Can A Little Old Lady Make Money On Medium?

Depends on how little, how old, and how much money?

I started writing on Medium in 2019 to make money.

Sure, I’ve had literary dreams, like all the literary writers out there.

Getting a short story published in The New Yorker. Having my novel hit the bestseller lists. Finding my work taught in prestigious writing schools.

Trouble is The New Yorker turned down my stories, I never finished a novel when I was still young enough to hawk it to an agent, and, well, prestigious writing schools don’t teach the work of cozy mystery writers who publish on Kindle.

So, when a friend said people were pulling in 5K a month on Medium, I said, medium what?

I got up to speed pretty fast and wrote my first article. After it went viral, well, medium viral, and I hit the magic hundred bucks a month first time out, I was hooked.

It’s three years later and I’ve yet to hit the magic $5k a month. But one thing for sure, I’m a bonafide little old lady. I’ve shrunk about three and a half inches since my towering 5'5" plus in my prime. I’m well into my dotage, and I’ve been making bank every month since the start. Not my high of $2k before I decided to take a break, but at least enough, in the months when I didn’t write a word, to pay for a tank of gas.

So, now that I’ve started from scratch again, what kind of scratch am I making?

Though lots of writers complain about those of us who talk about our dashboards, I believe it’s important to reveal our bottom lines. When we do well, it gives encouragement to new writers, and our hard months add a note of realism to the clickbait artists who tell us making money on Medium is like taking candy from a baby. If only we’ll buy their course or subscribe to their this or that.

So what does my dashboard look like?

Depends on whether you see the dashboard as half-empty or half-full.

First a word about the before times.

Here’s what my monthly reads and views looked like before March 6th when I began publishing again.

As you can see, the days before I returned to writing on Medium, my dashboard was pretty flat. My earnings for February were $6 and change. If I were to back up to the previous months, we’d see similar results.

However, when I began publishing daily again on March 6th, things took off. Several articles received a big boost, and then things leveled off.

I can’t say I’ve had beginner’s luck, as I did with my very first article in 2019, which has earned $104 and counting. I’m not a beginner on Medium anymore, but that first piece I published in March, after months of letting my platform lie fallow, eventually soared into the stratosphere, relatively speaking.

It’s garnered 13.k views, 4.3 reads, and a whopping $26 in the bank. I believe that’s because I posted it on social media. On Medium, we only get paid for member reads, but I was trying to drum up donations for Ukrainian knitters. Earning money from that article was not my goal, so I’m happy with the exposure.

Still, it’s my highest earning article in six weeks. I hit the $100 mark after writing for 30 days, which is the bar that apparently only between 5–8% of writers meet, earning $100 in a month.

Until I stopped writing regularly, I hit that mark my first month and every month thereafter. On April 17th, I had earned $64 and change, so I’m on target to do it again in April if I keep writing.

But that’s the thing. How quickly they forget. The readers, that is.

I was down with a little bug for a few days and lost my writing momentum. I had gone from earning $1 a day to $2 a day to $4+ and then back to $2 a day. I have my writing mojo back again, but unless you’re a big-time Medium writer, missing a few days of your writing routine matters when you’re on an upward trajectory.

I’m not dejected by my slowdown. I haven’t lost my commitment.

The answer to whether a little old lady can make money on Medium is a resounding yes. How much is still to be determined. How much do I want? How much do I need?

Watch this space, and I’ll let you know.

Thank you for reading, but before you go…

I’m writer and freelance editor Medium with Top Writer status. I’ve published 55 titles on Amazon. I edit fiction and non-fiction for private clients. If you’d like to hire me as your editor for fiction, non-fiction, or business writing, please contact me here. If you’d like to read more of my work on Medium, click here to sign up for my newsletter. Thank you for reading, and stay safe.