I Had My First $10 Day on Medium
Was it an anomaly, or a sign of things to come?
Like most writers on this platform, I enjoy waking up in the morning to check in on my earnings. I have just completed two months of full-on dedication to this platform, But I’m entering August of 2020 uncertain of what I can predict in earnings for month 3.
I hit $100 in monthly earnings last month, but I don’t know if I can realistically expect my earnings to increase as time goes on. Imagine my pleasant surprise this morning when I logged in to discover that I’d earned $10 in a single day for the first time!
Now, before I get too excited, it’s important to take note that daily earnings regularly rise and fall. An average of $10 a day would result in a $300 month which would be great. If my experiences from the first two months serves as any indication, I should be able to expect that the overall trend of my daily earnings should rise as the month continues. This, of course, assumes I will continue with the same level and quality of content.
All that being said, I can’t really conclude after only one day that I can expect $300 for August.
The stats don’t tell the whole tale
One of the fun parts about Medium is that there is so much guesswork. I feel that Medium does a good job of explaining how their platform works, but the platform does change with time.
Many Medium writers use complex sounding terms like “payment algorithm” because it sounds fancy and makes it seem like they know what they’re talking about. To be honest, I know that there are things called algorithms and that they contribute to web pages, but beyond that it’s just technobabble to me.
One of the things that I know from personal observation is that sometimes you have a huge day in terms of views that results in minimal earnings. There are also days when you might only get a handful of views, but you inexplicably see big earnings. As I understand it, you only earn when members read your posts, so if you’re drawing in a lot of outside eyeballs, that doesn’t necessarily make you money.
It’s pure speculation on my part, but my assumption is that the platform must like it when you write an article that brings in outside visits. After all, the more people who come to the platform, the more chance there is that they might become paying members. Therefore, even if you don’t make money on an article that gets a tremendous amount of views, it still behooves you to write that kind of article.
No viral articles
Although I have written articles that have gone viral on other platforms, I’ve yet to have an article go viral on Medium. That’s actually useful because it makes it easier to evaluate my statistics from a strategic perspective.
Don’t get me wrong, viral articles are great. There’s nothing more exciting than waking up in the morning to 10,000 notifications and realizing that you’ve struck a nerve and made people excited about your work. But viral articles are like a lottery ticket. It’s fantastic when they hit, but you can’t rely on them. Basically, your best tactic is to put the concept out of your mind and commit yourself to the grind of a regular work week.
My current strategy is to write 2 to 3 quality articles per day (including weekends) in order to produce 60 to 90 articles per month. For August my goal is to exceed my standard output a little bit and log 100 total articles. I am curious to see the earning progression that can be achieved through solidly performing articles. By “solid” I mean articles that receive anywhere from 100 to 1000 views.
Will $10 a day continue?
I think a big part about maximizing your earnings is to develop a base of followers that is comprised mainly of writers who are new to Medium. Writers who are new to the platform are not as likely as established writers to read a huge volume of articles. Therefore, you receive a greater percentage of their Medium subscriber fee (assuming that’s how the payment algorithm calculates earnings).
New members are more likely to engage with your posts and respond to encouragement. The concept is to build a tribe from the ground up and forge your own way to greater heights without overly relying on the fickle approval of gatekeepers.
Fortunately, I have no shortage of opinions
I was hanging out with a writer friend of mine named Joe Niese and he made an insightful comment. Joe is the author of several fascinating biographies about golden era football and baseball stars. He was discussing his latest book and mentioned how until the book is done, you can’t stop thinking about it. You only get a reprieve when you finally finish the manuscript. Once that happens, your relief is such that you might never think about the subject again.
Here’s a review I did of one of Joe’s books:
I find that Joe’s thought applies equally to writing articles. There are many times when I’m out on a run or something and I come up with two or three article ideas. Often, these ideas hound me until I can expel them by hitting publish on Medium. At that point, the compulsion leaves me and I can relax a little (at least until something else irritates me and I have to write about it).
Medium provides a wonderful platform that allows you to expel a bunch of ideas that may or may not be driving you a little bit nuts. As far as I’m concerned, that provides plenty of benefit all on its own. If I can receive the additional benefit of making $10 a day (or more), that’s just a bonus!
More stuff of mine:
