Experimenting With Stats: What I Learned from My April EARNINGS
How much of your earnings are really due to connecting with other writers on Medium?
Many writers on Medium have continually tried to determine where the bulk of their earnings actually come from.
Of course, it’s no secret that in order to earn any money from the stories you write on Medium, you have to have people actually read your stories.
But besides trying to figure out exactly how to get more readers to do exactly that, it’s clear to most of us, that much more is required than simply writing, and hoping and expecting people to notice you exist.
So the question is: How much of your Medium earnings are actually the result of things like reading, interacting and connecting with other writers?
Prolific writers like myself have already come to realize that it’s obviously about much more than writing stories everyday, all day. Just ask productive writers like: Abena Talks, Sherry McGuinn, and others, and you’ll understand what I mean.
Well, to help find a solution to this question, I conducted an experiment over the past month of April.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I think I have a pretty good answer to this question, as it relates to my own situation. The results of my experiment just might surprise you.
It sure surprised me…
Having a lot of content can help you stay afloat
I guess I’m pleasantly surprised by the discovery I made during the month of April. From what I determined, having a lot of content really can help you manage to stay monetarily afloat on this platform.
Allow me to explain what I mean and how I made my determination.
Last month, I wrote the story titled: ”Stats Don’t Lie!” and in it, I told readers that I planned to not only limit how many stories I would write in April, but I’d also limit the number of stories I planned to read.
I knew that limiting the amount of stories I read would be difficult, because I love reading stories from other writers, as I proudly admitted previously in: “WOW: I Read and Listed Nearly 300 Stories in the Past Few Weeks!”
The point of my most recent experiment, was to determine if Medium members would continue to read my stories, regardless of my interactions or lack thereof.
From what I can determine from my April earnings, my low story output and low consumption of Medium stories had a negative impact, but not as significant as I feared it would.
APRIL EARNINGS: $56.80 — versus my MARCH EARNINGS: $79.42
That’s only a difference of $22.62, yet I only published TEN stories in April, versus the TWENTY-FIVE stories I published in March.
Now let’s talk about reading and engagement…
As of my last official tally of the stories I’ve been reading on Medium, according to my final edition of “What I Read this Week” (dated March 6th), I read 35 stories. So I’d guess that I easily read at least 40 stories for the month of March.
However in April, I spent very little time reading and engaging with other writers. I created a simple “What I Read in April” list, to haphazardly keep up. It contains 19 stories — most of them with comments, but not all of them.
What does all of this reveal to me? That even though I stopped publishing new stories, and stopped reading like crazy and trying to support as many writers as I could, I still managed to earn a few bucks.
Thanks to having a vast and diverse amount of content contained in my current catalogue of 707 stories, my time spent on Medium hasn’t been entirely in vain.
Final Thoughts
The results of this past experiment has helped me to decide just how much time I do and don’t want to spend on Medium, and also what I want to do while I’m here.
From now on, my agenda is NO AGENDA. I’ll write whenever I feel like it, read whenever I feel like it, and let the chips fall where they may.
I also plan to write about topics with a lot more substance, although I’m not really trying to find a place in the controversial lane.
I just want to make sure I’m using my words and my voice, spending time talking about things that really matter, as opposed to what might help to tip the earnings scale on Medium in my favor.
One example of such a story is my first story for the month of May, titled:
You can see from the title, this is a story with a little bit of bite to it, so be sure to take a few minutes and check it out.
As always — Thanks for reading.
HEY READERS:
Not a Medium Member yet? Join now with my referral link: https://justissgoode.medium.com/membership and I’ll earn a few bucks when you do. COOL HUH?
That’s right, plus I can HELP YOU START EARNING MONEY TOO! Thousands of writers on Medium got started just like you — with nothing more than a DESIRE to write. You could be writing stories and personal experiences just like this, and getting paid! So what are you waiting for? Join us 😄
