How to Make $800 in a Single Month on Medium

With a lot of hard work and determination, you can absolutely make $800 or more in a single month on Medium!

In some ways all the hard work I’ve done on Medium since March has led to this moment.

On February 28 of this year, I decided to commit to a month-long experiment on Medium. Three stories a day for thirty-one days, and see where I end up.

The most I’d ever made in a month on Medium going back to May 2018 was $84. I didn’t expect to make a whole lot more than that, even if I did manage to produce a lot more content.

In ten years of writing almost every single day, I’ve rarely made any income from my work, and I didn’t exactly expect it to start happening now.

But I stayed hopeful as I wrote and publish three stories a day for the month of March. I wrote some great pieces that month, and I also made a lot of mistakes. I published ninety-three pieces to Medium in a single month, and what did I earn?

$178.

Not bad, not bad! It didn’t seem to be enough to warrant all the time I was devoting to Medium. I wrote and published eleven pieces in February and made $84. Then I wrote and published ninety-three pieces in March… and only was able to double my income.

That seemed a bit disappointing at the time, and I questioned whether or not to continue writing and producing a lot in April.

Thankfully my teaching semester was winding down in about a month’s time, and I also didn’t have any jobs lined up for the summer. I realized between June 15 and August 15 I wasn’t going to be making anything. So why not commit to another few months writing and producing a lot on Medium and see what happens?

So I continued writing a lot for Medium in April. A whole hell of a lot.

There was a week I wrote and published fifty pieces. Fifty! In seven days!

That was absolutely insane, and I’ve never come close to that kind of number since. I actually think there’s something to be said for writing too much on Medium. Your readers can go through only so many pieces, after all, and if you publish six a day, who has time to look at it all, let alone clap for it?

But I went all in, anyway. I figured, why the hell not. Let’s just produce tons of content and see what happens. Most of April my numbers stayed about the same as March, funnily enough. I had exactly two days early in the month where my numbers jumped for views, reads, and claps, but other days nothing much was happening.

That is, until Thursday, April 25. That was the day where everything changed. I still don’t know why, exactly, other than the fact that all of my pieces that day performed better than average. I had more and more people following my Medium publication and my e-mail list on ConvertKit, which also helped.

But everything sort of changed for the better at the end of April. First of all, I learned that in five weeks’ time I earned a truly astonishing amount on Medium.

$576!

And better yet, my income was increasing week after week. From $68 in the first week of that five-week pay period all the way up to nearly $200 by the final week of the pay period. Things were happening, and I was thrilled.

In May the numbers kept growing and growing.

I had this beautiful period in May where I wrapped up my teaching semester and had nothing else to do for a few weeks really than write for Medium. In the month of June I drafted a new novel and that took up a huge part of my writing days, but in May I was able to devote many hours to my Medium pieces, and I averaged between four and five stories a day.

And instead of my numbers leveling out or even going down, they just kept increasing. More and more readers were finding value in what I had to say. I wrote more personal stories that resonated with readers. My poems were getting curated, and some of my short stories, too.

I wrote more than ever before about Medium, which readers have seemed to enjoy. And I kept on talking about fiction writing, which I continue to do to this day.

I had no idea what my income for last month was going to be. What did I make after four weeks of really hard work on Medium in May?

$940.

That number blew my mind. Particularly since I made only $29 in January of this very same year. I went from $29 to $940 in just five months, and that kind of growth and success is something I’m not used to as a writer. I’m used to failure, disappointment. I’m used to things just not working out.

So to finally have something go my way after nearly a decade in the writing arena made me emotional, to be honest. The support I’ve received lately has been nothing short of spectacular.

That leads me to the rest of the summer.

I’m not gonna lie. A little four-digit number had been at the top of my mind in June. I didn’t expect it necessarily — I think it’s best for your sanity on Medium not to ever expect a certain number when it comes to your views, reads, claps, or income — but I certainly hoped for it as the days passed.

I made $940 in May. And I hoped I could get to $1000 in June. $1000 in a single month from my writing would have meant the world to me. I couldn’t even believe I was in a position where this was possible. I still can’t, to be honest. I’m usually the one making $29 in a month and gazing up at the other writers making $1000. That’s what I’ve been used to my whole life.

Well, that finally changed, and I couldn’t be more grateful. In June I earned $1076. Holy freakin’ cow! And then in July I earned another $1075, almost exactly the same as June (although July’s payment was for five weeks instead of four).

In the month of August my numbers went down a bit. I was prepared for this. I was revising a difficult novel and prepping to teach my college classes and I didn’t have as much time to dedicate to Medium as I did earlier in the summer.

Still though, how cool is to to earn more than $800 in just four weeks time on this site?

It’s still incredible to me how much growth I have achieved since I earned $29 in January and $84 in February.

Between May 2018 and February 2019 I earned $344. That’s $344 for ten months of work.

What did I earn between March 2019 and August 2019?

$4,684!

I’ve made almost $5000 in just six months on Medium, wow! That’s the kind of growth I’m not sure I could have even dreamed about at the beginning of the year.

After six months of writing regularly for Medium, I couldn’t be happier, prouder, or more grateful.

Keep in mind that surpassing $800 or more in a single month on Medium did not come fast or easily. This is the sixteenth month I’ve been writing for Medium, after all. Sixteen months of working really, really hard.

Those are the two things you need to do, really, if you want to make $800 or more in a single month on Medium.

Work really hard, producing great content each passing week, if not each passing day.

And, maybe even more importantly, sticking it out for the long haul. Not giving up after two months, six months, even ten months. I could have given up in February. No one would have faulted me for it.

But then I would have lost out on nearly $5000 these past six months!

Keep in mind that the writing part doesn’t necessarily get any easier. I’m not taking days off and basking in the sun. Since I went all in on March 1, I haven’t taken a single day off.

In fact, I can’t remember the last time I didn’t spend at least two hours a day writing and publishing stories to Medium.

There’s a lot I’ve done to get to the point of making more than $800 in a single month, that’s for sure.

But I do believe the biggest thing I continue to do is show up every single day to present new, helpful content and offer a little advice and encouragement to all of you.

Show up every day to entertain, inform, or inspire, preferably all three.

I might be able to surpass $800 again in September. Or I might make something close to it. Or I might dip dramatically, I have no idea.

Whatever happens next in September and beyond, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading and supporting my work these past few months.

I never would have been able to do this without you!

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Brian Rowe is an author, teacher, book devotee, and film fanatic. He received his MFA in Creative Writing and MA in English from the University of Nevada, Reno, and his BA in Film Production from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He writes young adult and middle grade suspense novels, and is represented by Kortney Price of the Corvisiero Agency. You can read more of his work at his website, brianrowebooks.com.