How I Became A Top Writer And Earned My First $250 On Medium

The story mapping the first two months of my Medium journey

It took precisely two months of my Medium membership, that is — May and June and 24 written articles to earn my first $250 — to be more accurate $283 by the end of the month.

And I didn’t reach this figure by being published in big pubs, neither by publishing daily nor by writing a lot.

It happened because of me writing consistently, focusing on the quality of writing that enabled me to get curation distribution and, of course, there was a bit of luck as well.

How did I start the Medium journey

I am mapping the start of my writing journey two weeks after joining Medium over here. To briefly summarize it, I started by doing these 5 things. (And I still continue doing them.)

1. Writing less quantity and more quality content — not daily, but when it feels right — which sometimes might be every second or fourth day

2. Not rushing to write too much or publish too soon —most importantly it’s when the content feels valuable and my message is complete

3. Investing in finding a ‘right home’ for my pieces — a suitable publication rather than publishing amounts of content in a place that won’t acknowledge me, I invest to look for a good place the same way I invest in writing

4. Reading as much as I write to keep learning and growing as a writer

5. Following who I actually like, admire and have something to learn from — rather than doing this favour here and there for people who are only looking to grow their audience fast.

I don’t aspire for this rapid growth and somewhat fake audience. The shortcuts can be deadly. I am looking for a sustainable one. A sustainable growth and audience.

The one where people who follow me have an actual interest in what I have to say through my writing, just as I do with my followers.

Where did I get by doing that?

Within a month something of my writing experience like this, I got 5 of my articles curated — Medium editors started publically distributing them to audiences larger than I could reach by my still very humble following. A month post joining Medium, I was followed by 80 to 100 people. And I also got published by one of the big pubs with a big following— The Ascent.

And then, month and two weeks to my consistent contribution on Medium, some other results started showing up too.

Mainly, when it comes to my visibility, I was able to increase it 10x from the previous May — gaining over 2130 views in the mid of June as compared to 213 in May. My reading grew from 116 reads to 1365 within a month and my following also started to increase.

Curation surely contributed to increasing my visibility — as 6 of my articles were Medium distributed by then, however, my visibility at that time didn’t come solely from curation.

Only 3 out of 6 curated articles managed to get an exposure of over 150 views and 100 reads, the remaining didn’t even make it to 30 full reads each.

Yet, this was a big sign that my content:

a.) found a reader — there’s an interest in my stories and my developing voice,

b.) has a quality that’s expected and appreciated by Medium editors.

And I do love both my fans and critics and guess who I’ve learned more from so far?

In the article above I am sharing more of my experience over Medium, writing advice (like the quote above and below), plus a thorough description of what I do follow when I write. Such as that;

I write every time that there’s an inspiration.

Feel free to review and get in touch if you’d like to discuss anything.

Now, what fascinating happened after?

In the previously shared article I stated this:

It’s good to aim for perfection but stay somewhat realistic — don’t expect amounts of magic work from the curation. They have a lot of (other) great writers to promote.

Well, two weeks down the line I’d have to correct this because it was curation precisely that made my next batch of articles skyrocket my visibility, readership, following and earnings!

And it’s been truly surprising how it happened.

I self-published. An article that no one else such as P.S. I Love You or The Ascent accepted. I didn’t want to compromise by keeping it in a publication where it either doesn’t fit in or won’t get noticed so I’ve gone my own way. (Thining that if the article is good enough, it might still be picked — either by curators or Human Parts, you never know, right?)

And risking this way truly paid off.

The article got Medium curated (in Relationships), reached over 2000 readers and earned over $120 in less than a week since getting published. Here it is.

By now, it crossed 4000 views and $225 in earnings and my visibility exceeded 6550 views and over 2340 full reads.

Within a few days of publishing this piece, and two others on self-improvement and inspiration, I received 2 emails, one after another stating that I became a Top Writer within Inspiration and Mental Health topics, stating the articles that helped me to reach that milestone.

The experience of making it by self-publishing opened up my mind to other ways in which Medium can work for different writers/ bloggers.

As I always like to say, there’s not a single route to success. No shortcuts and one-fits-all solutions. You need to give it your own experience and experimenting, plus the time it takes to reach your own success.

This journey is always unique for each and every one of us. It can hardly be copied and followed the same way as a process guide. What works for me may not suit you and work for you. There are indeed no shortcuts and guarantees.

So instead of writing this to suggest that you follow my example (which would be a cheap advice), I am writing this to open your mind to the many possibilities there are — maybe even those you’ve not considered yet. If you, like me, wish to continue to grow as a content creator — writer, blogger or a journalist. I want you to get inspired to envision your own success!

I got triggered by my experience and inspired to create my own publication — Journey To Self — dedicated to the specific kind of content that I write about. Such as self-exploration and self-discovery, personal development and transformation, self-improvemet, growth, health, success, mindfulness and spirituality.

The article above is now part of this publication. And the pub is slowly growing, has two other writers already and a set of followers. Within less than two weeks since its existence.

Everything is possible — if we set ourselves to believe it and then work for it. But it all starts in our minds open to such possibilities.

Further learnings from my two months on Medium

Or, the paradox of some mainstream information and writing advice.

1. The ultimate irony of the Medium stats

If you look into my profile, you won’t see a massive following, either trillion of claps for my stories. And guess what? The reads and reading times are huge anyway!

My most-read story 10 Things To Avoid If You Aspire For A Healthy And Long-Lasting Partnership has 399 claps and over 127 hours of reading time. Equivalent to a half a month, 8 hours a day reading. My second most-read, ‘Covid-19’ Changed My Life — For The Better, published in the Ascent has 12 hours full reading time and ‘only’ 158 claps.

To summarize, both have the least claps (compared to the rest of my articles) but the highest reading time and so they earned me the most!

Therefore, these stats such as the claps don’t matter that much for me. It’s obviously a great feeling to receive 50 claps per person per story, but some people — especially the non-content-creatives, but content-seekers — the readers don’t use 50 claps, they don’t even know they can clap up to 50 times per story. So they clap once! And there’s nothing wrong about it. And then there’s the non-clappers, people who read voraciously but either don’t like what they read or simply don’t want to show support for their own reasons.

And now the paradox — my most clapped ones barely have good reading time and hardly have earned anything. Ironic, right?

I guess it also links with fellow writers supporting me by many claps while just shortly scanning through my articles rather than giving them a full read.

2. Big pubs don’t always give you big exposure

I was doing my best to get into big publications since the beginning, of course to the relevant ones for my kind of content. And I succeeded to be a writer for a few. However, I was only published in The Ascent so far.

And you know what?

The exposure wasn’t astronomical, probably because that content wasn’t that much of an interest to the general readership. Or also, that the distribution didn’t go so far.

At the same time, despite not being published in big pubs, some articles picked up, found interested readers and did well anyway. Not only the one that I actually self-published but some more such as this one.

Which takes me to the 3rd and final point.

3. The content, quality and ‘curation’ are important

Two of these are within your full control and influence — writing interesting content with high-quality standards, but you can’t secure yourself a curation.

Therefore, there’s no way to aim for it other than to write a quality content that you’re interested in and passionate about, you know well and have an opinion about, that what inspires you, what you learned from and grew (personally, professionally, mentally, emotionally, spiritually), even that what concerns, upsets or worries you. All those represent your unique view.

And it is your uniqueness — your unique voice, honesty, openness and authenticity that will never fail you.

The emotion of your story brings the best out of it. It did for me. Multiple times, so did the fact that it was my personal touch, a personal experience shared. Rather than factual and more scientific content. And that’s just the way I write. My way.

You may well have your content to which you’d have to find and adapt your own way of writing expression.

So, this has been a bit of my journey and I hope that yours will be equally unique, exciting and satisfactory. Most of all it should feed your soul.

So good luck to you, fellow content creator! And don’t hesitate to reach out for some brainstorming or help.

Lucy

Here’s what I do when I am not writing about writing. Feel free to connect with me for a personal conversation over here through comments or at [email protected]

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