Half a Year On Medium

Beginnings, regrets, views, and money: Here come the details

My journey on Medium began on February 26th this year. 6 months ago. It’s been a great ride. But surprisingly, I’ll start this story with regret.

What could have been

Although I began my Medium journey in February, I had already heard about it back in 2016. I stumbled upon the site while hunting down possible new blog destinations for me. At that time, I was exclusively using a self-hosted WordPress blog and I was writing in German.

Many of you might not even know that Medium had established a German community a few years ago. German editorial work, German stories, and a respectable audience. Unfortunately, this German community was dismissed a couple of years later.

Despite that German community, back in 2016, I decided against Medium as a future outlet. This might be the biggest regret of my writing journey. Had I started writing on Medium in 2016 — mind you that this was the time when high-profile names like Tom Kuegler joined the platform — and had I written in English, this could have kickstarted a career unimaginable for me at that point in time.

But I didn’t. I was looking at blogging and writing merely as a hobby rather than a possible career path. My career was starting to form elsewhere.

A lucky turn of events

This it was indeed when I finally decided to give Medium a shot 6 months ago. My self-critical mind had held me back from writing in English. Nowhere near a native level and somewhat insecure, I jumped in anyway.

If anything, I’d at least improve my English writing skills, I told myself.

I had researched quite a lot about Medium before my first story. I knew I wanted to get into a respectable publication to reach the biggest audience possible as a newbie.

In a very lucky turn of events, I managed to get 5 of my first 7 stories written in February into 3 of the greatest Medium publications, Better Marketing, The Startup, and Curious. Not just that, The Startup and Curious unexpectedly asked me to publish my stories with them. I was mind-blown. Still am.

To be honest, had I not published with these 3 and gotten tremendous results, I might have quit right there and then. But this series of publications gave me the confidence boost I needed to keep going.

Anniversary milestones

Now, some numbers. I love numbers. In 6 months, I reached the following wonderful milestones:

1. I’ve built a community of 2200 followers. Without playing the follow-for-a-follow game or any other funny business.
2. I’ve published 131 stories to date. Actually a few more, but the rest is unlisted or removed (by me).
3. I’ve found and engaged with a number of amazing writers, many of which I regularly read and communicate with to this day.
4. I’ve been featured in some of the greatest Medium publications — more than once, in most cases — like The Startup, Better Humans, Better Marketing, Curious, P.S. I Love You, The Post-Grad Survival Guide, Geek Culture, Feedium, Writers Blokke, The Shortform, Illumination, Thoughts and Ideas, and more.
5. I became an editor of the publication Thoughts and Ideas with over 22K followers.
6. I was lucky to have multiple semi-viral stories.
7. I’ve reached monthly views of 25K at the highest point so far.
8. I received 4 Medium bonus payments.
9. In 6 topics, I’ve reached Top Writer status.
10. And I made around $2700 in total.

The bottom line

It’s not too late. I could have been here 5 years ago, had I really looked into Medium in 2016. I am here now. I will stay here for as long as I can. These aforementioned milestones mean a lot to me. I’ve been blogging for more than 13 years now, but never have I reached these kinds of achievements. I didn’t treat blogging like a job. Now I do.

It sounds like a cliche — yeah, it really does — but I’ll say it nevertheless: If I can do that, you can do it too. If I as a non-native English speaker can do it, you can do it too.

Let me express my gratitude to all of you who read my stories, leave comments and claps, engage with me on social media, and support me. This is important to me. I’m just as much a reader as I am a writer.

To me, building a community is a crucial aspect of this journey. And it is the most rewarding factor. Because let’s be honest, the pay is not enough to view this as a career, but the support and appreciation are.

So, thank you very much for being here! It truly means the world to me.

Until next time, take care! Burk

P.S.: First of all, you should get my posts in your inbox. Do that here! Secondly, if you like to experience Medium yourself, consider supporting me and thousands of other writers by signing up for a membership. It only costs $5 per month, it supports us, writers, greatly, and you have the chance to make money with your writing as well. When I started, I made $3000 in 6 months. By signing up with this link, you’ll support me directly with a portion of your fee, it won’t cost you more. If you do so, thank you a million times!