve been writing on here for about 1.5 years, and I’ve grown quite fond of the place. The stress is nonexistent, the community is wonderful, the writing is amazing, the pay is…okay.
There’s lots to love about Medium and being a part of it.
But I’m hearing more and more these days about how the platform may seem a bit daunting for newbies.
In the past, I had created two huge articles outlining the ins and outs of the website in my own off-the-cuff style. The first one was an elaborate overview of the platform, while the second article went into detail on all the components of Medium.
But one thing I missed in those articles was about what to do when you’re finally situated.
You’ve signed up, strapped in, got your keyboard greased up (or is that just me), and you’re ready to fly.
But where’s the first destination?
Well, here’s 6 of your first stops to make on your Medium journey.
Since I didn’t learn about them until much later on in my own trek, perhaps they can help you save time — and be more successful.
Save the Best for Last
When you first start out, you may not be the best writer. Hell, you may even suck. But just in case you’re the reanimated zombie corpse of Ernest Hemingway, you can probably stop reading now as this section isn’t for you.
Nor is my brain, please.
Assuming you aren’t a genius writer yet, here’s my first piece of advice:
Don’t write your best stories until much later.
Set aside your awesome stories. Write them down on a list somewhere. Just don’t write them. Your first stories are very unlikely to be good.
By good, I mean good for this audience. Here on Medium.
Your story may be awesome, and you may even tell it in a fantastic way, but writing on Medium and for Medium readers needs to be learned through exploration and practice.
Medium readers, as many millions of them as there are, tend to expect a certain style of writing, formatting, and structure.
Learn this first. Make your work shine even if the stories aren’t amazing.
And when the time comes when your feet are sufficiently wet, throw your heart on the page for all to see and be amazed.
You Won’t Earn Shit
Medium and blogging, in general, is a long-term game. The stories you hear of phenomenal short-term wins are few and far between.
I’m talking like 1 in 50,000, if not worse odds.
Ignore the anecdotes and focus on the stats. It takes a while to build up an audience.
Some big writers on here say it took them 4–5 years before they had a decent following. I’m hoping to be in a similar place after just 2 years myself, but I’m impatient. It took almost one year before I was clearing $1,000 most months. And keep in mind — this is all I do most days.
You might not have the luxury of exploring this platform all week long. So, hamper your expectations of earning riches — at least for a while.
The money can and will come if you are patient, persistent, improving, and have a family heirloom in the form of a lucky golden horseshoe planted up your keyster.
Tinker and Tailor
“We love experimentation. That’s where the gold nuggets come from.” — Reggie Fils-Aime — Former Nintendo of America President
Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.
Unless you’re an established author who knows exactly what they want to write about, I can’t recommend exploratory writing enough.
Sure, perhaps you’re a business executive who only wants to write about business-related executions. But for what age? Demographic? Textual or goofy? Opinionated or fact-supported?
Even within a specific niche, if you’re lucky enough to know yours already, you can experiment with countless styles, formats, tones, and content.
And you should do just that. Especially during your first few months on the platform.
Find what you enjoy writing more and you’ll be able to stick with it more.
Find out what your audience loves and you’ll be encouraged to write more of that.
Combine those two factors and you’ll be the next Oprah of online wording.
Experiment as much as possible until you’re confident you’ve finally found your voice — and then go at it guns blazing.
(And keep doing some experiments. ‘Cuz they’re fun, and I’ll like you more for it.)
Find a friend
It’s a common piece of advice. Writers are known for getting stuck in their head when cranking out masterpieces — and sometimes those come out as complete masterfeces.
An outside perspective, especially when it’s someone who’s in this same game right alongside you, can go a long way in helping you improve your writing and chances of getting those precious views.
I can’t think of a single major writer on Medium that hasn’t mentioned a writing buddy before. They often credit their friends with helping them reframe certain thoughts, structures, and ideas — often with the result of a story going viral!
So go keep an eye out for writers you love.
Leave comments.
Join Facebook groups.
Leave shitty jokes and see who responds.
Maybe you’ll find some likeminded individuals out there. After all, there are likely over 200,000 writers here to get to know, befriend, and learn from.
Learn to write gud
There is a lot of bad writing on Medium. Like, really bad. Just look at any of my pieces for an idea.
But that’s okay. It’s an open marketplace of good ideas, funny opinions, and awesome writing. And the exact opposite, in equal if not greater amounts.
One of the most enjoyable things to see here, though, is the progression.
For those writers that actually stick with it, in almost every single example you can see them grow as writers in leaps and bounds.
Go choose any of these 50 hugely popular writers, and read one or two of their recent pieces with lots of claps. Probably pretty impactful writing, yea?
Now go to their profile, jam the PageDown key and hold it until you get to the very bottom a few minutes later.
Now read one or two of their earliest articles and tell me how you feel.
Unless you came across one of the naturals — those who already knew how to write amazingly well before coming to this platform — you’ll probably experience the same feeling I had.
Wonder. Amazement. Maybe a scringe of jealousy.
But most importantly, maybe it gave you some hope to do something similar.
To grow from a beginner writer, making beginner mistakes, and getting beginner results. To grow into a prolific writer who somehow magically transforms the constant bumble of thoughts in their head into beautiful prose, for the entire world to potentially consume.
That was the feeling I had. That’s the feeling I strive to remember every day.
And this is the feeling that can keep you going on here.
If you want to make an impact on Medium, you gotta stick it out. Find whatever motivation you can to help you do just that.
Publications are Everything
Get into the big publications if you want to have a chance at virality.
And before anyone steps in to point out all the many viral pieces that were self-published — believe me — I’ve done the research on this. I have way too much time on my hands and have created such huge Excel charts they’d make Bill Gate’s wife blush.
Self-publishing can lead to viral articles — but that’s almost always because they’re curated (now called distributed) and offered to be picked up by a major medium publication.
There are a few examples of solo pieces getting a few hundred thousand views if not more, but it’s extremely rare.
So, don’t bother fighting statistics, it’s easier to go where ‘easy’ money is and strike out for major publications.
One more thing — if you’re in it for the long haul — there’s no harm in making your own publication too.
Just look at Darius Foroux’s Blog of Darius Foroux (60K followers), Shannon Ashley’s Honestly Yours (7.4K followers), or Tom Kuegler’s Finding Tom (2K followers).
It was a place where they put all their own work, without editor opinions, and perhaps were even rejected from pubs before.
Also note, they each individually have way more followers than their publications, yet it’s a place to showcase their work.
They’ve also been developing these pubs for years. But, it’s a great way to organize your work, especially if it’s along a similar theme.
Our normal profile pages have very little in the way of customization (you can pin 5 posts, that’s about it). So the extra organization of a publication might be just what you’re looking for if you’re willing to keep it updated from time to time.
To recap:
- Save your best stories and work for later after you’ve got good.
- You’ll earn very little for the first while, don’t mind that, as long as its growing generally. Keep at it for the long haul.
- Experiment as much as you can to find your niche and voice.
- Find a writer friend and talk about your work and projects.
- Learn to write!
- Aim and write for the biggest publications if you want the best chance at success.
- Sign up for my newsletter because you appreciate this article so much.
If you want to follow step #7 and make me smile, come join my free weekly-ish newsletter. Thanks for reading!