An Honest Review of My First 6 Months on Medium
100+ stories published, 1K+ followers and nearly $2K made, what do I think of the platform?
Strap yourself in, because this will be a bumpy ride. If you like, feel free to skip to the relevant sections you are interested in.
I have just hit my six-month milestone on Medium, and I thought it would be rude not to write a piece about my journey. It’s definitely been a learning curve, with highs and lows, but I wouldn’t give it up for the world.
I first came to Medium in August 2020, looking for a new place to write. My WordPress blog was stale, I got no real feedback from the writing community, and as a result, I felt like my words weren’t making an impact. And let's face it; all writers crave that to some degree.
Initially, Medium became a place to write all of my failed pitches. To date, despite regular pitching to editors, I still haven’t secured a commission. If it weren’t for Medium, I probably wouldn’t be writing at all, but just putting all my energy into writing emails.
With the help of Twitter, I started to build friendships with the writers here. It is easily the friendliest place on the internet, and I truly believe that — despite getting a handful of mean comments on my articles.
So, here’s the lowdown on my six months on Medium. I’ll be talking about publications (big and small) how I started my own publication, earnings, the writing itself and everything in between.
I also took the plunge and created my first YouTube video, so if you would prefer to watch, rather than to read, please go ahead. However, I’m far better with words than with video.
· Publications: Big and Small & Starting my Own ∘ How Difficult is it to get into Big publications, and do they make you more money? ∘ Why Did I Start My Own Publication? · Money: Have I earnt more every month? · Writing: Has it Got Any Easier? · 6 Month Summary
Publications: Big and Small & Starting my Own
Since joining, I’ve been published in 23 different publications, including my own ones: A Thousand Lives and Stories from Violet. I’ve had mixed success in all of them, but my goal from now on is to write for at least 2–3 different publications per month.
I’m getting a little too comfortable at this stage, and want to branch out. In November, I wrote back in my 4-month review, a pretty crucial nugget of information that I will share again. From my experience, getting published in the big publications never guarantees you more money, followers or success — in fact —for me, it’s been the opposite.
How difficult is it to get into bigger publications & do they make you more money?
On a drizzly day in December of last year, as I was finishing work, I checked my emails which were enough to stop me in my tracks. After just my second attempt, I was accepted as a writer for Mind Cafe and published my piece already.
After following the advice of the fabulous Anangsha Alammyan after one failed attempt and being declined as a writer, I picked myself up again and put my all into submitting a second piece. I researched, made my article tight, and ensured it had a personal takeaway for the reader. From there, the rest was history. You could say I had a relatively easy ride with Mind Cafe in getting accepted.
Mind Cafe is still my favourite publication on the platform, and I will never stop writing articles for them, but if you’re looking at it as a guaranteed place for your articles to go viral, you may be in the wrong place. I know of a select few writers who have had amazing success, but it is quite saturated and harder to get your work noticed because they publish so many articles per day. I’ve published six articles with them so far, and it’s been a gradual downward slope in terms of earnings.
The Writing Cooperative is another of my favourite publications, and all in all, I found it relatively easy to get accepted there. I’ve only had one story published, but it did better than any of my articles in Mind Cafe. I have another one scheduled for this month, so I’ll be intrigued to see if it performs better than my first one.
When I looked at my January 2021 income, most of the money I made was still coming from this article, published in Books Are Our Superpower. I can attribute nearly all of my monetary success from this publication, and it is far smaller. However, I got lucky with 5 Difficult Books to Read, as it ranks first on Google too.
Publishing less content per day is perhaps working in BAOSP’s favour, as writers get more exposure per piece and are read by a more loyal audience. I also think that books as a topic on Medium although popular, is less written about than self-help, so success for the writer is somewhat easier.
Why Did I Start My Own Publication?
I took the plunge and started A Thousand Lives back in December. In truth, I had wanted to start my own publication as soon as I joined Medium. But also, I noticed a slight gap in the market. Books are obviously popular to write about, which can be seen with Books Are Our Superpower's success. However, there isn’t a publication purely for book reviews, or advanced reader copies (ARC’s.)
I will say one thing — it’s a labour of love. I don’t get paid to run it, it sucks away a lot of my time when I could be writing — but I love every minute of it. It’s given me so much joy over the past few months that I wouldn't change it for the world. It’s definitely not necessary to do on Medium — but I enjoy it all the same.
Money: Have I Earnt More Every month?
My earnings have been up and down. But, I’ve consistently made a decent amount of money which I am pleased with. I never joined Medium in the first place with the idea of making money, so it was always a bonus. However, every month I’ve been here, apart from my first one, I’ve made more than the top 6% of writers who make $100 a month.
However, I’m still yet to break the $1000 mark. I know some writers who managed to achieve that in their first few months, but it’s rare. After all, I’ve only published 100 stories on the platform and spent 6 months here. Medium is a far more competitive platform now, so it takes a bigger backlog of articles to earn more and get noticed.
In November, I learned that I was paying tax directly to the US government. I am a non-resident writer who lives in the UK, which means, I should have been exempt from paying the 30% international tax, but Medium never informs you of that when you sign up. It wasn’t until I read this article that I realised you had to opt-out of being taxed, rather than Medium telling you about it in the first place.
I have many strong feelings about this, as I lost over $300 of income in my first few months, and feel like Medium could really do better in how it treats international writers, but that’s a story for another day.
Writing: Has it Got Any Easier?
The more I write on Medium, the more I want to write. In itself, it is a great source of inspiration. Now that I have amassed a decent following, I somewhat feel obliged to provide readers with the best content I possibly can. After all, a lot of them are paying to read my articles. When you look at it this way, it definitely gives you the motivation to write.
Joining Medium has given me an incentive to write, and as a result, writing is beginning to come naturally to me. Each day, I get up and hone in on the craft and bit by bit, I feel myself getting better with every post. I know I’m far from perfect and still have a lot to learn, but Medium got me here in the first place.
This year, I want to stop worrying about achieving perfection and strive for more authenticity. That involved putting myself out there more, which is scary, but worth it.
In terms of writing output, I am still following the quantity leads towards quality strategy, but simultaneously, trying to make sure each of my articles is as good as it can be, without spending all my time slaving away with edits.
6 Month Summary
- Total stories written: 111
- Publications: 23
- Total earned: $1,896.81 / £1,380.28 (before tax.)
- Total reach: 75.06K
- Followers: 1,061
As always, I’ve put this post together for transparency; I’m not claiming I know all there is or that I’m some expert (far from it!) as there’s a lot of writers on Medium who have made what I have earnt so far in a single month.
However, I hope it has given writers a bit of motivation or encouraged people to try the platform — I’d recommend it to anyone. But there’s no secret to success, it doesn’t happen overnight, but is a combination of consistency, producing high-quality work, and being active within the community.
Thank you for reading.
