How I Made $116 & Got 5 Top Writer Statuses During my 1st Month on the Medium Partner Program

Are there ways to cheat the system? Are we measuring things wrong?

To begin with, here are my earnings for the month of December:

This was my first month of writing on Medium as part of the Partner Program. I had been writing on Medium for 2 months before that and decided to paywall my articles a few days before December.

It was also during 1 month — December — that Medium gave me 5 Top Writer Statuses in Satire, Short Story, Social Media, Education & Humor.

I have seen a lot of articles that are similar to this, so I have two disclaimers to make.

1. I will not be going into the obvious things which have been discussed ad nauseam, such as having followers, commenting on other people’s stuff, posting in big publications, etc. There will be some inevitable overlap but I will attempt to minimize it.
2. I have been asked specifically if there are ways to cheat the system. No, there aren’t. I understand if you want to click on another article now. You have every right to. However, there are some ways to work with the system Medium currently has in place for paying its writers.

Enjoy.

Niche Publications= $

One of the questions you may want to ask yourself if you are writing for publications is how hard they are to find. Here’s why:

For huge publications, every writer can automatically read everything that is published on those publications, regardless of whether they are a paying member or not. Secondly, anyone that wants to can simply read anything they want on Medium anyway by simply opening that same article in Incognito Mode, according to Casey Botticello. And those people usually read the big publications. I like the content on Medium, so I pay for it anyway, but beating the Medium paywall is sort of like breaking through a thin sheet of paper — extremely easy.

In fact, there are literally dozens of ways you can read everything on Medium for free, not that you need all of them. Incognito Mode does the trick. I’m not saying it’s moral, ethical, or legal. I’m just saying it’s incredibly easy.

Writers for BIG publications can read all of the publication’s articles for free regardless if they are paywalled according to Medium’s terms and conditions.

People from the outside can read anything as long as it is on Incognito Mode. You can do this with as many articles as you want.

Disclaimer: It’s not wise to look for and chase solely members’ reading time. You should write because you love to write.

However, this is how I made $116 during the 1st month I wrote for the Medium Partner Program.

Everybody knows about the big publications. Aside from there being a lot of competition as some publications publish almost 100 articles per day, there will be a lot of non-member reads.

So if you want that same article to earn you a buck so you can buy yourself a cup of coffee, ask yourself, how DIFFICULT is this publication to find?

There are a lot of publications on Medium. Some of them take a long time to discover as you metaphorically venture through the jungle that is the Medium platform. For instance, it would have never occurred to me that people come to Medium to read about True Crime until The Maverick Files pointed it out to me. My true crime articles currently average around $10 apiece. I’m not an amazing crime writer. It’s just that the readers there have been on Medium for a while in order to find that publication — True Crime is a relatively small niche. Usually, people that have been around on Medium for a while are members.

This means that you get a lot of member reading time. In big publications, you will get a lot of non-member reading time. Members find the niches and explore the platform more than non-members. Hence, you can find them in those niches. The Crime publications I publish in also leave the articles up where people can see them for over a week. In big publications, getting just a few hours near the top of the publication homepage is a big deal.

You can find any crime publications by simply typing ‘crime’ into the Medium search box.

Reminder: big is not always better vis a vis reading time. Explore the niches.

Critique

Avoid asking people to comment on your articles on Medium. However, if they do leave a comment of their own volition, you can always reply to it asking what they disliked or what you could have done better. Usually, people just clap for the comments they receive on articles and say thank you. Why not say, “Thank you. How can I improve?”

Here’s an example:

This was a comment I received on a popular piece of mine, What to Do When an Editor Rewrites Your Whole Article and Publishes It In Your Name.

In the article, I wrote humorously that if an editor changes everything about my article, I wish them funny misfortunes (I don’t really) such as: replying with “You too,” when a receptionist at a hotel tells them to enjoy their stay, or that they may fart at inconvenient meetings and people know it was them.

Here was my reply to the comment by Jupiter Grant.

I don’t think that’s a particularly awful and immoral way to ask for feedback, do you? I got a reply:

I then went and wrote down in my Evernote app, “articles need more ‘adding insult to injury’ type gags.” Don’t ask everyone for feedback but it may help you on your writing quest if you do it sometimes…

This was for the article, What to Do When an Editor Rewrites Your Whole Article and Publishes It In Your Name. For another article, Santa’s Elves Have COVID, I also got a comment from The Maverick Files. I’ve been learning a lot from him in general and am really grateful for him helping me along since I started out as a writer.

Whereas this is just a generally nice comment he wrote, it went straight into my Evernote app as an instruction to “write more satire/fiction.” 2 weeks of satire-writing later I got a Top Writer status in Satire and then in Humor the next day.

I have also been communicating with people on ILLUMINATION’S Slack app — which is a helpful tool — and they have been giving me feedback on which of my articles made them laugh and which didn’t. I wrote it down.

“Add more ‘adding insult to injury” type gags.” No. Really, though. Listen to the feedback of the people who read your articles and absorb it like a sponge. I wrote quite a few self-help, productivity, and writing tips pieces. I don’t have any Top Writer statuses in those genres. The Maverick Files told me I should focus on my humor and I did. I’d been writing helpful articles for months to no avail. Apparently, sarcasm is the true gift God gave me.

Reminder: play to your strengths. Nobody has ALL the Top Writer statuses. What you enjoy writing will often be what you’re best at, so give it more of your time than other genres.

Use your critiques as a tool to help you become a Top Writer.

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” — Henry Ford

Publication Layout

I spoke earlier about the fact that niche publications tend to have more ‘hardcore’ readers. Examples other than True Crime are Sex and History (not, Sex & History). What I didn’t mention was the publication layout.

Yes, the layout of a publication is directly responsible for my $116. With all of that money, I can buy almost 38 cups of coffee. Muahahahahahaha.

So, how does the layout of a publication turn you into someone that can also afford to buy 38 cups of coffee? If the publication you are submitting to has a ton of featured articles at the top and it takes an hour to scroll down to the latest articles, that means that most of the member reading time remains at the top, where the publication’s owners can post all their own stuff. It then becomes difficult and very unlikely that viewers will scroll down for 5 minutes to find your article.

This is entirely within the publication’s rights to do. After all, they built the platform for which you are publishing which is no easy feat. From a financial standpoint, you will not have anybody reading your stuff.

The best kind of publications to publish for are ones that feature ‘Latest Stories’ at the top of the page.

The best kind of publications to publish for are ones that feature ‘Latest Stories’ at the top of the page.

Because this way, your articles will be read. So you would want to look for niche publications that have a few thousand followers and post their latest stories at the top for optimal reading time, in my experience.

Guys, I need to remind you again that if you don’t enjoy writing, nothing else matters. You know? None of these tips work if you are just into writing for the money. These pieces of advice work best alongside your passion to write.

Images vs Titles

It’s almost similar to a “chicken or the egg” kind of conundrum. I can’t say, “People ask me this all the time,” because they don’t. But I have been asked a few times, enough to give it some thought: which is more important, your title or your image?

Well, people aren’t dufuses. If your article has the title, “5 Effective Hacks for Putting Toothpaste on Your Toothbrush Easier,” and then has the best, most click-worthy picture on the Internet accompanying it, they’re not going to read your article — perhaps with the exception that the article is clearly satire written in a humorous publication.

People are not stupid. If your title isn’t interesting, the image doesn’t matter. Whereas if your title is interesting, almost any picture will do. The picture may get a person who is scrolling to stop, but they will always read the title first before clicking. They’ll almost never click on an article solely because of the picture.

That’s my guess anyway. I try to keep my images simple and not be too clever with them. However, I have worked on my titles.

One way to do this is to simply use Google Trends to literally know what the world is searching for:

You can also use Google’s Keyword Planner:

Mistake: One mistake which I made was writing stupid titles that I thought were keyword-rich. I was so excited about using the tool and cramming all the keywords in that the titles were somewhat ridiculous in retrospect.

Like all new writers, I am a dufus sometimes.

Reminder: focus on the title more than the image. An image will almost never carry a bad title but a good title will almost always make up for a bad image in getting people to read your stuff.

Small Things That You’ve Heard Before

• Write a lot.
• Write well.
• Engage with other writers.
• Read.
• Write long articles as opposed to short ones.

I’m currently being paid around 2.2 cents per minute of member reading time. The amount you are paid varies very little depending on how much people clap for your article, I’ve noticed. I suspect — though I have no way to confirm this— that the amount you are paid varies based on how much else your readers read. Most of the $5 people pay per month goes towards Medium’s overheads and staff. Whatever’s left goes to writers. I suspect that somebody that reads 200 articles per month generates less revenue when they read an article for that writer than somebody that reads, say, 3 articles per month.

But this is just speculation and it’s not like it is actionable information. You can’t do anything about that. Hence, it’s merely to satisfy your curiosity and not of huge help.

Summary of Main Points

• Writing for niche publications can potentially pay more than writing for big publications. Writing about Crime, History, and Sex pays off.
• Use the critiques you receive from your readers to help you become a Top Writer.
• Choose publications that show ‘Latest Articles’ at the top and that offer decent reading time.
• Focus on writing good titles if you want your work to be read. Don’t overdo it. Images are secondary to titles IMO.

Most importantly, if you don’t enjoy writing, these things don’t matter :/

Examples of Articles That Earned Me Top Writer Status

According to the email that Medium sends you which includes a list of the articles that they really liked.

Finally

Being a Top Writer does not make or break anything. You can be a very successful writer without the title. Also, making $116 in 1 month is not a huge amount, granted. It’s not bad for your first month on the Partner Program though. And I had started on Medium less than 2 months before that, partway through October. I had no real writing credentials to speak of before starting on Medium.

I’ve reiterated this throughout the article:

These are specific tools to help you make money and become a Top Writer. But enjoying writing is the foundation of everything. There is no real ‘hack’ that I can teach you that will work if you don’t enjoy writing.

Enjoying writing is the most important part.