Summary

The author shares their journey and strategies for achieving a three-figure income from writing on Medium within three months, emphasizing writing for the audience, focusing on delivering value, and maintaining both quantity and quality in their articles.

Abstract

Andy, a former startup co-founder turned writer, details their transition from an avid reader to earning a substantial income through writing on Medium. The article outlines three key strategies that contributed to their success: consistently engaging with the audience by analyzing and responding to article performance metrics, prioritizing the delivery of valuable content over monetary gain, and balancing the production of a high volume of work with the maintenance of high-quality standards. Andy emphasizes the importance of understanding reader preferences, the necessity of providing meaningful takeaways, and the role of self-awareness in improving one's writing craft. The author encourages writers to persist through creative blocks and the challenge of unsuccessful articles, advocating for a focus on reader value and continuous learning and adaptation to achieve growth and financial success in writing.

Opinions

Writing on Medium is not just about content creation but also understanding and leveraging analytics to engage the audience effectively.
Success on Medium is contingent upon aligning personal writing interests with the interests and needs of the audience.
The pursuit of monetary rewards should not overshadow the commitment to providing genuine value to readers.
Quantity and quality are both crucial in writing; consistent practice and publication of valuable content lead to improved writing skills and increased reader engagement.
Self-awareness is key in a writer's development, allowing for the identification of strengths, areas for improvement, and personal writing rhythms that suit individual capabilities.
The true measure of an article's quality is determined by reader interaction, such as claps, reads, and views, rather than the writer's expectations or intentions.
Persistence in writing, even during periods of low motivation or creativity, is essential for growth and can enhance resilience and stress management.

How to Make Three Figures from Writing in One Month

The Three Things I Did to Actually Start Saying I’m A writer

Three months ago, I was only an avid reader on Medium.

There are amazing writers all over the platform, talking about different topics in the most coherent and eloquent manner—it seemed like magic, the way they strung their sentences and sliced their paragraphs.

Perhaps, I thought, I could do the same.

I started with topics I’m most comfortable with, basing off my experience and drawing on things that I’ve read and come across on the net. I weaved research and personal anecdotes together, which gradually expanded the article.

Although I did write a year ago, I only thought of it as “blogging”; it wasn’t meant to be an article, and neither did I expect it to be paid for it.

After three months of writing, editing and hitting publish, I finally got my first three-figure income (and a feature on the platform’s very own publication).

While I’m not anywhere near the top writers on Medium who boast hundreds of claps and copious views, I’m at a stage where a huge bulk of writers on Medium are at.

This is the “growth stage”.

Article ideas are always flowing. Creative blocks hit from time to time. There’s always an average of a hundred to a thousand views per article.

And not forgetting, the earnings that I get from an article.

Before hitting my first ever three-figure income, I did many experiments.

With over 70 stories under my belt, there lies a huge chunk of failed articles: articles that never got past a double-digit view count, and articles that had traffic but zero earnings.

What can a growth stage writer—any writer, in fact—do to start the ball rolling?

№1: Keep Writing For Your Audience

It sounds like a no-brainer—how else can you improve without writing for an audience?

The idea is this: I didn’t simply hit ‘new story’ after every article.

When you want your articles to get views, you need to do more than just write. Writing on Medium requires analytics. You need to understand the statistics and what goes behind them.

It is a game of giving value and consumer behaviour.

Definitely, when we write, we want to give value to the reader. We wish we could ignore the statistics—if we write enough, surely, the money will come.

That’s true to a certain extent: money will come only when your writing is tailored to your audience.

Knowing what makes the readers tick is important. As a writer, our main goal is to deliver takeaways and value to our readers.

You need to focus on what gives you claps, reads, and views.

Articles with a lot of views: why is that so? Is it due to the relatability? Has it been curated? Is it on a publication?
Articles with a lot of reads: why is the read ratio high for this article? Why are people willing to scroll all the way (and that matters more for longer articles)?
Articles with a lot of claps: Why do people like it? Why are your readers willing to clap for your articles when they could simply exit the article? Are they paying members?

Writing ‘what you want to write’ is terrible advice unless it coincides with your audience’s interests. As a writer, your focus should always be on giving value, not for self-interest.

№2: Focus on The Value

It is never good to focus on the money. Sure, we all wish to make a living out of something we love to do. Hence, we write articles that don’t provide value, but only to draw eyeballs — listicles, clickbait titles just to name a few.

Trust that the money will come to you: your focus is on the value. Are your readers going to learn anything from the article?

When you also understand how to write for your audience, you are better able to deliver the value in your article—perhaps due to some writing flaws, you leave some readers confused and therefore, not get the point of your article.

When you focus on the value, you go fast.

You are not tied down by how much you earn. Even though they are important metrics, they are not something we can directly control.

Your readers pay you: let your work decide how much it’s worth. The only way to go is up.

№3: Quantity and Quality Both Matter

You’ve heard of the age-old adage: “Quality over quantity.”

For Medium, both quantity and quality matter.

Though no one needs low-quality articles, ensuring that you are constantly practicing your craft and publishing valuable articles are what matters most. In essence, what you’re trying to do is:

Write as much as you are capable of, in terms of your time, your energy, your mental and physical well-being as well as your skill level;
Create an environment where you are constantly forced to think of new ideas, splinter content, draw valuable insights from research or elsewhere—this keeps you innovating. With time, it gets ingrained in your mind;
Constantly write even if you are in a bad state: well we deserve to take breaks and we need to identify when we are burning out, writing even when we aren’t feeling our best is a great way to train our stress receptors and resilience
Deploy self-awareness around your own writing ability: some people are capable of writing one article a day, others are more suited to writing one in a week—everything is valid

With time, the quality of your articles will increase; your writing capabilities will be sharpened with each article.

As you write, ditch the expectations that your article will be good, curated, featured or even viewed.

You just need to keep writing.

Deploying a lot of self-awareness is important to a writer—or any career, for that matter. Knowing where you can improve and where you can focus on will make you a better writer.

For instance, there are writers who write like machines, producing articles day after day. On the other hand, there are writers who prefer to publish an article twice a week, choosing to dig really deep into topics.

Regardless of what writer you are, your role is to give as much value as you can to the reader.

“What will my reader understand from this article?”

“What will my readers learn and apply in their lives from this article?”

These are the questions that you need to constantly ask yourself with every article you write.

No matter how good of a writer you are, your words and hours spent on the draft will not matter to the reader—they decide the quality of your work, and knowing what goes into that decision-making process is what will give you three, four or even five figures.

It’s all about writing for the audience.

I’m Andy, a former startup co-founder turned writer. My works have been published on e27, Marker and other digital publications. I’m also the founder of the management publication H+B.