How I Went from $3/Day to $75/Day After One Year of Writing on Medium

…and how you can too

I earned $90 my first month (two weeks, really) on Medium. I was hooked on the earning-potential from the beginning. Since that first month I’ve had a lot of contact with writers who are all trying to make a similar splash, but not everyone has been so fortunate.

Today, I’m here to help close the gap.

Although my success on Medium isn’t one of the highest-earning, I know I’m within the top few percent, clocking in earnings this month of around $75/day. Since only 7% of Medium writers will earn $100.

So, what’s the difference?

What separates those of us who can pay our mortgage with Medium, versus those who might be lucky to buy a candy bar?

If you do a search, even among my articles, you’ll see similar advice across the board.

There are a few best-practices I believe will help all Medium writers earn more. And there are also a few more-esoteric ones that may or may not work depending on your readership.

I’ll give you the whole list here. From growing your following, to encouraging comments, to writing better titles, to curation.

Let ‘er rip!

5 Medium best practices

1. Write a lot —

This means every day. If you want to earn a lot on a consistent basis you should probably publish more than once a day. You’ve got a week to collect reads and claps. If one story doesn’t fill your clap-pacity, you’ll need to write another.

Once you get some traction, look at the types of stories that do well. Look at the ones that don’t. Write fewer of the ones that don’t resonate and a lot more of the stories that do.

Remember, just because you touched on a topic once, doesn’t mean that the other 3 million people who haven’t read your story, are familiar with it.

2. Grow your following, like yesterday —

This includes following people whose work interests you, clapping a lot for other popular stories, and most-importantly, but highly-overlooked — comment on multiple posts per day. Try for 20 sincere comments, not cut-and-pasters. We can smell that stuff a mile away, plus anyone can see all your comments and if they’re all the same you look like a fraud.

The bigger your following the more opportunity you’ll have to get your work before a larger audience. This way you won’t have to count on curation to save every story. Although curation is critical if you want your story to pay you residual income, you can still make a big splash with a non-curated story and a big audience.

3. Knock your titles out of the park —

Only the best titles get clicked. If your story doesn’t get clicked you don’t get read and clapped. If you don’t get clicked you don’t get paid. No matter how good your story is. Period. Spend a lot of time on your titles. Any time I’ve published a lazy title it’s bit me in the lobby.

We love click-able content. It’s only clickbait if your title dupes the reader into believing the story is about something different than is written inside. I cannot stress how important your titles are. I still work on mine every day.

4. Write for the biggest audience possible while solving a niche problem —

If your story serves a small handful or readers you’ll only get a small handful of reads. We don’t have time to read everything. Medium only displays the most-popular stories, so if you want your work to get found, you’ll need to solve a problem for a large group of people.

It’s important to dominate your niche. But make sure you choose a niche with enough people in it before you go and try to build a Medium presence for that one thing. Medium is great for many audiences, but not all. If you write fiction and poetry here, you’ll have a long, quiet road, for example.

5. Never stop promoting your older, successful stories —

Medium won’t push them for you. Promote your best work. All the time. Most readers haven’t seen it yet. Don’t worry about repetition. If you want your old stories to keep earning for you, even a year after you wrote them, keep linking to them in your new stories.

I’ve promoted my old stories since the beginning and it’s treated me very well. You’ll never know when an old story will earn you an extra $100 you didn’t expect.

Note: Only promote successful stories. It’s damn near impossible to revive a dud.

5 Extra tidbits

1. Get more comments —

If you want to encourage comments, ask the readers a question. No, you can’t say “comment below,” but I’ve written successful stories that asked the reader what kind of writer she was, then gave 5 different kinds of writers.

These stories are fun to write and encourage a lot of discussion with your audience.

Also, take a strong stand on popular topic, or take the counter-stance. This will rile your readership, who can’t help but share their opinion to your argument.

2. Get curated —

Follow the Medium curation guide. Write unique, thoughtful, personal, insightful content that hasn’t already been published a thousand times.

Know your niche. Explore Medium and see what’s already been written. Look at what works. Write the counter-story to it. Make your story about the reader, and not an advertisement for your company or product.

You can ask readers to join your email list, and you should, but don’t make a huge deal about it.

Choose tags that are relevant to the story. And remember, there’s a huge luck component to getting curated, so don’t feel bad if your story doesn’t.

Finally, publish with publications as often as you can. You’ll have a much better chance of getting curated than you will if you just publish it to your own account.

3. Develop your own voice —

Give your readers a great reason to come back for more tomorrow. Think of your content like a viral TV show. You want the same people to tune-in again tomorrow.

The ‘new from your network’ section is tiny. You want your stories to be there, front and center, for your readers to see every day. When you write in a unique, entertaining voice, not only do you develop your writer’s brand, but you also keep your following engaged.

4. Pick a niche (or don’t) —

There are two schools of thought on niche-ing. Some writers love to write whatever topic they want (and they’ve built a successful following doing-so). While other writers choose a core group of people they wish to serve and only create content for this niche. This is my angle.

Reason being, if you pick a niche, it’s much easier to build a business around the audience you create. If you write for everyone, then everyone will be on your readership. This makes it really hard to sell books, courses, or products later.

5. Build an email list, yesterday —

The best time to build an email list was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. If you want to build a publishing business off the back of your Medium content, you need to build a list you own and control.

The ability to earn great money from Medium might last another couple years, maybe ten. Eventually, something different will take its place, drying-up the income overnight.

If you don’t build the insurance policy of your own tribe, in advance of needing it, the mercy of your income is in the hands of someone else.

This is where the real money will come from (the quit-your-job money).

The time to build that list, is now. These are your future readers.

This should be a list you own (instead of relying on social media or some other big-business platform). Tap the link below. Enroll in my Tribe 1K indie email masterclass. I’ll show you how to get your first 1,000 subscribers (and your next 1,000) without spending one hot nickel on ads.

We’re waiting for you.

Enroll in my Free Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers

August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indies how to make work that sells and how to sell more of that work once it’s created. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing, August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.