Don’t Get Too Excited If You See Medium Stats Improve
They may not tell the whole picture
It may look like a ray of hope or a stroke of good luck
The 4,000 plus view day dropped off for the month. The stats for daily views hovered between 751 and 3,398 after that. Then a miracle happened, and the views went up to 16,867 for one day. That is not much for some of the writers on Medium, but it is high for many of us.
Since most of my stories receive very few views and reads, that was quite amazing to see one day with that many views. One particular story was garnering most of those views. It was not curated (chosen for further distribution).
Were these stats something about which to get excited? Not really. The earnings did not match the views. The earnings for the day were $3.28. The earnings for the one story were rather pathetic for the number of views and reads. Unfortunately, the views were overwhelmingly external.
Can and will a good day with thousands of views be repeated the next day and for days after that? It is possible, but it may not be likely. Hopefully, the views will continue with earnings going up. There are no guarantees.
The next day had one fourth as many views. That was more than all the prior month after the 4K+ day dropped off. It could have been worse.
My stories may get mostly double digit or even single digit views. There are some which get over 1K, but the earnings do not correspond. They must mostly be external views and reads since earnings are calculated by read time of other Medium partner program members.
Here is a sampling of some earnings of various stories from the stats provided by Medium.
10 views with 4 reads = $.17
558 views with 352 reads = $9.73
1K views with 638 reads = $.54
1.5K views with 818 reads = $.19
2.4K views with 1.5K reads = $1.75
4.1K views with 2.5K reads = $.07
4.9K views with 1.6K reads = $2.11
5K views with 3.4K reads = $.50
6.8K views with 4K reads = $.67
7.1K views with 4.7K reads = $214.92
7.4K views with 3.4K reads = $.58
9K views with 5.3K reads = $2.67
11.7K views with 5.4K reads = $5.59
19.7K views with 12.4K reads = $3.03
It seemed a bit strange that a story with 10 views and 4 reads received 17 cents when a story with 4.1 views and 2.5 reads earned only 7 cents. There are different factors at play, of course, but it seems confusing.
A lot of people write on Medium about the incredible success they are having. They tell of getting thousands of dollars for a story. They may show screenshots of their earnings which are more than $5,000 or even more than $10,000 a month. They might say they are telling about their success to encourage others who are trying to write on Medium.
There is little rhyme nor reason for what happens with earnings on Medium. Some people do extremely well in a short period of time while others struggle for years with very little success. Life is challenging and hard to understand at times.
It’s easy to get discouraged if you feel that your Medium stats are pathetic. Maybe one good day does not mean much, but it might bring some hope. It could possibly be an indication of better days ahead.
Consistency is fine, but we may need some good luck to find success. Hopefully, it will come.
Thank you for reading and good luck to you!!!