How Not To Earn Money on Medium
A new writer’s perspective on the Partner Program.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to earn money from writing on Medium. That’s the reason that a lot of people write on Medium in the first place. The Partner Program exists to help you make money off of your Medium stories.
Unfortunately, the Partner Program is unpredictable, unreliable, and downright frustrating. No one knows exactly what a writer has to do to succeed in the Partner Program.
During my almost two months of writing on the platform, I have painfully learned what not to do to make money on Medium.
The first rude awakening I had is that random writing does not work. You can’t write whenever the urge strikes you. You can’t take a day off now and again. You can’t get sick. You can’t get tired, burned out, anxious, or depressed.
You must operate like a machine. You must write all. The. Time. You must write when taking a shower, while sleeping, during oral surgery, when scooping the litter box.
If you think this isn’t possible, you aren’t serious about making the big bucks on Medium. You need to try harder.
And don’t even think for a minute about choosing between quantity or quality in your writing. That’s not an option if you want to succeed in the Partner Program.
Your writing must consist of both quantity and quality. While you are drafting that story as you put a new roof on your house, your writing had better be a work of art. No one likes a dangling participle or a squinting modifier.
You might think that you have a head start on the competition because of all of your writing experience. Think again.
Years of experience writing as part of your job or having more degrees than a thermometer won’t help you on Medium. You’re in a different world now.
In the Partner Program, we all start at zero and scratch our way out of the pit of desperation. What may have worked for you before is now an utter and complete waste of time and effort. Medium is the great equalizer.
The biggest mistake that will lead to not making money on Medium is trying to write like one of the Medium High Rollers.
You can’t replicate another writer’s success. Anyone who reads what you write will know what you are trying to do, and they will stop reading instantly. And you will be labeled as a copycat.
No one likes a writer who tries to steal another writer’s style. Like it or not, those High Rollers worked for what they have, and there’s no easy way to get it.
There’s only one way to increase your likelihood of success in the Partner Program, and it involves a lot of work.
You must produce a high quantity of high-quality writing. This comes from writing in your voice, not the voice of someone you admire or envy. Be true to yourself. Start with a clean slate and express yourself free of any previous influence.
Then keep writing. Time will determine where you finish in the race.
Linda Kowalchek is a work in progress and a member of the typewriter generation. She spends her time with her husband and her rescue cats waiting for golf balls to crash through their windows. PSA: Don’t live next to a golf course.