I Finally Made It to $100 Club

Celebrating my one-year anniversary on Medium

I’ve just joined 7% of writers who’ve made it to the $100 Club! And I wonder if it’s just the beginning of my journey and what lies ahead.

I’ve been writing on the platform for a year. With a magic stroke of luck, I finally hit a $100 Club. Well, technically, I did. My last month’s earnings came to $99.95. I figured I’ll still write this article even if I’m short of 5 cents, which just means that one more reader didn’t read my article. I thought it would be nice to share some useful tips and information on how I got there.

If you want to know my story, read on. I’ll be brutally honest about what it took me to reach this milestone.

My journey to a $100 club was not a smooth gliding on the ice; it was more like walking along a tortuous road, trying to find a straight path.

I put a lot of time and effort into understanding what Medium wants. That meant I focused on not just writing but also studying the platform, analyzing my stories, and see what worked and what didn’t. As I learned more about what stories perform well, I pivoted my strategy accordingly.

I started with just a few dollars back in May 2020. My first month barely covered my membership fee. And so were the next few months. My earnings were basically hovering around $10, as you can see below.

But somewhere around my 6th month, things took a drastic turn. And this happened because more and more of my stories were getting distributed. I kept going and publishing and slowly crawled my way up. My earnings have kept growing gradually every month. And this month my earnings bumped up to $99.95 (by the way, don’t be alarmed by $564. 47 in April as I got $500 from Medium as a bonus that month).

If you’re a new writer trying to figure out your way through the platform, one thing you have to realize is that writing on Medium is a slow game. You have to put in a lot of work and consistent effort to see the results.

To become a privileged member of the $100 Club wasn’t easy. It took a long time and trial and error. For me, that meant publishing regularly (once to once every two days), producing quality articles (I strategized what articles to put out), and aiming for a higher curation rate.

If I had to pinpoint ONE factor behind my success, it is this.

Curation played a huge part in my success. How many curated stories you produce matters a lot.

The truth is, you can produce tons of mediocre articles and waste your time. The harsh reality is, Medium shuts them down quickly and creates visibility and advantage to those writers with better engagement and higher curation rates.

What does this mean for you? You won’t likely earn substantial income here if your stories aren’t “chosen for further distribution.” I can’t speak for everyone, but that’s what my experience has shown.

Curated stories perform better, but not always. They give you an extra advantage. They may not give you the views you want right away, but you have to look at the long picture. From looking at my stories, I can tell most of my earnings were driven by curated stories. For example, if I published nothing for two days, my old curated stories were still racking up the views and adding to my earnings.

Don’t count on stability

When you write on Medium, keep in mind that your earnings will never be the same from month to month. The reason is, you can’t control Medium’s algorithm and so you can’t control your earnings either.

One month you may have a peak in views and reads; the next month your views may tank. And so your earnings may fluctuate too because of these changes. Add to this the changes to the platform and its algorithm, your earnings will never be linear.

So if I hit a $100 Club this month, will my earnings increase next month? Maybe yes, maybe not. Some writers reported lower income after hitting that golden threshold. But no matter how lucky you are, never lose hope. Consistency beats bad luck.

Keep writing and publishing consistently so you’re not swept under the radar. The platform thrives on fresh content and that’s what readers want to see. To create visibility, you need to be at the forefront of your readers.

From now on, I plan to keep writing and publishing on this platform. I’m curious to see where my writing journey will take me. I’ve gone a long way and learned a lot since I first started writing. I think there’s always room for growth and I learn and discover new things as I go.