Before You Rush To Get 100 Followers Consider This

Are They Actually Reading Your Posts?

Just over a month ago, Medium announced its changes to be eligible for their partner program, essentially telling new writers that they won’t be able to make any money on the platform until they have 100 followers. Ever since then the 100 followers rule has been the talk of the town and it seems many new Medium writers are scrambling to get their 100 followers as quickly as possible. There are even new publications dedicated to helping new writers get their first 100 followers. But is all this rushing really worth it?

I came across LaShunta H.’s article Keep Your Pen Moving, in which she talks about the controversy surrounding people asking for followers to get to 100.

In the article she says, “Someone had a post that said: Medium is not a social media site and the 100 followers situation is problematic. The comments then got wild and one comment said “…just don’t suck at writing.”

She goes on to discuss how she felt the comment was rude and not the appropriate way to give feedback on anybody’s writing. I absolutely agree. Though the comment itself was rude, I agree with the idea of letting your writing speak for itself, which is what they could’ve said instead. I get it, we all want to get paid for our writing and we want it to happen as quickly as possible. The thing I want you to consider though is just because you have 100 followers doesn’t actually mean you’re going to make any money. Medium does not pay you to have followers, Medium pays you to have readers. So even if you trade follows with 100 people and reach the monetization goal, are those 100 followers actually reading your work?

I ask this question as a new but monetized writer on Medium. New writers might say I’m lucky. I joined Medium in mid-July before the changes were made, which allows me to maintain my status in the partner program as long as I get 100 followers by the end of the year. I agree this is a good thing, but being eligible for monetization doesn’t actually equate to making money.

My Earnings & Followers

Between July and August, I have self-published eight articles, one of which garnered a fair amount of attention. Within a week of joining, Medium dropped news of its writing contest at a time when Vocal Media (another writing platform I write for) was receiving backlash for issues with its writing contests. I wrote an article comparing both platforms and discussing the issues with both their contests.

This is the article that made me most of the $1.09 I earned in my first two weeks on Medium with a total of 6 followers (according to my audience stats). That same article also accounted for most of the $1.60 I made in the month of August with 33 followers. While it was exciting to actually make some money for what I wrote and I’m grateful for every penny I was able to make, it’s just that — pennies. That may sound ungrateful, but it’s not, it’s realistic. I admit I joined Medium, hoping to have a side hustle that earns me a decent amount of money. After watching Zulie Rane’s videos on YouTube where she regularly talks about her Medium earnings, I know what the income potential is here. Making $2.69 in my first two months with minimal effort definitely feels good and feels like a sign that I’m on the right track. But let’s be honest, $2.69 isn’t going to make or break my pockets. I know that it will take time, effort, and consistency before I get to the three and four-figure mark with my earnings. I understand that and I’m absolutely willing to put in the effort, to work on my craft, and continue improving as a writer while I wait. I know that making big money on Medium isn’t guaranteed, but I prefer to remain optimistic.

Currently, I have 96 lovely followers. When I first sat down to write a quick draft of this article a week ago, I had 70 followers and have since gained 26 new followers within the past seven days. It’s amazing to see my followers go up so quickly and I’m excited at how close I am to reaching 100. I may even get there by the time this article is published. I admit that I’ve traded follows with a bunch of my fellow Vocal Media writers because I’m in a group with them, we’ve bonded, we’ve read each other’s stories and given each other feedback. I consider them my writer friends, so naturally, I want to support and follow them. When someone in the group announces their new Medium account, I’m happy to follow them and they usually follow me back. Yet they don’t account for all 96 of my current followers. Some of them have happened organically. Some of my followers are people that came across one of my articles or stories and decided they wanted to follow me. I know this because they’ve either clapped for something I wrote, left a positive comment, or both. I’ve also gotten follows from random people. I don’t know who they are or why they have decided to follow me. They’ve left no claps or comments behind to indicate they care about my writing. Were they expecting me to follow them back? I have no idea. I appreciate all my followers regardless of where they came from, but I’m also very aware that as my followers go up, my reads aren’t and that’s the real issue for me. I want more of those organic I-really-like-your-writing followers.

Self-publishing Vs. Publications

As I mentioned earlier, most of the money I earned came from one article. My other articles have gone mostly unnoticed even the really good ones that I was hoping would gain more attention. When I first started on Medium, I didn’t really understand how publications worked. The first article I published immediately got the attention of the Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) publication. The creator reached out to me, added me as a writer, and it was as simple as that. My first two articles were published in that publication but that didn’t help increase my reads. I didn’t understand that FIRE was a new/ small publication and so getting tons of reads was not likely compared to a bigger publication. I also didn’t realize that most publications don’t actually reach out to you. I made the mistake of self-publishing my work, thinking if it didn’t do well I could always send it to a publication later. I was wrong! Most publications want unpublished work which means my articles wouldn’t be accepted. Even once I realized that I needed to send my draft to publications to be accepted, I was overwhelmed trying to research which one would be the best fit for what I wrote. I decided to continue self-publishing.

I just recently started experimenting with sending my work to publications and had my first short story published in Writer’s Blokke last week. It’s exciting to be accepted but self-publishing was definitely an easier path. I didn’t have to wait to be accepted or worry about potential rejection.

Some time ago I came across an article by a woman who wrote about how she was making good money on Medium even though most of her articles were self-published. I’m still trying to figure out the potential for both publishing avenues.

Yes, there’s potential to earn really good money on Medium and I’m sure that’s what drew many writers’ attention when deciding to join. But the process can’t be rushed. It takes time to build an organic readership that will actually read the things that you publish, whether it’s in a publication or self-published. So I say keep writing, reading, and improving your craft. It’s easy to gain followers, but what you want are readers.