How to Go from $1 to $100 a Month on Medium

Tips and tricks from someone who has been through it

We get it, no one wants to hear another story about writing on Medium.

Every day I log onto Medium, and my feed is full of another story informing me what I need to do, to ‘make it’ here on Medium and earn more money. Sure, there’s a market for it and I do read a lot of those stories — but I can also stand back and recognise their faults.

Medium hates these stories so much that they don’t curate stories about Medium. But hey, seeing as curation isn’t a thing anymore I guess that doesn’t matter.

I’m writing this for two reasons. I admit the first one is for myself. I’m writing this to document my Medium journey and to see how far I’ve come, but also, I’m writing it for those who may feel lost, or be in need of a bit of motivation.

Being on Medium as a new writer can be a minefield of information, confusion and frustration.

October’s Medium newsletter said that 6.4% of active writers earned over $100 in the past month. And by some weird miracle, I ended up being part of that percentage.

After Medium took off 30% in tax, (and also why does no one talk about this?) that took me down to $148. After converting this into the humble British pound, I took home £113.

I’m not claiming I’m any kind of expert, because I am far from it, but I thought I would write this to shed light on my experience and the things I’ve been doing.

I write for a number of reasons, and money is far down the list. Let’s be honest, we’re all attracted to writing on Medium because of the convenience of its partner program, and it’s always nice to be able to get recognition for hard work.

However, I write to stay sane. This world is all over the place, but I find comfort, solace and escape in the words I write. Writing has become a necessity for me over the past few months and I only hope that this is the beginning of a lifelong journey.

In September, I reviewed my first month on Medium where I totalled $1.32 after publishing 10 stories. To me, that was amazing, as it was the first amount of money I had ever earned from writing. From this, I knew it was even possible to make money from Medium.

In September, I posted the same amount of stories as I did in August but jumped from earning $1 to over $100 in a month.

Here’s what I have learnt and what I’ve been doing.

Write Something Every day

This probably won’t be news, but writing every day is the only way in which you are going to improve your skill as a writer and hone your craft.

No-one (myself included) is going to be the next Shakespeare overnight, or even in the next few years, but taking the time to write daily does make a difference.

It can be anything — writing in your journal, writing article drafts or even crafting a witty Tweet. Anything that gets the writing cogs turning is a form of practice. Even spending just ten minutes a day counts and you’ll be surprised with how much you can squeeze in.

I’m incredibly fortunate in some ways — as I’ve been unemployed for seven months due to the pandemic, and hence, I decided to pursue writing, and use the time to work on it.

It’s been tough, and at times, hard to motivate myself due to the lack of routine, but in the past few months I’ve conditioned myself to write every day. And now it seems weird when I don’t write.

Writing daily will allow you to practice your craft, but also build up a bank of article ideas that can eventually be turned into stories.

Every minute and each word is always worth it.

Sometimes, You Only Need One ‘successful’ Article

I never thought I’d be one of those people that managed to produce a viral article within their second month on Medium.

It was never the aim — but somehow I managed it, twice. But these two articles have made up the majority of the $100 I made in my second month. And they only took a handful of hours to write. When I was writing them, I had no idea if they would be successful.

In my first month, I was making a few cents for every story and expected this to be the norm for a long time. After all, making money was never my aim, but merely, a bonus. But I started to see a trend on Medium, just by spending time reading articles and mentally noting what did well.

Medium has amazing content all round, but nearly every successful writer or story has a clickbait-style headline and is usually written in a listicle form.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be writing long essays, personal stories or reviews — hell, write what makes your heart sing. But — a catchy headline and attention-grabbing format seem to go a long way.

So I decided to try it out.

I wrote an article titled, 10 Books to Read in 2020, which compiled a list of some of my favourite reads this year. I love books and writing about them, so writing this was a breeze. It was curated (back when this was more of a big deal) and published in Books Are Our Superpower, and suddenly took off. To date, it has just shy of 5K views and has made me nearly $100 alone.

Now, that’s probably not considered viral by mainstream Internet standards, but for someone who has only just started writing — it was enough to fulfil mine. To test the waters a bit, I then decided to write another story in the same style.

I wrote another listicle, this time, titled 5 ‘difficult’ Books Worth Reading, published in the same publication. In the first week, nothing really happened so I assumed I hadn’t broken the mysterious Medium algorithm, but suddenly it started to do well. It’s now on nearly 10K views and has done twice as well as the first one.

The purpose of these examples is not to brag or claim that I have somehow cracked the code because I haven’t.

Largely, I write stories that I think will possibly do well but usually only get a handful of views. But, my point is, those two stories alone made up the bulk of my second month’s earnings and have already made me close to $90 this month.

If you can produce a viral article with longevity, it can keep you earning and gaining followers for months to come.

Be Active Within the Medium Community

I think this one is overlooked. But spending time on Medium has been crucial for me to grow my platform and come up with ideas of my own.

I spend a considerable amount of time reading stories by other writers and try to write one thoughtful comment on a piece I enjoyed reading every day.

It gives you a presence, helps to support your fellow writers and can even drive traffic to your own page. I’ve gained followers through this — but above all, inspiration and motivation.

I read so much of Medium that it’s been a while since I’ve actually finished a book, which is pretty ironic since I spend most of my time writing about them.

Now, you can still make money as a writer without being a paid Medium member — but for the price of a few dollars a month, you can get unlimited access to stories and can support writers just like you.

Don’t Let the Stats Pull You Down

This may seem counterintuitive, as I’ve featured my own stats quite heavily in this story.

Stats are important, as they can give you an inkling of what works but it’s crucial not to let them get the better of you. When I had those two articles that were taking off, I was reaching around 2,000 hits a day and for me — that’s a lot and it was kind of overwhelming.

Since I’ve tried not to check my stats so religiously. I still check them around three times a day, but I don’t spend every waking moment staring at them and waiting for them to move on their own.

More importantly, stats don’t define you as a writer and they shouldn’t be used to quell your passion or success.

They are a mere indication of how the Medium algorithm is working for you.

Good stats or bad stats don’t mean you are the perfect writer — they are just a sliver of an indication into the attention span of Medium readers and the internet alike.

Be Patient and Kind to Yourself

Once you start getting any kind of success or earning money, the natural instinct is often to want more, and this can be overpowering and even toxic.

Or if you’re not seeing success immediately, it can be easy to convince yourself that you need to work yourself into the ground. Don’t do this — you’ll only burn yourself out and probably won’t be able to stand the sight of Medium anymore.

Like anything in life, writing is built from hard work and dedication. But it’s important not to lose yourself in the process — take time away from writing if you’re struggling.

I usually take the weekends to focus on editing, reading, or generating writing ideas, as I’ve usually burned myself out throughout the week. That way, I can usually approach a new week with renewed inspiration.

Be kind to yourself, always. It will help in the long run.

A Summary of My Second Month on Medium

• Writing something every day helps to exercise your writing muscles and will help in the long run
• Often one successful article will make up the majority of your income in a month, especially if it’s evergreen
• Being active in the Medium community is rewarding in a variety of ways
• Stats can become addictive, but don’t let them define you
• Put yourself first at all costs and look after your mind in the way that it deserves

Here’s to many more happy months on Medium! Thank you for reading, as always.

I’ve recently taken the plunge and started my own publication, The Violet Review, if you enjoy reading my stories, feel free to head over there and give me a follow.