How My Income On Medium Increased By More Than 500 % In One Month

In January, I made $1,739.26 on Medium — Here’s how it happened

I’ve spent a while thinking if I should write this post. I am still not sure if it’s appropriate to show all my numbers and be that open, but I decided to go for it.

When I first started on Medium, I wished somebody was that honest with numbers and the holy grail to Medium success. Thus, I decided to be that person for others.

I published my first story on Medium on the 20th of July 2018.

During the remaining five months of 2018, I’ve published almost 100 more articles. I loved Medium right from the beginning. I discovered how much I love writing, I made quick progress, got a lot of lovely feedback through comments, and I made a few extra bucks per month, which was also nice.

Yet, in 2019, I cut down on writing here. In total, I wrote about 70 articles.

The reasons were diverse:

On the one side, I decided to focus on the German market with my coaching business in personal development. Thus, I didn’t see much sense in publishing English articles.

In addition, I published my first book with more than 400 pages, and I didn’t feel like writing on Medium too.

However, at the end of 2019, I realized that not focusing on Medium was one of my major mistakes.

Fortunately, I did my yearly reflection quite early last year. Starting in November, I asked myself what I did wrong and how I could ensure a happier, more successful year in 2020.

I reflected on all different side-hustles, projects, and business types I tried out and figured out Medium was one of the few platforms I truly enjoyed.

I also love hosting workshops and events, but I hate sales. Maybe because I never learned how to do it and surely because I suck at it. I also like creating online courses, recording videos, and outlining curricula, yet, I felt none of these were as pleasant as writing.

On Instagram, I have a lovely community of over 5,000 people, and a significant part of them engages with my content, joins my workshops, and wants to join my mentoring programs. Yet, while doing my yearly reflection, I realized, Instagram sometimes drains my energy.

If you want to succeed on a platform like Instagram, you need to be active every day.

Sure, if you want significant success on Medium, you also need to show up. But for me, writing is a whole lot more different than recording videos or taking pictures. Especially recording videos for your stories is a must-have to build a successful brand and business on Instagram.

While I love doing videos on some days, on others, I just want to be alone and write. I don’t want to talk to anyone and don’t even want to put my make-up on, not to talk about exchanging my jogging pants for jeans.

That’s why I decided to put more energy into Medium after a break of one year. I realized Medium perfectly fits my personality.

While I enjoy giving keynotes and hosting workshops from time to time, on the majority of my days, I just want to write.

I realized I suppressed this introverted part of myself for the majority of 2019, that’s why I ended up being unsatisfied with my results.

Since the middle of December, I am spending a considerable amount of my time and energy on writing, mostly on writing for Medium and I love it.

Instead of draining my energy, it excites and empowers me. I am writing daily and publishing almost every day, and I can proudly say I’m reaping the rewards.

How much money can you make on Medium?

Enough, if you take it seriously, I’d say.

Below, you can see the official stats Medium sent out in January. Accordingly, the highest-earning writer made $ 21,650.88 in December 2019.

Whoever that was: congrats!

I don’t know how much you want to earn, I don’t know how much is enough for you, but I guess these are not bad numbers for anyone who wants to get paid for pursuing his passion.

I don’t believe you can succeed on Medium if you don’t like or even love writing. I guess you will quickly give up, but that’s just my assumption. For me, writing always came easy. In school, I liked writing, even if it was academic papers.

As a non-native, I sometimes struggle with English, but I still enjoy it more than German writing.

January was my first month of making more than $ 1,000 on Medium. Yet, it also was my first month making more than $ 500.

Until now, the amount of money I made here was not a big deal. It was a nice-to-have, but not significant.

How quickly can you make a full-time income on Medium?

Again: what does full-time income mean for you?

I always struggle with that term. What does full-time income mean? Does it mean enough to pay my bills? Or enough to pay my bills plus go on a nice vacation a few times per year? Or enough to pay my bills and buy anything I want?

In some parts of the world, e.g., Bali, $1,739.26 would definitely be enough to pay your bills and have some fun. In other parts of the world, it wouldn’t be a proper “full-time income”, I guess.

For me, the $1,739.26 I’ve made in January is not my desired “full-time income”. But I have several income streams and a flourishing coaching business. Thus, an extra $1,739.26 is pretty lovely.

Let’s get back to the question: How quickly can you go from zero to whatever a “full-time income” means for you?

Not as quickly as it went for me, I guess.

I believe I was quite lucky in making such a big sum so quickly. I don’t think you’ll make this amount 1.5 months after publishing your first post.

As mentioned, I wrote my first article in 2018, yet until now, I didn’t make much money, and I didn’t really try to.

Here are the results of my previous months:

Around the mid of December, I decided to spend more time on Medium, and even though I didn’t write or publish during the holidays, the result was nice.

After being sick for the first week of January, I spent a considerable amount of my time writing on Medium and reading Medium articles on how to succeed on Medium.

I believe I had a significant advantage from my previous work here, and I am not sure if a “newbie” would be able to experience such a growth rate so quickly. But I am sure consistency pays off on any platform.

How do you make such progress in such a short time?

I could say things like consistency, improve your writing, improve your headlines, connect with other writers, get into publications, etc., but I won’t.

Yes, good writing is essential to succeed on a writing platform. (Surprise, surprise)

But going viral was the game-changer for me.

In total, I published 27 articles in January, 19 of those were curated.

Even though curation is essential, not all my curated stories did well. Some of my curated articles didn’t even make $ 5.

But five of those made $ 1380,39.

To cut a long story short:

The Pareto Rule applies to Medium success.

At least for me.

In January, 15 % of my articles (4 out of 27) made 80 % of my income.

(I know, the Pareto Rule is defined as 80/20, but you get the point.)

Here’s how much these stories made:

Are these stories so much better than the majority of my stories which hardly made $ 10 until now?

I don’ think so.

It’s the same style, it’s the same thoughts and probably the same mistakes I make with any other story.

I give my best for any article I publish here, and I don’t remember putting any extra effort into these.

All these stories have about 85 % of internal views, meaning Medium displayed them to more people inside of the platform.

Getting curated is nice, but this kind of virality is what allowed me to increase my income by 500 % in just one month.

Do I have control over this growth rate? Nope.

Can I predict whether I’ll see the same results every month? I don’t think so.

Can I give my best to keep this momentum going? Hell yeah.

A few days ago, I summarized my major learnings from January:

Also back in 2018, I’ve written down everything I’ve learned throughout my Medium journey:

Bottom Line

Okay, Medium gave a few of my articles a vast push and displayed them to many people, thus many people read, clapped, and commented.

But what now?

Admittedly, I don’t know. I don’t know whether every month 15 % of my articles will go viral. I don’t know if writing more would mean more virality and more income.

However, so far, my February stats seem to exceed January widely.

I am beyond grateful for experiencing this growth.

I believe hard work always pays off, yet, without this kind of curation and virality, I could’ve written 100 articles but not experience the same results. Neither in readers nor in income.

Talking about these numbers might seem greedy and money-grubbing, but it isn’t.

You get paid if people read your stories, so if you make a lot of money here, it means a holy bunch of people is reading your work. This again means you are spreading your message to a lot of people, and that’s what truly matters.

Some people say “Don’t expect a successful writing career if you are after the money.”

I don’t know how valid this statement is.

Even though I now made a nice amount of money through writing, I wouldn’t consider myself a writer. I am an entrepreneur, a coach, a mentor. It’s not the writing what I am after, but the message. Yet, words and Medium as a platform are fantastic ways of transferring my message. Writing is a fantastic way to connect with an audience, and I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to do so on Medium, yet, I don’t think I’d be writing if I couldn’t write about things that excite me.

I couldn’t write fiction. I probably couldn’t write about much else than personal growth, social media, and business. I didn’t try, but I also don’t intend to. These are the topics that excite me. It’s also the topics I feel I have something to say, a message to share.

I love personal development, I love writing, and I adore reaching thousands of people through my words thanks to Medium.

I believe consistency plays the most significant role for me right now. I feel as long as I regularly publish (in my case, almost daily), Medium rewards me with more and more internal traffic.

Before writing this piece, I talked with my boyfriend about and asked him for advice on whether I should reveal all the numbers or not. He encouraged me to do so as he’d loved to have such clarity on Medium and other platforms before getting started. Yet, the conversation turned out to be much longer, and he said a few things that amazed me.

We discussed what the reasons for my sudden growth might have been, and we both are sure it was consistency. We believe Medium boosts the stats of those who write and publish regularly.

Even Through Humble Beginnings, Persistence Wins Over All.

— Gary Vee

Again: Of course, your writing skills and knowing your way around here matter. Here, I’ve not only summarized my learnings of January but also tagged all the fantastic writers whose content I am consuming to become a better Medium writer.

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