A Breakdown of My Earnings From the Past 14 Months

No, I don’t make $1,000 every month yet. But here’s why I will

Let me tell you the truth now. My earnings? They’re… alright. For someone who’s been writing on Medium for 14 months, they’re not that impressive.

You know what’s more impressive? The bit about how I’ve been writing on Medium for 14 months.

I should’ve quit by now. That’s what the numbers tell me: “14 months, over 400 articles written, and you’re still not making much?” Last year, at this point, I assumed I’d be at least $500 a month.

But I’m still here, and even though I sometimes really, really want to quit, I know I won’t. I can’t. The idea of quitting is as ludicrous as deciding you want to get off the Ferris wheel when you’re all the way at the top.

So, while I’m going to breakdown my earnings for you, right from the beginning, I also hope I can offer you a little hope by writing about more than just numbers.

April and May 2019: Testing the Waters

Note: The earnings from April to November were based on the old earnings system, which was based on claps, not reading time.

You might be familiar with this stage. You learn about Medium and the Medium Partner Program, you don’t believe what you read about making $1,000 in a month just from articles… and then you do.

You decide that maybe you want to write here. Not full-time, but just a bit. You test the waters. You publish an article or two, and before you know it, you’ve made a few cents.

No, it’s not enough to quit your job, but it’s definitely enough to convince you to keep writing because the reality is this: You’ve never earned money for something you wrote before.

Three articles. That’s how many I published. I made $.39. But it was all the proof I needed. I was in.

June 2019: The First Real Month

The next month comes, and you think, OK. Maybe I can do something with this. You start reading everything you can about writing better content, formatting, headlines.

You want to know the secret to success on Medium, and you seem to have found it: Publish every day. That’s what most writers seem to suggest, so you set a goal to do it. Just as I did.

A twist of fate left me without a job. My freelance client went AWOL on me (seriously, haven’t heard from him since). I decided now was the time to give Medium a real chance. Since I had plenty of time on my hands and love a challenge, I decided to do it.

But I failed. I published 13 articles that month. I made $2.78.

July and August 2019: Time To Take This Shit Seriously

Nothing is more motivating than disappointing yourself by not reaching your goal. It makes you want to prove your past self wrong. That’s why, in July, I made sure not to fail.

I published every day, and with 31 articles, I made $103.35. (Woo-hoo, $100-club!) As excited as I was, there was a problem: I had no fucking idea if I could keep this up. What else could I write? If I couldn’t figure out what to write tomorrow, what would I write about two weeks from now?

These were the top five articles that earned the most:

Advice From 15 Successful Medium Writers That’ll Make You a Better Writer (earned $12.71)
What It’s Like to be the Daughter of Parents Who Struggle Financially (earned $9.26)
You’re Not Alone: All 20-Somethings Are Just As Confused (earned $8.25)
Why You Won’t Be Happy If You Keep Doing This One Thing (earned $7.61)
Dear Writer, don’t give up just yet — the best is yet to come (earned $5.59)

We worry about that for no reason. Somehow, someway, you always find something to write about. A lesson you learned that day. A memory that you never stop thinking about. A random encounter you saw at the gas station.

People always say you live and you learn. I say, you live and you learn and you write.

In August, I published 34 articles. Less than half were curated. I got published in Mind Cafe and Better Marketing. I also re-published popular articles I’d published in Thought Catalog. I made $105.35.

September and October 2019: Double Tap

After three months, I decided to up my goal. This time, I would publish twice a day in 30 days. I reached that goal not only once but twice.

Before I tell you how much I earned, let me tell you now, it was not worth it. I felt burnt out by the end, not because I wrote too much but because I was doing it for the money. It’s how you kill your love for writing.

In September I made $192.01. In October — four months in — I made $200.97.

I love writing. I write every day, whether it’s an article or my book or a short story. But publishing twice a day? You learn a lot, sure, and you realize that nothing can stop you, but you also learn to dread writing. If you want to make it big on Medium, you can’t ever let your love for writing die.

November and December 2019: Taking a Step Back

When the money goes up and up and up, and all of sudden you go back down — well, let’s say it’s not as fun as riding a rollercoaster. You’re going to experience a lot of disappointment. Anger. Jealousy. Sadness.

Because we attach our worth to the numbers, low ones mean low self-esteem. By the end of 2019, I decided to go back to publishing once a day. With the new system (reads, not claps), I dropped from $200 to $113 in November and $114 in December.

It’s easy to forget that it’s not just an uphill ride. You go up, you come down — sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. Either way, you don’t have a choice but to stay on if you want to get to the end.

I don’t care what you feel. Your feelings are valid, but they can’t matter. You can’t let them dictate what actions you take. Write even if you think you suck. Write even if the numbers say you shouldn’t.

Besides, never underestimate the power of accumulation.

January, February, and March 2020: No Change

The new year is supposed to feel exciting. But six months into this journey, and I was bored. Everything felt routine. When you love riding the wave, it’s difficult to sit in the water and wait.

I published an average of 20 articles every month for three months and made:

$107.44 in January
$100.90 in February
$99.74 in March

For the first time in eight months, I had missed the $100 club by less than thirty cents. I was devasted. I thought I was failing, losing, falling behind. It was getting hard to see the top.

April, May, and June 2020: ft. Help From Ayodeji Awosika

An opportunity came along. Ayodeji Awosika — whose attention I’d somehow grabbed (perks of having written lots of articles) — reached out to me and asked if I would promote his book, “Real Help.” The top 10 people who sold the most books would get three coaching calls from him. I was number 10.

He gave me advice and an action plan to follow. My excitement and energy were renewed because hello, I was talking to Ayo-fucking-deji. I clung onto his every word and hastily took notes as he spoke.

Every time, I applied his advice. Wrote the articles he told me to write. Changed my subtitles, my headlines, tried all of his techniques. My numbers increased by almost 5,000 views in two months.

That meant that my earnings went up again.

$115.86 in April
$143.23 in May
$137.32 in June

I know what you’re thinking, but no — you don’t need a call with some writer on Medium who has lots of followers to succeed. I wouldn’t have gotten out of that rut without Ayo’s help. But at the end of the day, I did the work. Not everyone would have.

Lots of writers like Todd Brison, Ayodeji Awosika, Kelly Eden, and Cynthia Marinakos have given valuable advice. Read these articles, make a game plan, and start following their steps.

July 2020: Motto: Write Better Shit

I was still reeling with excitement in July. I started doubling down on the quality of my work rather than the quantity. I didn’t check stats. I didn’t check earnings — not until the end of the month.

That’s why I was surprised when I checked on the last day and saw that finally, after nine months, I made $200 again — $219, to be exact.

I published 20 articles (compare the same earnings to 52 articles in October). Twelve articles had over 200 reads. Four over 100, and the rest no less than 50.

In August I made $204. Still, I don’t want you thinking it was all great. I still had days when I doubted myself and my skills. There’s always going to be fear, doubt, and insecurity in the back of your head.

Whether you want to experiment with a new topic or share a personal story, you gotta let your heart lead when you write. Don’t let your doubts beat you. And as I always say, even if you suck right now, it doesn’t mean you can’t be better later.

September 2020: Ah, September

Writing-wise, September was the shittiest month I’ve had since June 2020. In fact, I published the same number of articles: 13.

Mostly, I kept getting rejected. OK, that’s the excuse. Mostly, I didn’t write much. A low month is all. No need to make a big deal out of it. We do better next time.

There is, however, a win. In my first real month on Medium, I made $2.39 with 13 articles. This month, with the same number of stories, I made $185.23.

How’s that for progress?

Here’s a screenshot of all my earnings:

Want to See Other People’s Earnings?

Fourteen months. As I said, that’s how long I’ve been writing on Medium. Fourteen months, and I’ve never had one of my 441 articles go viral. I’ve never made more than $219 in a month.

After 14 months, Matt Lillywhite made $6,513.13. This was in July of this year. I could rip myself apart in a hundred ways because my achievements are nowhere near his, but what’s the point? Where’s it gonna get me?

Sinem Günel and I are around the same age. (She’s 23, and I’ll be turning 23 in December.) The most she’s made this year, in one month, is $11,163.61. She’d published 21 articles. Yes, you read that right. I could let that make me feel bad, but here’s the thing: everyone’s journey on Medium is different.

Sinem’s been on this platform for over two years now. Matt shared with me that two articles went viral in July, making up 53% of his income. What can I even compare myself to?

Comparing your progress to someone else’s never makes sense.

Jim Woods has been writing on Medium for a long while now, but he started taking it seriously in May 2018. Nearly a year and a half later, he made $390 in a month. Pretty badass, right?

Anangsha Alammyan was making less than $5 every month with two or three pieces. She followed this routine until April of this year, and then in May, she decided to change things up. She made $209.03. The next month? She doubled her earnings by writing 30 articles.

You can complain, you can moan, you can cry. None of it is going to get you where you want. No, I haven’t hit any grand numbers yet. Yes, I’ve worked my butt off. But sometimes you have no choice but to wait.

All you can do is write. Write and publish and learn and experiment and challenge yourself and grow. And then wait for your day to come, because one day, it will.

You never know, it could be tomorrow.