Here Is How Much Medium Paid Me For 3.2K Views
And 7 pointers to help you earn more from your writing analyzing an article with 3,815 minutes of reading time
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu
It has taken me a long time to consider myself a writer.
I am challenging myself to write and publish 60 articles between now and 31st December 2021. That requires me to stop procrastinating and making excuses about writing. It is also an average of an article per day. Overambitious, I know, but absolutely doable (I mumble nervously to myself).
Will you join me on this challenge?
This is article 1.
“You will have to experiment and try things out for yourself and you will not be sure of what you are doing. That’s alright, you are feeling your way into the thing.” — Emily Carr
In total, I have earned a little over $10,000 on Medium.
Some articles surprise me. Sometimes, I pour my heart into an article, lose a few hairs, and even shed a few pounds, and crickets.
Other times, I write an article on the fly, edit it, publish it, all in under 24 hours (yes, I am an ineffective writer so I take a long time), and voila! Views, Reads, Engagement, and Money in the bank! Kaching!
I have been trying to improve myself for as long as I can remember. Many times fall flat on my face. That does not stop me from trying the next time motivation strikes.
I started writing on and off in February 2020, and now I am on my way to half a million views. It is not because I am extra special or something, I think you can do it, anybody can do it.
You just have to keep trying until you find what works for you, and then work on becoming an expert in that subject matter.
So, without further ado, here is the story we are about to analyze:
The 17 Habits Of Truly Wealthy People
First of all, shout out to the amazing Isaiah McCall, chief editor at the Yard Couch publication where the article is housed. He did a phenomenal job of editing and condensing the article. He also reorganized my subheadings in a way that drew the reader in. Thank you, Isaiah! ❤️
It is interesting that the story is about wealthy people. I published this story on 10 April 2021 and on the same day it was distributed under two topics, Money and Self. However, it did not gain much traction until 29th September 2021.
Surprisingly, it has only 620 claps and 3 comments at the time of writing this. I guess that goes to show you claps and engagement do not rank as highly as read time when it comes to payment.
How much exactly has the article earned to date?
Is this the amount you expected for the views? Let me know in the comments section, please.
I have earned $161.02 and counting
When I started writing this article 2 days ago, I had $149.78 in earnings. I guess it is true that later views earn higher than earlier views. I do not know why that is the case but I have seen it as a trend across most of my stories.
Update as of 14 November 2023
As of today, the article has 7,000 views, 2,300 reads, and has earned $227 to date.
Other interesting stats about the article
1. There are more internal than external views
This means that more people discovered the article from within the article than from other sources like Google or Twitter.
2. Most of the external traffic is from search engines and social media
I find it interesting that some of the traffic also came from The Good Men Project website. It is my favorite publication on Medium and most of my articles are published there. Thank you Hello, Love team!
Please note that my friend link views are zero. I learned a long time ago that the time I wasted distributing my link to friends to read was better spent composing a new article. I am on Medium to get paid for my creativity so extra views that do not convert into money waste my time.
3. My readers’ interests were mostly money and business.
I mostly write about love, relationships, mental health, mindfulness, and psychology. I am also a Medium top writer in all five. This shows that Medium distributes your article to people who have an interest in the particular topic you have written about. Learn to tag your stories correctly.
(Let me know if you want me to write a detailed article on better tagging).
The important things to note that will help your articles earn more
1. Your readers’ interests
Tag your stories well so that they will reach people that are interested in that topic. It is an organic way of increasing your reach and potentially, your followers count.
Followers matter because times when the algorithm might not distribute your stories to new eyes, your stories will still appear on the home pages of the people who follow you under the section “Stories from people you follow”.
Tag your stories effectively.
2. Your traffic sources
I think it helps to be aware where your traffic is coming from, especially external traffic.
You can also use this avenue to check and ensure your work has not been plagiarized and passed off as someone else’s. You can do this by going to that reference site, and then making a search either of your name or of the title of the article to ensure that your work is credited to you.
Check your traffic sources.
3. Your curation / distributed category
The category you are distributed in matters because it determines what people will view your articles.
There are 74 tags Medium uses to distribute content.
For my publication, Clear Yo Mind, over time we have kept adjusting the recommended tags that writers should use because when you have enough stories in your publication distributed, you start to observe a trend in the choices of topics of distribution.
Also, I take my team of superstar writers very seriously. I try to ensure that 3 of the tags on any story are in distributable topics.
Utilize the 5 tags of your story well.
4. Your story’s impact
For this story, the impact first peaked right after Medium selected it for distribution in Money and Self in April.
And then the curve flattened but occasionally spiked from external sources.
It picked up again 26 September. When I observed that it was picking up again (by observing my earnings), I used that time to promote it again on Twitter and on Facebook. It peaked 3 days later.
When you observe your article picking up, give it momentum by sharing it more proactively
5. Internal views vs external views
External views are nice, those are the ones you see with a light blue shading.
However, the internal views, where you see the green color, are the ones that correspond with earnings.
It is more strategic to have Medium users discover your articles and adding to your read time.
For comparison, here is the graph from my article that had 60,000 views
Most of the views were external views so did not convert as much as the 1,920 internal views for the story under discussion.
Strategically promote your articles within your existent articles, and in Medium paid members fora to improve your earnings.
6. Earnings and Member reading Time
As I mentioned before, the member reading time corresponds directly with how much a writer is able to earn.
Observe that when the member reading time is high, the earnings are high; and when it is low, the earnings are low.
Focus on maximizing member reading time for your articles.
7. Engagement
Clap all the comments on your article. Two good reasons why you should:
- It is good manners to acknowledge people who take precious time out of their day to comment on your work
- That is the only way those comments will show up under your article.
How do I know? Medium keeps reminding me in their emails.
“You can get it if you really want.” — Jimmy Cliff
Final Thoughts
I believe you can do it. Ev Williams believes you can do it. The universe knows you can do it. What are YOU waiting for?
If you would like me to share what Medium paid me for an article with over 50K views (over 50% of them internal), write “I want to know now” in the comments section.
If I get 10 responses, I will share that story.
Write on Medium for the long run, it pays off. Do not give up! — Elizabeth Kasujja
And now your thoughts…
Is this the amount you had expected? What did you earn from your articles with over 1,000 views?
Were you already paying attention to the metrics I have shared or is this food for thought for you?
Please let me know your thoughts. Thank you.
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