How to Make It on Medium as a Writer
After publishing every day, for one year, I’ve figured it out.
Success is a dedicated, obsessive focus on something you want.
“All great achievements are the result of sustained focus over time — all of them.” Gary Keller
Focus and persistence are what separates the mediocre from someone with abundance. You define abundance in anything you desire — money, love, happiness, shoes. Whatever it is, someone who has success did things to get there that other people were unwilling to do.
Part of getting what you want is knowing what you have to give up to get it.
If you want to upgrade your life, you need to upgrade your level of thinking. Because if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you will get what you’ve always gotten.
What does that look like for a writing career?
As simple as it sounds, you have to write. However, it is not always easy to implement. But if you want to get noticed, you have to share your stories. And a lot of them. This may require that you give up other things to get it. If you say you don’t have time to write, then you won’t.
If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you will get what you’ve always gotten.
You would have time to write if you gave up something to maximize your writing time, like your 30-minute facebook habit, binging all five seasons of Breaking Bad, deleting 150 emails you don’t even open from subscriptions you signed up for over a year ago. And many other habits that equate to time sucks.
You can find an hour or two to write if you give up just one of these things.
Step one
After you decide what your priorities are and determine your goals, and are willing to take action required to achieve them, the first thing you must do is establish a writing habit.
Be realistic.
Start with realistic expectations. You will be doing a lot of writing in the beginning, with not much glory — reads. Especially if you’re beginning without an audience from another platform, like Quora, Reddit, Facebook, or Twitter.
What you can control.
The only thing you can control is how much you write. You control how much you contribute. You control whether you set up a daily writing habit.
You can’t control how many people read your stories.
Yes, share everywhere on social media — Medium centric Facebook groups are a great place to start — but even then, you can’t rely on Facebook groups alone; the writing must be there. You can’t force people to read. But if you put in the effort to increase your writing frequency, your chances of producing a viral article that makes money will increase significantly.
I didn’t see my first viral story until I published every day for four months — your first viral story may come sooner than mine.
Every writer’s journey will be different on Medium.
You might have a viral story the first week out. You never know until you try.
Most of the articles I write don’t gain much traction, they earn dollars, but it is the accumulative output of my work that counts. Because out of the quantity of articles you produce, some will land, some will be great and gain a lot of attention and traction.
It will benefit you to realize that most of your earnings will come from only a small number of your articles, maybe even as low as 5%. The more articles you produce, the higher the chance of hitting greatness with some engagement and readership for a few articles.
Stay positive.
Look at the articles that don’t gain much traction as a positive.
They gave you practice writing; they strengthened your writing muscle.
The ones that don’t gain traction may not even be poorly written; maybe the title needs reworking or the first sentence, or you may need a different image.
The point is to write.
Hone your style, voice, and rhythm, not only the rhythm of your writing but also your content flow.
How much content can you realistically produce?
I now have experience writing anywhere from six to ten articles per week, and it is much easier now than when I first started. The muscle is developed. The first couple of months were really hard, but once I got over that hump, my writing muscle stronger, it takes a lot less bandwidth to write an article from start to finish.
Work the muscle, and you will be surprised how much you can write in one week.
The reality.
There are many articles out there on how to write a viral story. They are hogwash. You can’t set out to write a viral story unless you have an established audience.
Viral content is the result of consistent writing over some time.
Each writer’s journey is different and depends on several factors — writing experience, number of followers, topics, headlines. But the number one predictor is keeping at it until you succeed. You won’t succeed if you stop trying.
The genius thing that we did was we didn’t give up.— Jay Z
Keep going.
You will have a higher chance of success if you keep presevering. You will have zero chance of success if you stop now.
The content has to be there.
When a story goes viral, it does not mean your next story will go viral; it most likely won’t. No matter how many people tell you do x,y, z to write a viral story, there is no magic formula; you just have to keep writing quality work.
Your cumulative output matters more than any single thing you write.
The secret to becoming a better writer — and one who is paid — is to become a prolific one.
Step Two
Write a list of the topics you love to talk and read about.
Here are some of mine: • Relationships • Life Lessons • Divorce • Writing • Productivity • Entrepreneurship • Blogging • Money • Financial Freedom • Love • Politics • Social Media
We all have things we are good at, have education in, have a ton of experience with, or want to learn. What are yours?
Another way to determine this is to look at which topics and tag on Medium are the most popular. See if any spark an interest. What are the ones you would love to try and write about?
When I’m bored with one topic, I switch to a different one. I’m not sure this is the best strategy, but that is what I’ve done, and it works for me. It’s one reason I’m able to write every day. If I had to write about only money or only relationships, I would not write as often as I do.
Mix it up; you don’t have to stay on one genre, one topic, or even two.
The important thing is to write.
As Jeff Goins writes,
“I’m not kidding when I say what you write about doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. At the end of the day, there is one box you need to check, and it reads:
Have I written?
Check YES/NO”
If you are stuck, ask yourself these questions. • When I go out with a friend, what do I like to talk about? • When I look up things to read on the internet, what are those topics? • What podcasts interest me most? • What have I had schooling/training in? • When I’m scrolling Facebook, what topics make me stop and read? • What advice do I typically give to friends and loved ones?
We all have different interests and talents, write yours.
When you have a strong opinion about something, share it. The confidence in your beliefs will jump off the page and resonate with your reader, even if it is negatively and your reader strongly disagrees, well, they are still reading your writing. Maybe they will leave a thoughtful comment and share their perspective. This will give you another angle from which to write your next article.
The recipe to make it on Medium:
The way to make it on Medium is to write and share every day or a minimum of three to five times per week. Quality plus quantity and people will start to notice.
Write on.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering type-A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.
