Five Ways to Make $500 on Medium this Week (Without a Big Following)
…while everyone else is looking the opposite direction
While most writers chase on-Medium traffic, you now hold a secret weapon. Instead of worrying about curation, getting your story accepted by one of the ‘big guys,’ or working tirelessly for pennies per story.
I get it.
I’ve been there.
Some of my stories still fall flat — happens all the time.
But if you need some quick cash, you can leverage your Medium tribe without needing a huge audience.
Yes, you’ll need to collect their email addresses (we’ll get to that part at the end of this story).
But if you build a dedicated tribe of your Medium followers, using a platform you control (not Medium), you can earn some quick cash when you need it.
The money we earn from direct reads is nice, but for most writers it’s not game-changing. What if you need to pay some bills this week?
You can use your Medium stories to build an email list. If you’ve got a list you can leverage them today. You don’t need a big sales letter. You don’t need a giant promotion or a launch strategy.
This isn’t a long-term solution.
It’s a once-in-awhile life vest you can use when the wallet is empty.
Five ways to make $500 on Medium this week
This is a fast-cash strategy. If you use it all the time, not only will you burn yourself out with discounted work, but you’ll also make your tribe angry.
No one wants to be pitched all the time.
But if you’re honest with your audience — tell them the reason you need the money and what you’re willing to do for it — you’ll be surprised how well this works with minimal promotion on your end.
1. Offer your services to your tribe for a deep-discount —
Have people compete for one of five slots, of $100 each. Normally, say, you’d offer one hour of consulting for $500. Set up a simple Paypal account, email your tribe, and send a follow-up later in the day, saying only a couple slots are left (unless that’s not the truth).
We want things others can’t have. If you show us the slots are disappearing fast, you’ll increase the interest for the final slots.
2. Solve a single, direct problem for your tribe —
Tell them the truth. Say you need some extra money by the end of the week to pay an unexpected bill. Email your tribe and tell them you’ll set up their entire social media profile, you’ll format their manuscript, or some other highly-valuable, single task you know you can accomplish. Maybe you can edit an entire novel for $500. Done. All you need is a single client.
Perhaps you’re willing to set up author’s Twitter profiles for $50 each. All you need is 10 takers who don’t want to do it themselves. Think like Fiverr, but more than five bucks.
3. Sell your own course at a deep-discount, in a very limited time-window —
Let’s say you have a course that retails for $997. Sell five copies for $100. Sell ten copies for $50. Close the door on the offer once it’s done. Give your audience a tight deadline. Without a deadline this process won’t work.
4. Sell autographed copies of your book —
Set a hard-limit on autographed copies of your latest book. Say, $25 each. Tell your readers you’ll personalize it with any message they want. Once the 20 copies are gone, the offer is over. No more autographs.
You don’t need a list of 6,000 people to accomplish this. If you have an email list of fans they’ll want your latest book. For a couple extra bucks they can have a personalized copy. Hell, they might even read it!
…OK, August, but I don’t have a book or a course yet. How can I use this strategy now, before I have the time to write a full book?
This is why we have option number five…
5. Sell a product before it exists —
Tell your audience you’re building a new course. Show them the transformation they’ll get once they complete it. Tell them the course doesn’t exist yet, but it will soon.
Since they’ll be the first beta-testers, offer them an 80% discount off the launch price.
Tell these early adopters they’ll get updates for life, even after all the bugs are fixed. Not only will these folks help you make your course better, they’ll be grateful for the opportunity to join at such a great deal.
Yes, you need to make the course. No, this not fraud.
If you’re open an honest with people, you can send a couple emails and have your $500 (or more) by Friday. Entrepreneurs pre-launch products all the time.
There’s no reason you can’t do it too.
Build your tribe before you need a tribe (so you’ll have a tribe when you do)
Every commercial writer should have an email list. Email is the best way to own your destiny as a writer. You’re 100% in control of your email. No one can take it from you.
Medium can take away your income tonight if it wants. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.
With email, it’s as if you build yourself an insurance policy — a policy you can also leverage when you need some quick cash. It’s like a money faucet.
If you provide a ridiculous amount of value for your readers, you can call on them occasionally with deep-discounts. They will respond in-kind. I mean, who doesn’t like a great deal in their in-box?
But you need the email list first. Even a small one will do.
…and I’ve got just the ticket.
I developed a 7-day email masterclass just for you. Past students include New York Times bestselling authors. I’ll show you how to get your first 1,000 subscribers (or your next 1,000), without paying a cold penny for ads.
Oh… I forgot… Enrollment is FREE.
Guarantee your seat before I change my mind.
We’re waiting for you.
Enroll in my Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers
August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indies how to make work that sells and how to sell more of that work once it’s created. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing, August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.
