How to Earn $1500+ Per Month from Medium Without Getting Curated
What to write. Where the money comes from. Why you should care.
I understand. Writing on Medium can be both a rewarding and frustrating experience. We spend hours on a story. We hit the button. We refresh the stats until the mouse breaks. Nothing happens worth telling mom.
You have more control of your Medium income than you think.
It will take some work on the back-end. No lie. Most writers will ignore this strategy, because of the work involved. But you won’t. You want more for yourself and your family.
Really, I understand.
There’s a secret to your Medium income. And the small trickle you get from the Partner Program will pale in comparison to what you can earn from the platform you grow, away from Medium.
Writers have been given a golden opportunity here. But it’s a hidden one. Instead of chasing-after the elusive curation gnome, there’s a short-cut. But the short-cut is also a long-game.
I realize that statement sounds counter-intuitive, so hold on a sec.
First, we must build the house. Later, we get to live in it. There won’t be anywhere to sleep if we curl-up on the floor before the roof goes on.
I’m never one to miss a metaphor, but if that made no sense, the long-game is the infrastructure required to build our platform. The short-cut is the automatic income will generate once we throw the ‘on’ switch.
Let’s do this.
Get paid to grow your tribe
This is the real, little-discovered beauty of Medium. The Partner Program is only the sprinkles, while the money you’ll make away from the platform is both the triple-scoop of cookie dough and the waffle cone.
Medium will pay us to grow our own tribe. This is cool.
I can’t think of another platform that will do that for you. Now, there is a big catch — some fine-print you must be aware of. Like me, if you choose to go down this road, you’ll probably never get curated again.
In the short-run the non-curation will decrease your Medium income.
But remember, the Medium income is the sprinkles. When we chase curation, we’re chasing the sprinkles, as the glory and beauty of our ice cream cone melts on the sidewalk.
This strategy is the long-game.
My new approach is to be more-aggressive with the ‘ask’ in my stories. The first two sections are for the reader, while the third is for me. Instead of wimpy call-to-action on a single line, an entire third of my story will be dedicated to the reason why you should join my tribe.
This is also how you kill your curation.
This is also how you make a ton of money, automatically, on the back-end. Hence, the long-game portion of the strategy. You won’t earn this money overnight.
You’ve got to create books, courses, coaching, or training on the back-end, because you’ve got to have something to sell your subscribers. You’ve got to deliver a regular stream of valuable content (through an automated email sequence) to keep your readers coming-back and engaged with your work.
It’s a lot.
But once you’ve got the bones in place, the maintenance is little more than an hour or two a week.
Instead of running the curation hamster wheel, you can write what you want, engage your readers, and convince them you’ve got even better stuff on your personal platform.
As I said, most writers won’t do this.
Most writers chase the sprinkles.
Until Medium changes the payment plan again — or removes it altogether. This could happen. Sure, the sprinkles are nice, but the payment is Medium’s carrot to keep writers working to create a 24/7/365 content stream to keep readers engaged.
There are people making a lot of money off your work. It’s time you did too.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have someone else in charge of my bank account. That scares the hell out of me to know I could lose all my Medium money overnight, which is why I work so hard to build my own platform.
Know this — non-curated stories last a couple days, then die.
There is definitely a cost to this strategy. If you have no interest in being a commercial writer, building your own publishing business, or getting more from your writing than a little fun — this strategy should be avoided at all costs.
Ignore the sprinkles
I’m all-in on Medium, because of the power of the back-end (that did not sound right). The income of your tribe (once you set-up your long-game) will be much greater than the sprinkles you earn on the platform.
Yes, there as some high-earners here, who make Medium a six-figure life.
I’m a middle-of-the-road earner here. The path I chose is different, once I realized the power of Medium as a list-building tool. Unlike most platforms, where you’re allowed to write guest posts, you can only have a weak call-to-action at the bottom.
If you don’t care about curation, you can write as strong a call to action as you want.
If you’re ready to burn the bridge, stay all-in on Medium, but use it to grow your own platform (a tribe you control and have the ability to contact whenever you want), I’ve got an email masterclass for you.
The Tribe 1K masterclass is free.
When the class is over, I’ll stay in touch on a regular basis. Occasionally, I’ll send you valuable offers for an ever-deeper dive into ways you can create work that sells and sell more of it once it’s created.
I’ll show you how to get your first 1,000 subscribers (or your next 1,000) without spending a hot nickel on ads. This isn’t easy. Neither is getting dressed in the dark and matching.
Enroll in my 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.
