avatarMuhammad Zunair

Summary

An aspiring writer reflects on their first 60 days on Medium, sharing insights, personal growth, and the importance of prioritizing quality content over view and earnings metrics.

Abstract

The author of the article recounts their two-month journey on Medium, emphasizing the lessons learned and the evolution of their writing philosophy. Initially, they fell into the trap of focusing on view counts and earnings, but later shifted their emphasis to producing honest and quality content. The article highlights the significance of being true to one's passion for writing, the value of consuming high-quality work, and the necessity of setting high standards for oneself as a writer. The author also stresses the importance of consistent writing, publishing in reputable publications, and writing on diverse topics to enhance one's skills. Despite the challenges, the author considers their 60-day experience a success, marked by personal favorites among their published pieces and the achievement of becoming a Top Writer in Movies.

Opinions

  • The author believes that new writers often fall into the trap of prioritizing views, earnings, and curation over the quality and honesty of their content.
  • They advocate for writing with passion and integrity, suggesting that writers should momentarily forget about metrics and focus on expressing themselves authentically.
  • The author values the consumption of quality content as a means to improve one's writing and aspires to produce work that inspires others to write better content.
  • They encourage writers to aim high and not limit their potential by comparing themselves to their favorite writers.
  • Consistent writing and publishing in publications are seen as key practices for growth, not merely for improving stats but for reaching a wider audience and challenging oneself as a writer.
  • The author reflects on their own journey, acknowledging the mistakes made and the realization that led to a shift towards creating meaningful and impactful content.
  • They share a sense of achievement and learning from their experience on Medium, which has reshaped their perspective on writing and success.

60 Days on Medium

An Honest Summary

Photo by Clemens van Lay on Unsplash

After writing on Medium for two months and putting almost 150 hours of work, I think I have earned the right to preach. Even if I haven’t, I am still going ahead. Because, why not?

However, this is not your average ‘How to get million of views’ or ‘5 easy steps to make 15 grand from one piece’ mind-numbing, spirit-crushing, unrealistic story. Rather, it’s an honest summary, right from my heart, of my first two months on Medium.

When I completed my first month on Medium, I wrote the following piece, summarizing my 30-day experience on Medium. Interestingly, it was exactly on of those pieces, of which I’m now making fun of.

The piece did great. most of the readers loved it and it made me two plus dollars. So, it’s not that my experience of writing such pieces is not good. Instead, the goal is to address more significant aspects and save new writers from making certain mistakes.

To be honest, when I started on Medium, I had expectations. But I didn’t expect to do this ‘good’ in the first couple of months. I know, there are people who did far better in their first 60 days on Medium, nothing but respect and admiration for them.

However, if someone had told me two months ago that I would end up publishing 47 stories and would get more than 4000 views in my first couple of months on Medium, I would’ve laughed it off.

The reason being, I took Medium just as another expressive outlet, nothing else. For me, Medium was this great platform to pen down my thoughts and share it readers.

Yes, views were on my mind, money as well. But the primary goal was to write. The objective was clear; consume great content and then produce even greater content.

Unfortunately, things changed. Priorities changed. Aspirations changed.

And in this piece, I’m going to share how I ended up falling in this stats-views-dollars quandary, especially when I had completely different aspirations.

So, buckle up because the story of my first couple of months on Medium is adventurous, loaded with lessons and takeaways and is definitely worth-reading.

But before moving forward, let’s address the elephant in the room.

I know, most of the guys are here to find out how many views I have gotten or how much I have made in the last 60 days etc. As I said, I’m going to be honest with you so, the following are the stats of my first two months on Medium. Moreover, I earned about $16.80, $2.77 in the first and 14.03 in the second month.

First Month Stats
Second Month Stats

Also, you must be wondering that how many of my stories actually got curated by Medium curators. Thankfully, the answer is a non-zero digit, 2. The following two stories got curated, one in Film and other in TV.

Moreover, I also got this title, Top Writer in Movies, and it really felt like an achievement.

Email from Medium

So, can my first two months on Medium be categorized as a success? Well, I’m leaving it to you because that’s a subjective conclusion.

As stats, earnings and all such things are now out of way, let’s discuss more important things.

First off, in the last two months, I have found great writers, lovable friends and admiring readers on this platform. I have found people, who are masters of their respective niches and are producing worth-reading and high quality content i.e Gurpreet Dhariwal, Kevin Buddaeus, Chirag and many others.

Nonetheless, I have also found people, who are just doing it the wrong way. Even worse, most of them are not even aware of it. I, unfortunately, was also one of them until I realized that my aspirations were not streamlined as I was moving in the wrong direction.

Let me explain!

You all are aware of the fact that Medium is arguably the greatest writing platform. Thus, there must be something that all other writing platforms are lacking or have failed to provide. Right?

So, what is it? The answer is simpler than you think; quality content in written form, among other valuable things.

Nonetheless, whenever a new writer or a person with aspiration to write stuff starts writing on Medium, he ends up finding himself in this stats-money-curation quagmire. So, just like everyone else, he starts looking for solutions.

Consequently, he ends up finding a plethora of articles and videos, explaining how to get more views, how to improve stats, how to earn more money, all that stuff.

Unfortunately, an ‘aspiring writer’, with hopes of making quality content and then earning from it, falls prey to this. He ends up accepting all these articles/videos as the ultimate truth and starts implementing different schemes to get more views, to improve his stats and earn more dollars.

More views or more dollars don’t hurt. So, what’s exactly the issue?

Well, let me explain it further.

In the pursuit of all these things, he ends up compromising his true passion. With this mindset to get more views, he ends up writing stories, which lack substance, are half-cooked and not even worthy of reading. As a result, he ends up as a writer, who doesn’t writer out of passion and doesn’t provide value through his writings.

He started on Medium, with the primary purpose of writing and producing quality work. But with all these schemes and plans, he ended up prioritizing views/stats/money over his true passion. Result? Poor quality content, not honest either.

I know, you didn’t come here to listen to my Ted Talk but the point being, in the first 40 days, I also made the same mistakes. During that time-period, I wrote about 30 plus stories and with this idea in mind to get more views, I ended up writing no-so-good ones.

Luckily, I realized that I needed to make quality content instead of just writing for the sake of views or money. So, I told myself: Forget all these schemes/plans of getting more views, just focus on writing quality pieces.

Hence, following are some of my sincere suggestions for those, who are just getting started on Medium.

1. Be honest with your work

If you’re not honest with your work, your can’t achieve great heights. It’s as simple as it gets.

For a few days, forget that this ‘stat’ thing even exists. Forget that you can earn money from Medium. Writer for yourself. Try to use Medium as an expressive outlet. Do it and, if not many folds, your work will show tremendous improvement.

Don’t write in haste or don’t write, when it feels like an obligation. Writing should not treated like all these careers; writer when you feel like writing.

Be honest. Don’t produce only for the sake of consumption. Produce content with the purpose of imparting knowledge to others and inspiring them to writer better content.

2. Consume quality content

You’re on arguably the greatest writing platform so, instead of wasting your time on all these pieces ‘How to earn more’, ’10 steps to get more audience’, spend you time reading pieces, which can help you in improving your writing, enhancing your knowledge, and can benefit you in becoming a better writer.

Just focus on improving yourself as a writer and consuming quality work can help you in this regard.

3. Aim for the Stars

Don’t ever think that you can’t write like your favorite writer. Respect and admiration aside, if you’re not writing with the mindset that you’re not going be as great as your idols, you will end up limiting yourself.

When you’re honest with your work, your priorities are set, you’re consuming the work of great writers and you are aspiring for greatness, I don’t think you’ll fail.

4. Get the basics right

I am of the view that writing consistently can help you in evolving as a writer. However, I don’t mean to infer that one should keep producing constantly, without maintaining or improving the quality of his work. No, it doesn’t work that way. Write consistently, but don’t forget to improve.

Also, I have been an advocate of publishing your content in publications and writing on a variety of topics and I still believe these are great practices. Not because these practices can improve your stats or they can earn you more. But mainly because by publishing your work in publications, you get the chance to share your work with more readers and by writing on a variety of topics, you can challenge yourself as a writer.

To conclude, this 60-day journey has proved to be a great learning experience for me, both as a writer and as a person. In terms of my perspective about writing, my work-ethic and my desire for greatness, I have learned quite valuable lessons in the last two months.

With the hope of making best use of all these lessons and with the ambition of inspiring others, I have a lot to do. So, I’ll meet you with another piece. Till then, goodbye.

Out of the 47 stories, my personal favorites:

Writing
Writing Tips
Writing Challenge
Writing Life
Writers On Writing
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