THE SECRETS OF WRITING ON MEDIUM, PART 5
How I Made $14.73 on One Article and Other Lessons Learned in August.
It’s time to reveal the mysteries of reader engagement, curation, and Medium’s most influential force.
Making money by writing is much harder than those perky emails informing us that one writer made $6720.35 on one story… in July.
You know me by now.
I’m a truth-teller, not some starry-eyed shovel salesman exhorting you to work your fingers to the bone because one person on Medium made a ton of money from selling the aforementioned shovels.
Do you want the truth?
Well, you can’t handle the truth… and neither can I.
Think of Medium as a quaint 700-foot high ice wall that extends from one end of the continent to the other, and is protected by magic spells.
Your goal is to climb to the top without tools, or the ability to see the climbing holds.
Jon Snow is looking down at us, shaking his head, and mumbling, “and everyone says I know nothing…”
You have a better chance of avoiding arrows, rocks, burning oil, and the scythe as you scale THAT WALL than reaching the top of Medium.
The good news is, if you fail in the lands of Medium, you get unlimited chances to climb the paywall again.
You have a better chance of avoiding arrows, rocks, burning oil, and the scythe as you scale THAT WALL than reaching the top of Medium. The good news is, if you fail in the lands of Medium, you get unlimited chances to climb the paywall again.
Welcome to Part 5 of the series as we continue to scale the paywall.
Here is a summary of past lessons learned.
In Part One of the series, I found data about the top 1% articles on Medium (minimum 2000 claps) and observed the quality of those articles.
Conclusions: there is no correlation between the story quality and being in the top 1%, but there is a strong correlation between having thousands of followers and producing 2,000 clap stories.
In Part Three of the series, I explored the world of data-driven headlines and laughed my ass off.
Conclusions: According to the online headline analyzer, my headline writing improved immensely, but it had zero effect on the popularity of my articles.
In Part Four of the series, I manually slogged through almost a month of Medium’s Featured Story feed. Read the article in full because it’s funny, in a sad and desperate way. The answers are not pretty.
Conclusion: The stories described as “Today’s best stories, picked by our editors” mask the fact that Medium is now only pimping stories that appear in publications they own.
Unlike my primitive data collection methods, something is rotten in the state of Medium’s paywall.
Just call me the Arnold of Medium bashing:
Here are the stats for my four “top” stories the last month:
Here is a breakdown of each article by popularity, reader interaction, and compensation.
A: “An Open Letter…” was a curated story that gave me no bump. It got the least traction (5 people highlighted text, 3 people responded), and earned $1.77.
B: “Is Your Social Media Feed…” was published by a decent-sized independent publication, and it brought in a lot more views, but only 75% of the readers came internally from Medium. That seems to have some importance. 9 people highlighted the article and 17 people responded, and it earned $3.61.
C: “I’ve solved Medium’s algorithms…” was published by me and had the highest number of reads, fans, and people highlighting the article (14). Also, 9 people responded, and it earned $14.82.
D: “The Apple Anti-Trust Suit…” was published by me and had almost no response in any metric, but it earned $2.95. There’s no need to show this article’s stats.
Which method of promotion created the biggest bump and had the best durability?
You will be shocked.
Article “A” was chosen for curation by Medium’s editors.
It says so right there in that little box at the top. While I am honored by this rare occurrence, the reality is it did next to nothing for my stats.
The lack of traction may have something to do with the fact that the curation editors chose my article at 1:03 AM PDT, on Monday, August 26th.
Perhaps the Corgis are in control.
This was an incredibly advantageous window for all my fans in Mogadishu who could read my sparkling piece of humor with their morning coffee, as well as that prime Sunday evening window for the people of Siberia.
I wish I were joking.
How is it possible that Medium’s curation editors are up at 4:00 AM in New York unless somebody had to pee in the middle of the night and read my article on the toilet?
By the time morning rolled around for people not floating on a raft near the Aleutian islands, my article was buried by 20 or 30 new articles.
Article “B” was published by a decent-sized publication.
It got a large early bump but had no staying power. Also, it had the lowest percentage of Medium internal traffic. Reader engagement with external referrals gets you no love from the Medium paywall.
There was a secondary promotional strategy used which may have contributed more traffic than having my work show up in a publication not owned by Medium. It is called CoatTail StarGazing™ (CTSG), a term I coined back in 2016:
Instead of wasting time doing shameless self-promotion, I will shamelessly promote other writers’ work.
This is public service (it publicizes good writing by lesser-known writers instead of the crap clogging up our feeds) but also a self-promotion tool, as the writers being promoted will point their friends to the article promoting them.
Don’t judge. I only promote writing I like.
And you people are too damn lazy to find it for yourselves.
It’s a win-win-win.
Article “C” was ignored by everyone on Medium, except one person.
I used one of Medium’s black arts know as CoatTail StarFucking™ (CTSF). This term was coined by a sexy Australian woman who is no longer on Medium.¹
CTSF is simply the technique of responding to the posts of writers with huge followings and linking to your own stories. It gives you a much larger number of views, reads, and fans than you could ever get by yourself.
In this case, I used a far more subtle CTSF technique, by using the CTSG to promote my friend, the Tribune of Medium, the dreck meister himself, Gutbloom. In response, he promoted me by telling people to read about him:
Just to show you how much power the Tribune holds over Medium, he wrote another post plugging me (as a public service because I was plugging other deserving writers), and it got almost as many claps as the article I slaved over. Maybe if I post his plug again, it will spur people to look at him and then look at me as if it we were looking at one of those funhouse mirrors. Oh well, it couldn’t hurt.
Okay, now that the plugs are out of the way, just look at the effect of having one of Medium’s true soul bloggers boost an article’s stats.
I’m more confused by Medium’s paywall system than I was before I tried to dig around the algorithm.
There are so many inconsistencies.
- Why did curation provide no bump?
- Why did article “B” with the most Medium internal views (Is Your Social Media Feed), and the second most reads, fans and clap, and reader interaction earn only 24% of the amount earned by article “C”?
- If we look at any performance metric ratio comparing those two articles (.77 fans, .92 reads, 1.18 Medium internal reads, .88 claps, .64 reader highlights, 1.88 reader responses), why did article “B” not earn in similar proportions to the Gutbloom article?
- Why would the Apple Anti-Trust article earn more money than the Medium curated article when it had almost zero reader response?
Did the subject matter have anything to do with performance?
D. The subject was tech, economic analysis, and a large dose of Medium bashing. It was the most heavily researched article, including legal analysis of the anti-trust lawsuit and an explanation of the definition of a monopoly. It got no traction but made more money than the curated article.
A. The subject was preachy, complaining self-improvement — like every 1% article we all hate. (The only difference was a modicum of wit and humor, as evidenced by the reader interaction.)
It also contained links to some of the best articles you will ever read on Medium — but you never click on them, do you?
I thought this article would be a gold mine, but sadly it wasn’t.
B. The subject was preachy Medium-bashing satire and contained an interesting historical parallel between gold rush shovel salesmen and shyster content marketers. Due to the CTSG and the Gutbloom plug, it enjoyed early traffic and excellent reader interaction.
C. The subject was data crunching, Medium-bashing, and satire but contained some fresh insights into how the paywall works. It had the best reader interaction, plugged Gutbloom, the Tribune of Medium.
For some reason, I did add a slightly positive inspirational message at the end.
Perhaps the positive headline “get ready to become rich,” lead to my “huge” payday.
If there is one lesson from all this data, it’s that positive attitudes and inspirational messages sell.
I’m going to explore this path further, even if I end up telling the truth at some point.
I refuse to be a shyster content marketer, no matter how much money those other writers…. they’re going to offer me what if I start lying?
Look for my new methods that guarantee you and every other writer on Medium to create an article² that earns $6720.35 next month!!!
I’m not the only one who thinks the paywall system makes no sense.
In addition to my cynical observations about how to become a featured writer, a mega-popular Medium star wrote about how his income dropped by 70% due to Medium’s new curation system. (Ironic, considering his article got four times as many fans and claps, from making the same point I had made two weeks before.)
Meet the new feed, not the same as the old feed.
Unlike the old days in 2016, when every article showed up briefly in Medium’s feed, the chances of having an article go viral without curation are even more unlikely.
If your article is not curated, or published in a big Medium-owned publication, you are totally dependent on your followers to have any readership. Here’s how Medium describes your self-published anonymous article:
Curators did not select this story for distribution, but it will be shared with followers. Read our Curation Guidelines to see what curators look for.
In the future, I will talk about my writer’s journey as I tried to improve my style and technique, but this article has gone on far too long, and it’s time to go to the big finish. (Please hang in there, it will be worth it.)
Claps and reader interaction appear to be red herrings to keep Medium writers confused and addicted to the site.
- If you clap a lot for a lot of people throughout the month, your support for them will be an insignificant percentage of your $5 membership fee. It adds a huge layer of unnecessary complexity compared to the old recommendation system, and further blurs the line between popular articles and great writing.³
- If some random newbie gives you one clap and then barely touches the site for the month, that person will be far more valuable than any one of the active people you enjoy and respect on this site. That is the complete opposite of what I imagine reader engagement should mean.
Marketing and sales make up 50% or more of the work you must do to become a successful writer.
All the boring, but highly profitable articles about which we complain attract the greatest number of fans because the authors have figured out how to win a social media marketers.
The one inspirational thing I can say about Medium and the shovel salesmen who are making all the money is this: learn everything you can from them about MARKETING and you may become a successful writer.
Finally, my frustration with THE PAYWALL has given me the idea for another experiment.
What would happen if a large group of writers decided to band together to vote only one time for an entire month, and all vote for the same story?
- We would find out exactly how much of our monthly subscription fee actually goes back to the writers in the Medium Partner Program.
- We would also remove the noise caused by the variable number of claps given by each of us, since 100% of our claps would go to only one article.
- If we did this a few times, choosing a different subject each time, we would know if Medium gives more weight to popular topics (tech, sex, self) compared to the ones people actually like (humor, art, music, sports).
- We could also choose to interact heavily one month (responses, or highlights) and then not interact at all to see if reader “engagement” really means anything at all.
It probably won’t change the amount of money most of us make, because it’s clear the social media powerhouses with huge followings are always going to kick our asses.
But it would be a relief to finally know that our abilities and value as writers have absolutely zero correlation to our “success” as writers on this site.
!Viva la Revolución!
If you’re a real glutton for punishment, check out the rest of the series:
Part 1: I’ve solved Medium’s algorithms — get ready to become rich.
Part 2: Is Your Social Media Feed Garbage?
Part 3: Know How to Write Powerful Headlines Immediately?
Part 4: 4 Ways of the Wordsmith: How to Be Happy and Successful Now
Part 6: Is the Medium Algorithm Now Controlled by the Russians? Maybe that Would be a Relief.
Here’s to better writing.
Footnotes:
¹Just as an aside — her erotic exploits were on fire. In comparison, the stuff currently on Medium makes me think I’m overhearing a conversation between two old ladies yelling about their last visit with the gynecologist over the noise of the hairdryers enclosing their heads — yeah, that hot.
²Hopefully that one article will be mine — the one that claims to teach you how to strike it rich.
³My most popular article in 2016 had five times as many fans as my top article this month, but was dwarfed by the number of claps received. My best article that year had almost 2.5 times the number of fans as my most popular article this month.