Writing Success
Honest Stats of a Successful New Writer
In less than a year, I achieved my first 1,000 followers. In one month I acquired 500 more. How did I do it?
The writers’ community Illumination advocates sharing. We train ourselves to dare, share and support. Receiving comes later. And that’s not just about money. It’s also about appreciation, boosting your confidence, and receiving inspiration.
Illumination is just one month old. And in one of my first sharing stories, I received the comment that my new-found friends like my honesty about stats.
So, let me take you a little further on this journey. And share the next phase with you. A few things before we start:
- Why do I call myself a successful writer? I do belong in the 6.9% of Medium writers who earn more than $100 per month.
- My highest payment so far has been $176 over February 2020. It’s not enough to pay my rent. But it does deserve the term success for me. Especially because I enjoy myself so much. The price to get here (time, focus, money) has been so worth it!
“Success should always be valued with regard to the price you paid to get there.”
— I forgot who said it… But it stayed with me…
- Why do I call myself a new writer? I started in May 2019. One year ago. I’m not one of the ‘Golden Oldies’ who write the big success stories because they started early on Medium.
- They claim you cannot make it on Medium if you start now. And in a way they’re right. It will be much harder to stand out if you have to compete with millions of other writers like we have to do now…
On March 22, exactly one month ago, I wrote about clocking my first 1,000 followers. And I wrote this story about it on Better Marketing.
A few of the tips in a nutshell:
- Be active. Read, read, and read more. Clap, comment, and name stories you build upon in your own articles. And if you do, mean it. This isn’t just about you
- Promote your niche subject(s) on other social media, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and have real conversations with your readers. You will develop opportunities in your niche apart from writing about it
- Be curious about new activities. By the way, I still don’t get the hang of Quora. So I’ve taken it off my priority list. Someone triggered a new interest in me: Flipboard. So I might have a look into this unknown territory next…
Well, these tips still stand. Although I want to stress something very important.
Never forget that the main aim is to add value to your readers!
It’s always about quality. Quality of topic content and quality of the writing itself. Quantity is second best but still important. You have to write lots of stories to become better. Know your skill. Learn. Experiment.
Becoming a better writer in every new story you write.
So what happened next?
It’s now April 22 and my fan base has grown to 1,500 followers. That’s 500 new ones in one month's time. To be honest, I hadn’t expected that.
Take a look at my graphs over the past year.
In July 2019, I wrote my first curated story that went flying.
In December 2019 I had written 21 stories and my graph looks like this.
In February 2020, I was living in Indonesia and my writing was flowing beautifully. This is my graph for that time.
My total portfolio is 74 stories now. And for the past month, this has been my graph.
Okay, so what’s noticeable?
- The past months my number of views has not increased
- My number of reads, however, has increased big time in April
- And my number of fans ditto
I think there are two reasons for my success since March 22.
1 Beyond the 1,000 followers, Medium algorithms will find you better, I guess. I received more notifications when I passed the threshold. And noticed more activity for my stories overall.
2 Illumination. The writers’ community founded by Dr Mehmet Yildiz is an active bunch of people who are honestly interested in each other’s stories. They interact with me, they comment on my stories, they clap (sometimes 50 times, which boosts my confidence big time) and they write their own stories upon my writing prompt ‘Stories of Hope’.
And I’m convinced it all starts with my own giving. I’m out there. Being me. All of me. Giving compliments whenever a story touches my heart. Talking to people who’ve become my friends. Noticing things about them in their stories. Sharing ideas. Sharing success.
Sharing the stories of failure as well. Sometimes it doesn’t work out as envisioned. That’s okay. That’s part of life.
So, although I haven’t had any curated stories recently and I have not had one specific story that went flying, my overall score has stabilized. And I like that. It means I can just build organically on the quality of writing I’ve managed so far.
And I can forget about the stats again…
This might well be the last story I’ll ever write about stats. Writing about more important (and fun) stuff is so much more rewarding for me…
One more comment on Medium curation. Many writers long for curation. They’re analyzing and trying and complaining when they are in ‘curation jail’ as they call it.
So far, I have managed 12 curated stories. Not a lot on a portfolio of 74, actually. It’s only 16%.
Some of the curated stories have definitely been part of my success. My first flying story in July 2019 was curated. And it’s still my best seller.
But let me compare two recent stories written directly after each other. One was my biographical story. It has received many comments and claps.
The other is a curated story about Indonesia and systemic solutions for water problems. Although this story has been curated in the topic ‘environment’, it performs poorly.
Please, have a look at the figures.
The earnings for both stories can be seen here.
Conclusion
Curation isn’t something to strive for! It’s nice when it happens, but don’t worry when it doesn’t. Make your own waves with your own tribes and see what happens.
For me, the story about Indonesia’s water is way more important than the one about me. I attracted the attention of changemakers with it. It has been republished on an influential website about water solutions.
Together we’ll be building a new future ‘living with healthy water cycles’. How can a story about me ever be more important?
And after all this rational figure staring, I want to share some things with you that are in my opinion way more important.
Medium is a platform for writers. If you produce quality content, reach the niche of people interested in your art, and perform consistently, you will build your tribe steadily. Don’t rush. Be patient. Quality invites success.
For me, this isn’t only about writing. I want to get messages out there.
My motto.
“Let’s restore ecosystems and learn as human beings to live within the boundaries of our planet.”
So I make it as easy as possible for people who read my stories on Medium to connect with me. I always end with an invite to connect on LinkedIn. And the people who understand me, do reach out.
My tribe on LinkedIn has grown to 2,000 people worldwide. And with them, I have honest conversations as well. I feed them inspiration. Have skype talks with some of them.
And they feed me with all kinds of things. Knowledge. Inspiration. Confidence boosts. Requests to assist them in some projects.
They ask me permission to republish my stories in their magazines or on their websites. They contact me about being in a podcast or a webinar. They are part of my success.
This is what I wish for you as well. In your niche. In your own way. Therefore I can only say:
- Stay true to yourself
- Learn and experiment
- Don’t obsess over stats
- Enjoy yourself tremendously
It’ll show in your writing!
Happy writing, my friends. And if you want to connect you can always find me on LinkedIn or Facebook. Or somewhere with my face in the sun, musing about the state of the world…
