How Much I’ve Earned from My Article with Over 26K Views

I’m just as surprised as you are.

Two months ago, one of my articles went viral.

I had always heard about articles doing this all the time, but I never thought it would be one of mine. There would be no way.

But it did.

I had heard about an ongoing argument between Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones. I was pissed off.

So I wrote about it.

Here’s the story:

I’m still pretty pissed off about the situation even today. But anymore, that frown has turned upside down because the article went viral.

At least, it did for me.

The Article Blew Up from the Start

When I posted it to The Riff, like I mostly do with my music-related articles, it gained a great number of views.

Normally, a few hundred. Not too bad because it’s pretty consistent. But then something strange happened.

The view count kept rising. Before I knew it, this one article had more views than I earned in a month.

See for yourself.

Nowadays, the results speak for themselves. The article has over 26k views with over 8k reads.

How the hell is this even possible?

I thought:

“Hey, maybe this will be my breakthrough article.”

It was to some degree. Then I thought about the earnings. Surly this will earn me a nice chunk of change.

Now, it’s earned me this much:

That’s right: $42.72.

Not too bad if you ask me, but this is because most of the views were external, and we writers do not earn from those views.

Nevertheless, this is how much a viral article earned me in views and cash.

Which brings me to why it did.

Write What Pisses You Off

Aren’t you tired of folks telling you to write what you know?

I am. It’s annoying.

Instead, you ought to write what pisses you off. What lights your fire?

I was pretty upset about McCartney’s feud with the Stones. I thought the only way to help me through it was to write about it.

It sure did too.

But I had no idea the article would go viral.

It did because I wrote authentically and honestly, without any fluff or powder. I wrote from the heart as brutal as I could.

That’s what you should do too.

Find what pisses you off and write about it. You’ll enjoy the writing process, and your readers will enjoy your honesty.

Trust me.

It may just be the thing that turns you into a great writer.

Closing Thoughts

I’m grateful everyday this one article of mine went viral and was successful.

Not everyone reaches this point on Medium. I’m enjoying it while it lasts.

But I want you to get here too.

This is the lesson I learned from this situation. And I hope you too can apply it to your own writing.

Like always, I would love to know about your Medium journeys. And I can’t wait to read what you write next!

Happy writing!

Noah Nelson is a senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign majoring in journalism with minors in political science and history. He serves as a senior columnist for The Daily Illini, a writer on Medium and the host of his blog called Nothing But Noah. “Life: A Collection of Short Stories” is his first book available now on Amazon. Like what you read? You can write for Medium too!