How I Tripled My Income in My Second Month On Medium

What I earned and reflections on my 5 best earning stories

I’ve been writing consistently on Medium for eight weeks now. It hasn’t made me a billionaire yet, but I did earn almost three times what I earned in my first month.

And I earned it without publishing more. In fact, I published less.

In March, I published 11 stories and in April I published 7 stories (and the seventh story was published on the evening of the last day of the month, so it hasn’t really impacted my earnings in a substantial way).

As I said, I’m no billionaire yet (nor would I ever want to be, of course, I just want to be able to travel and have enough money to buy some books, some plants, and maybe take care of a cat one day).

But I’m still very happy with the fact that I’m making some money, writing about things that I find interesting (if my earnings continue to increase, I can even start to depend on Medium as one of my income streams).

So I’d like to reflect on a few things I learned in my second month on Medium. After that, I’d like to reflect on my 5 best-earning stories so far.

How I tripled my income in my second month

So this is a bit of a lie, I didn’t exactly triple my income. But I did almost triple my income.

This is what I earned in my first month on Medium: $29.53

And this is what I earned in my second month on Medium: $85.56

So what I did learn from this?

You don’t need to publish daily

As I already mentioned, I didn’t publish more in my second month on Medium. In fact, I published less.

I thought this was interesting because a lot of writing advice seems to be focused on the importance of publishing daily. But so far, in my experience at least, publishing less doesn’t need to lead to a decrease in your earnings.

Of course, I don’t have a control group, so this isn’t exactly a scientific experiment. Maybe my earnings would be a lot higher if I did publish daily. There’s no way to know that for certain.

But at least I now know that publishing daily isn’t a necessity.

And for me, that makes sense.

If you don’t publish daily, you can focus more on the quality of your stories. You can take a few days to write and rewrite. You’re not competing with yourself. And you probably won’t run out of ideas as fast.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with publishing daily. In fact. I think it’s quite impressive if you are able to do it.

And I’m not trying to argue that stories from writers that publish daily are always of less quality either, I’ve seen some excellent writers on Medium that also manage to publish (almost) every day.

I’m just trying to say that you don’t need to feel the pressure to publish daily if you’d prefer to publish less often.

Also, I definitely do encourage writing daily. I think a daily writing habit is invaluable if you want to improve your writing and write consistently.

But writing every day doesn’t have to mean publishing every day.

Having a large number of stories does make a difference

The second thing I learned from the fact that I published less and earned more, is that having more stories does make a difference.

I’ve only been writing consistently for two months (although I wrote my first story over a month ago), but already my earnings are increasing because in my second month I’m also benefitting from the stories I wrote in my first month.

I don’t know for how long my stories will continue to make money, but it definitely taught me that I need to be patient and that I need to continue to write.

And this might be hopeful to any new writer on Medium: consistency pays off.

Publications matter

Most of my best-earning stories were published in large publications, like The Writing Cooperative. Even though you can also self-publish, of course, I think it really does make a difference to publish your stories in publications.

You get some extra readers and your story might have a better chance of getting distributed.

I noticed people saying that distribution doesn’t really matter any more, but for me, it did seem to make a difference.

(Maybe this was a coincidence? I’m not sure what distribution was like before, as I’m not writing consistently on Medium for that long yet.)

But I think publications do provide value, both the big ones and the small ones. Even if the publication doesn’t provide automatic distribution.

The smaller ones sometimes have a very active following. Having people engage with your stories can be very rewarding. It provides feedback and a sense of community. And it’s just fun to interact with other writers and readers.

My 5 best earning stories on Medium

So this is what I earned in my second month on Medium: $85.56.

As I think is normal on Medium, most of the money came from my top-earning stories (even though I didn’t have a story that went viral or one that outperformed the others by a really large margin).

So what were the five stories that earned me the most?

And why did they earn me the most?

My fifth best-earning story on Medium

My fifth best-earning story on Medium is a story titled ‘Is It Okay to Steal From Other Writers?’

In the story, I discuss whether it’s moral to steal ideas from other writers. What’s the difference between being inspired by something and simple plagiarism?

I discuss the views of T.S. Eliot, Austin Kleon, and Francis Ford Coppola.

It was surprising to see that this story did relatively well because it’s not a story that provides direct value for the reader. (I found that those stories generally seem to perform well, which makes sense).

It’s more of a reflective piece, and it’s nice to see that these stories are also enjoyed on Medium.

Having said that, it didn’t make me an impressive amount of money. It made me a total of:

$6.49

But it’s still making money in May and I enjoyed writing it. So I’m pleased with this amount, modest as it may be.

Here is the story:

And here are the stats for the story:

My fourth best-earning story on Medium

The fourth best-earning story didn’t make an impressive amount of money either. It made me a total of:

$7.82

But I’m happy with it because it’s a story in which I introduce myself (published in About Me Stories). I really like reading the stories in which other writers introduce themselves, so it was nice to see that this story also did relatively well.

Here’s the story:

And here are the stats for the story:

My third best-earning story

My third best-earning story was a story titled ‘I Went On My First Tinder Date’. This story was about my first Tinder date (and how it didn’t exactly go according to plan.)

As I mentioned in another story already, it was also quite surprising that this story did so well. I was expecting people to lose interest, as it’s not about a universal topic. It’s about a very specific topic: my own dating life.

So the lesson I learned here was that people will be interested in what you have to say, even if it doesn’t concern them specifically, which is encouraging.

This story made me:

$8.88

It’s still no crazy amount of money, of course, but these are only the earnings for April (I published this story in March, and in May it’s already continuing to make some money).

It’s also quite an aesthetic number.

Here’s the story:

And here are the stats for the story:

My second best-earning story on Medium

My second-best earning story in April was published on 21 April. But this story still made more money than almost all of my other stories.

It’s a story titled ‘Starting as a Full-Time Freelance Writer With No Financial Safety Net’.

In it, I write about how I quit my day job and how I started as a freelance writer without really having any financial safety net.

I discuss four things I did that helped me get started and that gave me some financial security during my first months as a full-time freelance writer.

The story made me:

$10.49

Still not super impressive maybe, but I crossed the $10 barrier. And this was after only ten days, so I’m happy with it.

Here’s the story:

And here are the stats:

My best-earning story on Medium

The story that made me the most money in April was a story titled ‘Atomic Habits: What Happened When I Started These Daily Mini Habits.’

It’s a story about how I started two daily mini habits (inspired by the book Atomic Habits).

In the story, I describe the Four Laws of Behavior Change and how I applied them to my daily habits.

The story was published in March, but was still my best-earning story in April, which proves the point that stories can continue to earn money and that consistency and quantity matter on Medium.

In April, the story made me:

$25.94

Which is quite a lot more than the rest of my stories, so I was very pleased with it.

(And this story has made me $34,40 in total, which has made it my best-earning story so far.)

Here’s the story:

And the stats:

All in all, I’m very happy with my Medium earnings for April. It won’t pay for my rent yet and so far the real value of Medium (for me) has been the community, the feedback and the fact that it pushes me to write daily.

But I’m only a newbie on Medium, as I’ve only been writing consistently for two months (despite lingering here for over a year now.)

So I still feel very lucky and it’s encouraging to see growth without necessarily having to increase any effort.

I hope you enjoyed reading this! Maybe you’d also like one of these stories: