Do You Get Paid More Writing about Writing?

When you first come onto Medium, regardless of whether you are here for money or not, you look for the algorithm of success.

The kinds of questions you are going to ask straight away are; What captures peoples attention? What is going to draw my readers in? How will I get curated? Will people even read my work?

One of the ultimate questions you will find yourself asking is; What shall I write about?

If you get that question right, there’s not so much of a need to answer the rest because the chances are you’re getting a lot of views, thus generating good income.

But is there a specific topic which generates views, reads, and all the goodness that follows?

I have only been writing on Medium five weeks but I have taken my time to try and answer these questions by doing my research on top earners. I’ve come across a few so far who have earned big bucks a month.

When I click on their accounts and see what they write about, the vast majority is how-to writing. “How To Do X for Writing”, “X Way to Generate Views”, “Do you Do X a month? The Key to Being A Successful Writer” and so forth. I’m sure you’ve seen similar titles.

There is someone whom I’ve come across who literally only writes about writing. They’ve been on Medium for only two months and they’re in the top 6% of earners on Medium.

These articles have had thousands of claps, double-figure responses, and claim to be their highest earning articles.

So, does this mean you need to write about writing to make it to the top? To make your income goal? To spread your work?

I found out the answer.

The vast majority of my work is from a personal perspective. Last week, I published two articles regarding my first month on Medium and a review of a second writing platform I use, Vocal Media.

These two articles have generated over $6 each so far. Both of which are my highest earning to date. $6 may not sound a lot to some but please bear in mind I have only been here five weeks, I still claim to be a rookie. They’ve had the most views and reads. My stats even went to the highest they had ever been on the dates both were published.

The concept remains. Why do I have to write about writing to get people to click on my work? Potentially, they were just interesting reads and the format was good. There were hardly any spelling or punctuation errors.

But I find a lot of my work to be interesting (to me anyway). Are people just nosey? I put it down to other writers looking to change their personal algorithm regularly. A lot of people are still wanting to be better at their writing and just want to find that one key that unlocks all.

It could have been luck. Maybe, a lot of people had clicked on my profile at the time I had published and decided to give my articles a quick read.

But do you really make the most money from writing about writing?

As well as finding successful writers who mainly write about writing, I have found many successful writers who write about a bundle of topics. Some are not confined to one niche and have been here for a while. Some only have one niche and have been here for a small amount of time. It all varies.

The chances are that they have at some point spoken about how they did X in this month and how they earned X that month, but it looks like it is just to help others out. The point is, they aren’t just talking about writing.

There are also the “obvious” factors that many know about when it comes to generating a good income from writing:

1. Make sure your readers have something to take away.
2. The longer your writing the more you will make.
3. Social media helps you a great deal.
4. If you manage to have your work accepted by a big publisher, that will do you a lot of good.
5. Passion and love is key.

To sum it all up, the answer is no. You do not have to write about writing to make more money.

A good piece of work is a good piece of work. If you are passionate about writing, you will write whatever you want to write about, regardless of what others’ think, and whether it will go viral.

You will create your own algorithm for what works for you and continuously adapt this to optimise your work. There will be some articles that hit the fan, and some that flop on the floor and get swept under the rug. That’s how it works for everyone.

There is no magic to Medium. Many get lucky on here and to be honest, some of the articles that are acclaimed to have earned thousands, are boring.

Just keep doing you and you’ll be fine.