Boost Your Medium Income with These Two Story Types
Earn more this week
My first month on Medium was rough. I figured, since the platform was a free-for-all, I could write anything I wanted and there must be someone out there willing to read it.
I was half right.
Yes there is usually some-one out there willing to read anything you right — one person.
But if you want a lot of someones, you’ve got to start writing for your readers. This might feel less-creative, but if you want to earn a better income from your Medium stories you’ve got to write content people actually want to read.
Medium is chock-full of terrible content.
- Train-of-thought posts
- Negative, angry posts
- Nonsense stories that go nowhere
- Copycat stories that are lesser versions of the original
- Unoriginal, obvious content
…but the good stuff rises to the top.
Like oil and water, junk stories don’t mix with the good ones. All the junk sinks to the bottom, with few reads and little promotion.
The good stuff rises and stays a long time.
I’ve got two-year-old stories that still earn $5-$10 dollars a day. These keep on living, because they’re spread all over the internet. So, Medium keeps recommending them to readers and the cycle continues.
I don’t worry about gatekeepers, or being chosen by the big publications.
Instead, I focus most of my writing time on two kinds of stories:
- Stories that further anchor my position as a leader in my niche
- Stories that readers have liked in the past
The best part is, the content is different for every niche.
A story that works for me might be a total snooze-fest to your audience. This is great news. It means you can be a successful Medium writer in almost any niche. While Medium is heavily-weighted towards a nonfiction audience, it’s possible for any good writer to build a niche here.
The two story types
These two story types have earned me more income from Medium than any other. I’ve experimented with my subjects, but these two story types provide with a steady monthly writing income:
1. Stories that anchor my position as a niche-leader —
If you want to be a commercial writer, and you’d like your writing to work harder than a couple pennies per read, you need to serve a single niche.
Not only will this cement you as a leader in your niche, it also helps you build your single-tribe email list.
Choose a niche to serve.
Publish one story every day that helps cement your position as a niche-leader. We’ve got many choices on Medium. Why should we choose you? If you write a little here and little there, we don’t know what you stand for. When you plant a flag in one niche, we see you as the leader.
When we see you as the leader we’ll return tomorrow. And the day after. To keep reading your new content.
If you publish daily you’ll tickle the algorithm and Medium will encourage new niche-readers to see your content.
2. Stories that readers enjoyed in the past —
You have a certain style. You have certain titles that resonate. Other titles don’t. Your stats page is you best friend on Medium.
Scroll through the stories that worked… and the ones that didn’t.
- What tags did you use?
- What word combinations worked in the title?
- What format was more-successful?
- Which topics did readers flock-to?
- Which topics did readers ignore?
- How clear are the winning titles?
- Were the losing titles muddy?
- Was there a sweet-spot with story length?
The more data we gleam from our readership, the more stories we can write to serve them.
Keep writing more of the stories that work, and fewer of the ones that don’t. Your data won’t lie. Studying someone else’s stories will only take you so far. You have a particular audience. Your readership will help you uncover your next story.
You’ll give that story a better chance at success if you write more of what people already love. Reads are what matter. Nothing else.
We don’t let them leave us
If you earn a new reader, you don’t want to lose her. You want your reader to join your email list. This is your tribe — your best readers. With email you can contact your entire audience directly, with no middle-man.
When you only build your following on Medium, they own your list. You can’t take them with you. You could lose all your readers (and your money) overnight.
…not so with email.
Email allows you to sell you best work, automatically, while you sleep, using an automated welcome sequence. With email you own your traffic. When you own your traffic you own your writing business.
Your email will actually do the hard-selling for you, so you’ve got more time to practice your best work.
I’ve got something. Just for you…
When you build a tribe around your best work, even if you’re starting-out, you’ve got an instant audience when you’re ready to fly.
I built a free email masterclass for you. I hand-crafted the whole thing. It took me a couple months. I call the masterclass the Tribe 1K.
I’ll show you how to get your first 1,000 (or your next 1,000) readers without spending a hot nickel on ads. Past students include New York Times bestselling authors. Yep, the ones you see in the bookstore.
Your email list will help you build a legacy creative business.
If you want to grow your creative business you need email before you lose that valuable reader. Start your list before you need one. Once you need a list it’s almost too late.
Guarantee your seat before I charge an enrollment fee.
We’re waiting for you.
Enroll in my Free Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers
August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed email marketing expert for writers and creators, August helps indies make more work that sells and sell more work they make. The core of August’s process is your email list. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing, August hangs-out with his beautiful wife and handsome son, carries a pocket knife, and shaves his head with a safety razor.
