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How I Slumped, Crashed and Burned in December On Medium
And how I plan to revive from my ashes
Back in early December I wrote about reaching $300 on Medium, aided by kind and generous tips from Ko-fi, for which I am immensely grateful:
Prophetically I wrote “And why I will probably not earn more than $100 in December” in the subtitle. So did I stay below 3 digits in December? No rush, dear reader, rush is counter-productive and it also gives fewer read minutes.
In December I crashed and burned. At the end of November, I was in high orbit around the Earth and one month later I was forced to do an atmospheric re-entry at a steep angle with a defective thermal shield.
The combination of my Holiday season depression — which generated multiple whiny poems and a very dark story about suicide — and the sterilization of my golden German goose resulted in a ~70% slump of earnings in December.
I was trying to figure out what to write first. About how I did in 2022 or a piece about its catastrophic last month? The Sharethrough headline analyzer claims “Bad news sell!!” so predictably I chose the latter. I will write a comprehensive post about 2022 later.
Back on Nov 14, my all-time peak day in views (~1,200) and reads (~450), I reached ~10,500 views during the ‘Prev 30 days’. I took this screenshot an hour or so before reaching that peak:
A mere three days later Medium’s algorithm had me dry. They usually take me out to dinner first, but this time they did not even use lube:
My subsequent slump was excruciating, but I still closed November with $273 (Medium alone). In December though I kept falling, particularly in the second half due to the upcoming insufferably ‘happy go lucky’ holidays, when I wrote and read less.
In the second half I also fell further because the viral residue earnings of the German waitress story finally dried out. So I closed December with ~5,500 views (Prev 30 days), almost half the views of my Nov 14 peak. I did not have the heart to take a screenshot right before the end of the year.
And what did I earn in December? See for yourself:
$119 from Medium alone, with two referrals included. That is 31% of my November earnings. I did not fall below $100, after all, but I got close to getting the boot from the 🌟$100 Club🌟 According to the prediction of the Fractions plugin this month I will earn a mere $72.
Normally I would give up, but I plan to refute that prediction. Absent another viral story there is no way I reach close to $300 again but I plan to retain earnings above $100.
I plan to write more and better. I’ve also trained myself to read faster, so I can read more. In December I published just 34 stories. I think I’ll switch to one longer story + a couple of shorter stories per day, targeting a minimum of 60 stories this month.
That, my dear readers, would be all. It’s now time, after a short break, to write yet another dark and twisted tale for Redemption Magazine’s Transgressive Thursday. My article about how I fared in 2022 will follow in the coming days.
I recommend this article about writing by Conni Walkup Hull:
And an article about how the talented Camilla Seth fared in 2022:
