Earning Money on Medium is Easy

Why Does Everyone Say it’s Not?

Many people write on Medium, not only to share their thoughts, but also to make some extra income. That’s why they first try to reach 100 followers, then apply for the Medium Partner Program, and finally start making some money.

However, the disillusionment is brutal when they realize that they only earn 30 cents per article. And they end up stopping writing, because obviously 30 cents, when it took 30 minutes to write, is not profitable.

Me, I earn a certain amount of money with Medium, and I’m going to try to explain how I got there, for those who wonder if it’s really possible to earn money on Medium, and at what price.

Money isn’t the Priority

The first thing to know if you want to make money on Medium is to don’t make it a priority.

Sure, money is important, but if you are looking to make articles to be profitable, not only will you be terribly disappointed, but your articles will be of poor quality because you will try to do as much as possible in as little time as possible while neglecting the quality.

Money is important, but if you make good articles, money will come, trust me. It’s like people focusing on followers. Some people like to do follow-for-follow to quickly achieve a big amount of followers, but it’s just a number and it’s useless to have followers that don’t read your articles.

If you write high-quality articles, money and followers will come.

Regularity

It is important to write regularly on Medium.

First, for natural referencing. Indeed, regularity and natural referencing go together, so your homepage will certainly be better referenced.

Then, I’m not sure, but I guess Medium recommends more people who write regularly. In any case, it seems logical to me.

Also, think about your audience, if they follow you, it is to read your future content. So it would be a shame to disappoint them.

Finally, from a perhaps more mathematical point of view but still logical, the more you write, the more articles you have that generate money. Not only do your old articles still generate money because people can potentially stumble upon them, and even your followers can browse your page and read your old articles, but if you write more articles, there is a greater chance that some of them will break through and bring in a large amount of money.

I can see it myself, my earnings look like an exponential function. I’m currently earning something like 10€ a day. One month ago I was earning 1€ a day. 2 months ago, it was 0€ because I wasn’t even enrolled in the Medium Partner Program. Will it be 100€ a day in one month? I don’t think so, but anyway I can say it’ll be more than 10€ a day, maybe something like 30€ a day. And I only have 360 followers currently!

Obviously, the leverage isn’t infinite. So a more realistic graph would be something like that:

But it’s still impressive!

Strategy

A good strategy can improve your earnings. By strategy, I mean something like “should I write short articles, long articles, series, etc…”

It’s best to do what works for you. If you prefer to do long articles, then do long articles. If you prefer short articles, do short articles.

For me, I don’t give myself a word limit or minimum to do, but rather a common thread that I want to cover in an article. If that thread is too long to explain in one article, then I divide my explanations into several articles.

Then, to allow easy navigation between all the threads I cover, I create index articles, that is, articles that serve only as references to other articles. I also create nested index articles.

For example, I can have a big index where I have all my stuff referenced in 3 topics, then each topic breaks down into different threads, then each thread into different series, etc… I recommend you to check how I do it if you don’t understand.

This way, people can quickly find what they want to read, and even if they don’t know you they can find all the stuff you make and eventually read it if they’re interested.

If you don’t offer them such navigation, few people will go through your entire profile to see every article you have written, so you will have written an article once that will only be read for a while and then forgotten, or at least not discovered by your new followers.

Work/Motivation

Everything above can be summed up in one word: WORK. At the same time, it allows me to answer the question in the article’s subtitle, “Why does everyone think it’s hard to make money on Medium?”.

People think you can make easy money on Medium, but without working. You just open your laptop, type a few words, and you become a billionaire.

But the reality is, if you want to make money on Medium, you have to work and publish stories. It’s as simple as that.

Now, answer my question, would you be willing to work for a job paying 1$ an hour? The answer is obviously “no”, but you absolutely have to go through this to make money on Medium. And even 1$ an hour is generous on Medium. If you take into account all the time I spent writing on Medium, from the beginning to now, it’s like I get paid $2.50 an hour. If we only count from today, it’s like I get paid $10 an hour.

The hardest part is the beginning because you don’t make any views or money. But as soon as you start making views, getting feedback from other people, and earning some money, the motivation comes on its own.

It’s up to you whether you want to be in a vicious or virtuous circle. Either you write a few articles, don’t get any views, and don’t feel like writing anymore because nobody reads. Or you write a few articles, don’t get any views but stay motivated, and a month later start getting returns, views, and money, motivating you even more, so getting more views, returns, money, etc...

Final Note

To sum up, the formula to make money on Medium is:

• Don’t see the money as the priority.
• Publish regularly.
• Have a strategy.
• Work and stay motivated.

And again, I didn’t mention it (because I don’t do it so I don’t know much about it) but some publications may pay to publish your articles, which makes it even easier.

In a nutshell, it’s within everyone’s reach to make money on Medium.

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