How to Earn $30/Hour Writing Medium Stories
A careful use of your writing time can lead to big results…
Of course, your mileage (or kilometers) may vary. But if you can write quickly, you can earn full-time wages with part-time writing.
Now, Medium won’t replace full-time income for most writers, but you can get more bang for your writing buck with the tweaks I’m about to share.
The Medium platform rewards writers who publish consistently.
Medium readers come here for fresh content. If you want to compete among the 30,000 active writers on the platform, you need to stand-out.
If you want your writing to stand-out you need great titles.
A great title is for the reader not the writer. The first step to earning more per hour is to get more viewers to become readers. We only get paid if someone reads our stories.
We need to stop them in their tracks with a curious, compelling title.
You don’t have to sell the entire story. You need to sell the reason for clicking and reading the story.
Once you get your story opened, it’s time for the magic to happen.
I use $30/hour as a benchmark for my writing. Some days I can write three stories per hour. Others take a lot longer.
I feel I haven’t wasted my writing time if I can earn at least $30 per story. Sometimes it might take a week to earn those $30. But we’re looking at writing time, here. Not earning time.
You write the story once and it earns for you over the course of a few days.
Keep reading to make your stories earn more.
Earn $30/hour writing Medium stories
First, know your story —
We start our writing session by knowing what we’ll say before we sit. This is an important step to writing efficiently. I keep a running list in my phone. Any time a new Medium story idea comes to me the story goes on the list.
When I’m ready to write, I scroll the list and write the one that jingles my bell.
This little trick alone will save you a ton of time.
Second, focus on the reader, not you —
If you want to earn more story, not only do you need compelling titles, but you also need to write more of what your readers are already reading.
Look at your stats.
Uncover your hit stories and write more of those. Dump the duds. I know, sometimes this leads to surprising results. We don’t always get to write the story we want to.
However, we’re trying to Maximize our hourly writing rate here. The more readers we earn, the more money we earn per hour of writing.
I don’t know about you, but when I work for pennies it doesn’t feel very good.
Third, entertain as you teach —
Use the power of infotainment your get your message across. Tell strong stories that help deliver your message. No one wants a lecture. We like to be entertained.
We remember great stories on their first telling.
This is the stuff of legend you want to have in your writing. The idea is to build a fantastic following of folks who all click on your latest Medium story the second it hits the homepage.
Medium won’t do the work for you. Especially if your stories aren’t curated. You must be the one to tell the others. With that, we need the power of email.
Fourth, you need a following —
If you don’t have many followers it’s hard to get reads. To get more followers you’ve got to eat the poop sandwich for awhile. Everyone starts with zero readers.
Those who are willing to deal with zero readers the longest at the front-end are the writers who will make $30/hr (and more) in the end.
Follow big writers you enjoy.
Engage with as many stories as you can. This means making comments, folks, just just a quick tap on the clap button. The harder the task, the fewer the writers will persevere. Which give you the edge, because you don’t quit easily.
There’s even more to be earned with the long-game
Not only can you earn a great income per hour worked, writing Medium stories, but you can also earn even more on the back-end. Hundreds to thousands of dollars per writing hour.
If you’re a writer you need an email list. Period.
No one will promote your writing for you. No one is as passionate about your work as you are. No matter what you write, if you want a way to contact your best readers directly, the answer isn’t social, it’s email.
I’ve got just the thing.
I developed a 7-day, intensive email masterclass. Enrollment is free. If you enroll today you’ll have the first lesson before bed.
I’ll show you how to get your first 1,000 readers (or your next 1,000) without spending a hot nickel on ads.
Guarantee your seat today.
Your bottom-line will thank you tomorrow.
When you put all your traffic on someone else’s platform (ahem, Medium), you’re at the mercy of the platform to control your income. I’d rather have my own insurance policy.
I choose email.
Maybe you’ll choose it too.
We’re waiting for you.
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.