MEDIUM SCHMEDIUM

Have You Been Using Medium’s “Conversion Cash” Widget?

Should You?

A while back, Medium, in its ceaseless quest to make this platform turn some kind of a profit, instigated a little plug-in that a writer could drop into their posts to tempt non-Medium members to join the party.

If a Muggle joins Medium via your plug-in, you get a percentage of the take!

By the way, here’s my portal.

I’m not sure exactly what the overall results of this new development have been but in my case, I added the Panhandling Plug-in to 6 of my posts — and as a result I am now receiving an extra $4.28 a month.

Woot!

While this is a good thing, it hasn’t exactly changed my life.

In contrast, Bev Potter just wrote a lovely humor piece about the fact that the plug-in has turned her into a Conversion Cash Addict, whose every moment is now ruled by her quest to get everyone on planet Earth to become Medium Members via her portal.

Her response to the plug-in is probably closer to what Medium was looking for than mine. And? Hers could be the right response. Turning your life into a relentless quest to convert the world into Paying Medium Members via your portal could prove to be quite profitable.

Speaking of which? Here’s my portal. Again. Just in case you aren’t a Paying Medium Member and you want to be. No pressure.

So here’s the question: I’ve been on the platform for almost three years. I’ve currently got 630 Medium posts. Is it worth the time and trouble to retro-fit all of my existing posts with a Profit-sharing Portal?

Am I likely to make any real money doing this? And should I?

I recently spoke with a very successful Medium writer, one of the few who consistently makes real money here. She told me that she’s chosen not to make even more money by posting the plug-in on her content. I asked her why not. Her response?

“Because it’s tacky.”

I was impressed, and not just because I hadn’t realized that “tacky,” one of my own vocabulary favorites, was a word that Millennials even used.

Here was a Medium writer with not only a knack for writing content that was both successful and profitable — but one with standards and integrity.

Is the Panhandling Portal tacky? Sure. Yes. Absolutely!

Take a look at mine. This is hucksterism, plain and simple.

In a perfect world, we writers would amass our fortunes not from luring others onto a writing platform, but because of the quality of our work.

However, in case you haven’t picked up in this yet, I’m here to tell you that Medium is NOT a perfect world. This platform, while fun and fabulous, is an incredibly imperfect work-in-progress. And if Medium wants to give me an opportunity to make a little extra moolah by luring others onto the platform?

I’m up for giving it a try.

Which means? This week, I won’t write anything new. Instead, I plan to spend the time plunking this Gimme Widget into all of my existing Medium posts. You can use my Widget to join this incredibly interesting platform — which, in case nobody has mentioned it to you, also publishes a ton of really hot smut that you can wallow in to your heart’s content for only pennies a day!

I have nothing to lose but my sense of integrity and purpose as a writer, given that, instead of creating meaningful content, I’ll just be shilling for Medium.

Will these money-grubbing efforts be successful? My goal is to make an extra $100/month in, to use Bev Potter’s terminology, “sweet sweet conversion cash.”

Can I meet this goal? Just by enticing folks like you — if you aren’t already a Paying Medium Member — to join up via this link?

I’ll keep you posted.

Of course, with my luck, after I insert the Profit-sharing Portal on all 630 of my existing posts, Medium will probably scrap the program.

But that’s Medium. In the meantime, I invite you to share your own experience with the Gimme Widget in the Comments Section. Are you using it? Have you shunned it? Have you, like Bev, became addicted to it? And most important, are you making enough money from it to make it worthwhile?

Information is power. Please take a moment to share what you know, so we can all get a better handle on how this place actually works.

(UPDATE: I ended up adding the Panhandling Plug-in to my 50 most popular stories. The result? I didn’t attract a single new Medium Member! So the answer, at least for me, is that the Panhandling Plug-in Doesn’t Pay.)

Writing Coach and editor-for-hire Roz Warren, who writes for everyone from the Funny Times to the New York Times, can help you improve and publish your work. Drop her a line at [email protected]. (That’s Ros with an “s,” not a “z.”)