LIFE HACKS

I Made Money On Medium

Making my first $5 on Medium

I’ve been a Medium member since December 2018. But because Medium requires using only Stripe accounts for their Partner Program, I couldn’t make money writing articles straight away because Malaysia wasn’t supported by Stripe — until mid of July 2019.

When I was first informed that Stripe was finally supporting users in Malaysia, I was thrilled!

Finally! I can start making money on Medium!

Well, that was what I thought to myself.

Having had very little followers and not as many articles published, I knew I was in for a long ride before I could start making serious money on here.

I read how other writers took weeks, months and some even years before they started generating decent income from Medium. But it didn’t discourage me. I love writing. For me, it’s somewhat of an escape from the many negative things that are happening in the world right now. And I was determined to make this work, regardless of how long it will take.

After all, the main reason I’m writing on Medium is not to make money, but to inspire others and to be inspired by others. Making money from it? That’s a bonus!

I’ve had a lot of mentors along the way in my young career so far, and they always had one advice in common.

“Benny, don’t go chasing after money if possible. Wherever you can, chase growth instead.”

As hard as it is (especially when you’re not financially stable), it is good advice and since I have a somewhat steady income from my day job, I know that I can be flexible on Medium and treat making money on here as a side thing for now and instead, focus on growth and learning.

Since being a Medium Partner from mid July, I have written 6 articles that are under the Partner Program. Honestly, I wasn’t confident of making any money as my articles were not getting the views, reads and the main thing that is needed to make money — the claps.

But then, I got invitation to write for the publication, Data Driven Investor (DDI) and my next article on social media detox got featured on it and more views and reads started to come in. People started clapping for it too and just today, it hit the 10 fans mark! To the seasoned writer, it may not be much, but for a new writer like me, it means a lot!

I tried not to focus too much on the number of views, reads and claps that I got because subsequent articles after that didn’t get the same amount of traction. Could be because they were published in different publications or the articles just haven’t resonated with more readers yet.

What I do know is that I AM learning and growing more as a writer and I want to just keep writing, improving and hopefully make a good impression and a good impact to whoever reads my work.

Getting my first $5 (well, $4.88 but who’s counting huh?) from Medium was pleasantly nice.

Honestly, if it was $5, $50, $500 or even $5000, the feeling would still be the same. It was my first income from Medium and I was proud of myself. I remember opening up that email and took a screenshot of it and sent it to my wife on WhatsApp. It was an achievement for me and one that has encouraged and motivated me to do more, to do better and to BE better.

Will I make another $5 for the month of August?

With so many writers showing results of making at least $100 a month or more, I should be aiming higher right?

Well, I am and I will try my best to write better, higher quality articles. Hopefully, I will make at least another $5 (well, hopefully much more then that!) for the month of August and grow it bigger. For some lucky ones, they’re able to grow their followers and their articles are constantly curated and get huge amounts of views and claps. For others, the road to get there will be long and hard but the destination at the end of it will be well worth it.

Plus, with so many good writers out there giving tips and sharing their experiences on how they’ve succeeded on Medium, I can only stand to gain from learning from them and that will help me grow my own income too. Don’t worry, I will definitely be sharing my own experiences along the way.

Here’s to more $5 to come!