MEDIUM

Are You New On Medium? Do These 12 Things First!

If you are serious about your writing journey, here are the most important things you should do RIGHT NOW.

Congratulations! You’ve taken the leap and decided to write for Medium! Here’s what you should do. The most important items are listed first.

Customize Your Profile

When you first set up your account, you need to fill in all the sections on your profile. This includes a bio, photo, and enabling private notes and all communications from Medium.

Enable Tipping

If you want to give your readers the option to tip you, open an account with Kofi, Patreon, or Paypal. I went with Kofi.

Ensure Your Stripe Account is Set Up Correctly

To participate in the Medium Partner Program and receive money, you need to set up a Stripe account. It’s relatively straight forward to do this and shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

Create a Dedicated Email Address

To receive communications from Medium, it’s important to set up an email account. I chose to create a new one with gmail that reflects my association with Medium.

Create Lists to Organize Your Stories

Organize your stories by creating Lists. You can sort them by niche, publications, or any other category. When you only have a few stories, it’s easier to assign them to lists. If you create lists when you have hundreds of stories, it will take a long time to sort them.

Build A Bank of Stories As Soon As Possible

Post stories as soon as you can. To attract more followers and readers, it’s crucial to build up a good selection of stories for them to browse. If you only have one or two stories, there isn’t much for your readers to go through.

Write an About Me story

It’s a good idea to join the “About Me” publication. You can write a story to introduce yourself and start to get acquainted with writers.

Create A Brand Including A Banner and A Logo

This isn’t a required step, but it can greatly support your Medium journey. If you eventually want to branch out as a freelancer, creating a brand and a logo is a good idea. When people see your logo, it gives them a sense of familiarity and community.

Narrow Your Niche

When you start out, it’s alright if you haven’t decided on a niche. That’s how I started. However, as your writing portfolio grows, it’s a good idea to focus on 2 or 3 topics.

Join Publications In Your Niche

If you already have a chosen niche, find some publications to join. You can submit stories there and connect with like-minded readers. It’s important here to enable private notes, so editors communicate with you. If your story is rejected, they will leave a message to let you know the reason.

If you don’t want to join publications, you can also self-publish your stories. Publishing with a publication will allow more exposure to your stories when you are first starting out.

Build Your Community By Engaging

You can search for tags related to your niche and start reading and engaging with others.

Use Other Social Media Platforms to Build Your Brand

Create an account on Facebook, Substack, Gumroad, Pinterest, or Twitter.

You can directly connect your Facebook or Twitter account to Medium. These platforms allow you to promote your content, create a community, and share valuable resources with your followers.

When I first started on Medium in January 2022, I had so many questions.

There were so many options. There was no one to teach me or guide me. In the past 9 months, I’ve slowly built my profile and presence on Medium. There were certainly trial and error moments. I’m still learning something new all the time. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to go about it.

But if you’re a new writer on Medium, I’d highly recommend going with these 12 steps to establish yourself on the platform.

Happy writing and good luck!

If you need more help, here are a couple more stories that would be useful for new writers on Medium. Feel free to explore!

📕 Join Medium to read all of Linda’s stories (I get a commission!)

💻 Contribute to Linda’s Macbook fund on Kofi (so I can write more!)

🐤 Connect with Linda on Twitter (tweet! tweet!)

👱🏻‍♀️ Learn 10 things about Linda