Do You Have What It Takes To Be a Winner in the Medium Partner Program?
How to take a step forward.
Medium offers writers the opportunity to earn money for their work by enrolling in the Medium Partner Program. There’s a fine line between love and hate when it comes to the Partner Program.
If hundreds of dollars pour into your Stripe account for your writing, you probably love the Partner Program. If pennies trickle into your Stripe account, you probably hate it.
I like to think of the Partner Program as a slot machine where every story you publish on Medium is a pull of the lever.
Will you hit the jackpot or get virtually nothing and feel like a big loser? Or will you get just enough of an incentive to keep you pulling the lever again and again, convinced that someday you will hit the jackpot?
Medium has a minority of writers that I call “High Rollers.” These are the writers that earn the equivalent of a full-time job from their writing on Medium. For this article’s purpose, I’m going to define these High Rollers as the writers who earn at least $25,000 a year from the Medium Partner Program.
Around ninety-five percent of Partner Program writers don’t even earn $100 each month for their writing.
Some of that majority publish on Medium only occasionally; it’s a hobby for them.
Other writers post regularly and are trying to be one of the High Rollers but haven’t succeeded yet.
You don’t become a High Roller by merely publishing a few times on Medium.
In most cases, it takes years of consistent work and hundreds of posts to get to where these High Rollers are today. They earned it. They paid their dues.
As I have said in my previous articles that address the Partner Program, the main objective of Medium isn’t for writers to make money. Any money you make as a writer on Medium is a bonus derived from good fortune, good writing, and many readers.
Anyone who puts all of their eggs in the Medium basket is living dangerously. Planning to make money with the Partner Program is not sound financial planning nor a viable career choice.
Sure, you could strike it rich with the Partner Program, but don’t count on it.
Medium exists to serve readers, not writers. Enjoy any money that you make from writing on Medium while it lasts.
I’m approaching nine weeks writing in the Partner Program, and I’m starting to think that I could exercise the necessary discipline to make some decent money from my writing on Medium someday.
I’m not saying that I will ever be a High Roller, but I think anyone willing to do what it takes can do better than they currently are in the Partner Program.
There’s always room for improvement.
But I know it won’t be easy. The planets will need to align, I will need a lucky horseshoe, a dozen four-leaf clovers, and I will need to capture a leprechaun riding a unicorn through an enchanted forest.
To move forward from where you are right now, it helps to examine what you are currently doing and compare it to what the High Rollers do.
Many Partner Program members believe that if you write a lot of stories, the money will roll in. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.
It’s not as simple as writing and publishing high volume. That’s the first part of it, but there’s more to it.
These High Rollers know the secret ingredients in the secret recipe to the secret sauce. They know the right mix that it takes to make money on Medium. Anyone interested in upping their game can learn a lot from the High Rollers.
High Rollers understand that readers demand quality. They won’t waste their time reading poorly written articles. They don’t have time to put up with a writer’s laziness.
Aside from correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation, be coherent. Don’t make the reader wonder if they are in the Twilight Zone because they have no idea what you are talking about.
High Rollers also understand that they need to give the readers what they want, not necessarily what the writer is interested in.
The stories must be of interest to the readers and provide them with value. It doesn’t matter what you feel like writing about. No one cares. Sorry, but it’s true.
No one cares what I feel like writing about either.
If you have something you need to get off your chest and it doesn’t provide the reader with value, write in your journal. That’s what journals are for.
The other reason that this should be important to the writer is because reading time is a factor in making money in the Partner Program.
Readers don’t read what they don’t like. No readers, no reading time, no money. Simple.
I was never good at math, but if numbers have dollar signs in front of them, my mathematical ability suddenly improves. I understand money.
By pleasing the reader, the monetary reward follows. If you don’t put the reader first, your bank account will come in last.
The High Rollers also have followings.
If you build it, maybe no one will come. If I write it, perhaps no one will read.
But when the High Rollers write, the readers flock to them. They have loyal readers who will come to them time and time again, even if they occasionally write a less than stellar story.
The way they got that loyal following was by cultivating it. They showed up over and over and earned the reader’s trust.
They repeatedly provided them with quality, value, entertainment, and ideally, something different than they could get anywhere else. It’s art and science combined.
I can always use more money. Hopefully, the Partner Program will be a way to earn some.
Remember, the house always wins, but sometimes you get to take home a little something.
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Linda Kowalchek is a work in progress and a member of the typewriter generation. She spends her time with her husband and her rescue cats waiting for golf balls to crash through their windows. PSA: Don’t live next to a golf course.
