Medium Writing Tips
How Often Do Top Earning Medium Writers Publish Stories?
Patterns in the frequency of article publication by Medium’s highest earning authors
How often should I publish articles on Medium?
This is probably one of the most frequently asked questions that Medium writers ask. And it is a worthwhile question to ask.
After all, whether it was under the old clap payment system or the new member reading time compensation system, your post output definitely affects your earnings as a writer.
The conventional wisdom given on Medium is:
“Try to write something on a daily basis, until you establish a large enough following or your posts receive enough views through curation/Medium editorial features.”
Indeed, I’ve given out this very same advice myself. But how often do top earning writers publish stories on Medium once they do have some sort of following?
I could not find any recent posts or data which tracked how frequently the top earning Medium writers publish new stories. So I began to examine some of Medium’s top writers.
I looked at approximately 100 authors that I was nearly certain earned at least $1,000 per month on Medium for at least the past three months. I included a sample of some of the writers below. While tedious, I found it insightful, and hopefully you will too!
Shannon Ashley
August Posts ➜ 52
September Posts ➜ 73
October Posts ➜ 85
umair haque
August Posts ➜ 32
September Posts ➜ 30
October Posts ➜ 31
Ayodeji Awosika
August Posts ➜ 25
September Posts ➜ 34
October Posts ➜ 54
Thomas Oppong
August Posts ➜ 15
September Posts ➜ 16
October Posts ➜ 29
Nicolas Cole
August Posts ➜ 29
September Posts ➜ 22
October Posts ➜ 22
John P. Weiss
August Posts ➜ 6
September Posts ➜ 5
October Posts ➜ 8
Tim Denning
August Posts ➜ 44
September Posts ➜ 57
October Posts ➜ 58
Indrek Lasn
August Posts ➜ 10
September Posts ➜ 8
October Posts ➜ 14
Ryan Holiday
August Posts ➜ 1
September Posts ➜ 3
October Posts ➜ 2
Darius Foroux
August Posts ➜ 1
September Posts ➜ 3
October Posts ➜ 2
traceybyfire
August Posts ➜ 44
September Posts ➜ 53
October Posts ➜ 54
Aytekin Tank
August Posts ➜ 13
September Posts ➜ 13
October Posts ➜ 13
Brian Rowe
August Posts ➜ 92
September Posts ➜ 94
October Posts ➜ 134
Jessica Valenti
August Posts ➜ 4
September Posts ➜ 7
October Posts ➜ 7
Nick Wignall
August Posts ➜ 8
September Posts ➜ 6
October Posts ➜ 9
The average posts per day for the 100 authors I selected was 1.43.
A clear pattern quickly emerged as I examined the data. There are essentially two groups of writers — (1) writers who have large following outside of Medium and post content less frequently (2) writers who have large Medium-specific followings and tend to publish more frequently.
For the first group, posts are made quite sparingly. The average posts per day for this group is .14 (about one post per week). In an extreme example, Ryan Holiday has tremendous reach, post engagement, and presumably, high Medium earnings, despite making only a few posts per month. He also has a large audience outside of Medium, from his critically acclaimed books.
For the second group, the average posts per day seems to consistently average between 1–2 posts per day. At the low end of this group is Umair Haque, who consistently posts once per day. At the upper end is Brian Rowe averaging close to 4 posts per day in October. It’s worth noting that Brian posts include poetry, and these articles are typically far shorter than the others).
Interestingly, most of these authors seem to focus on producing content consistently as opposed to just maximizing output. I identified dozens of other authors who produced larger amounts of posts per month, but their earnings appeared to be far lower and their posts tended to be clustered together (i.e. posting 6 times per day for 4 days followed by a week with few or no posts at all).
It makes sense though why consistency is a key factor (once meeting the one post per day threshold). Anecdotally, Medium’s algorithm seems to favor content that is produced consistently, due to the fact that Medium seems to limit the distribution of articles by topic per day.
So if someone is cranking out tons of articles in the same few niches, this may be a good strategy to achieve top writer status or grow their following. But the author is likely seeing a series of diminishing returns when posting more than 2 articles per niche per day.
So what does this mean if you are trying to become a top earning writer?
While I cannot provide concrete proof (as Medium's algorthm is proprietary), it would appear that frequent posting (more than once per day) is likely key to developing an audience, but is not necessary once you have 5K+ actively engaged followers, a well curated mailing list, or some other content distribution system in place.
Likewise, once you begin to gain momentum and start developing a following, the conventional wisdom of posting daily is a sound strategy. In fact, I would venture to say that posting twice per day should be the goal, with a minimum of 1 post every day to ensure consistency of content for your audience. Ideally the second post per day would cater to a different niche altogether. All of the authors on this list are top writers in multiple topics. Many of these topics are completely unrelated.
What do you think — is 1–2 posts per day ideal to maximize earnings (once you have developed a baseline audience)? Let me know in the comments below!
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Casey Botticello is an internet entrepreneur and the founder of Blogging Guide, an online community of writers with an award-winning newsletter. He is also the creator of the popular Medium Writing Course and the Substack Newsletter Course.
Casey previously worked at several tech startups, a lobbying & strategic communications firm, and has created several businesses of his own. He is a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania, where he received his B.A. in Urban Studies.
You can connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, follow his Medium publications, Digital Marketing Lab and Medium Blogging Guide, or reach out to him directly on his personal website.
