I Won My First Dollar For Writing

A little of my experience for writing newcomers

I discovered my passion for writing and reading when I was twenty years old in college, one of my colleagues who was younger than me showed me some of his writing, and it was amazing. Unfortunately, he wrote only for himself, it was like an escape valve to him, showing only for those who were close to him.

I decided to give it a try, why not, I had some ideas that I would love to write about, and I did. My first writings were about movies, I love the artistic manifestation that cinema gives us. But, unlike my colleague, I wanted people to read what I wrote, to be heard, and know that I had a voice, then I shared my writings with my friends and on my social media. Yet, it didn’t go how I hoped, very few visualizations and zero replies, I get it, who on Facebook want to read what I have to say.

I kept writing, but at some point, I realized that every time I put my pen on the paper I struggled, it was hard to put words and phrases logically. I understood that was lacking something, I had to study, then I bought the book “On Writing” by Stephen King.

King is simple in his “lessons” about writing, there were a lot of important things that I realized that was missing to be able to write properly, it was read.

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” — Stephen King

I created the habit of reading and writing a little every day, my writing slightly improving each day, it became natural to write, the words come more often and I was able to logically arrange my texts.

“Now I’m ready to be heard” I thought, and I wasn’t, the same issue kept bothering me, I couldn’t continue to write on Facebook, it is not the ideal place for it. Then, talking to a friend, he commented about Medium, he said that was a place for writers and readers, and that writers get actually paid.

I didn’t believe of any payment and that’s not why I came, but as you can see, I decided to give it a try, I’m about to complete my first-month writing here in Medium, I published exactly ten articles during this period and I went insanely happy when I realized that my articles made me $1.

I simply could not believe that I was getting paid to write!

For those who are newcomers here in Medium, I’ll give some tips detailing my first-month experience.

1. Get to know the platform

As I said before, when I started writing here I already had some articles wrote, then I just exported them and published. It may not be the best idea, first, before writing like crazy, spend some time to read how Medium works, its curation’s Guidelines, understand what are Publications and their perks.

2. Write about your perspective

One thing that I noticed, is that those articles who contains more personal perspectives are the most read, most people come to Medium to read about others experience. Try to write more about your perspective rather than facts, and if you want to write about facts, use your feelings towards it.

3. Find your niché

In general, people have one thing or two that they know about, use it in your favor, write about what you know and like, when it is done, look for Publications with the same content of your writing, there you’ll be able to achieve followers and to follow others with common subjects.

4. Be kind and promote, don’t sell yourself

Medium has a lot of Facebook groups that help writers to promote themselves, there are a lot of opportunities to show your work and to read others as well. But those groups are full of people who post their work in a daily thread and goes to other groups to do the same, don’t be that person. If you find some articles that are of interest, read it, clap for it, give a reply, be gentle and true.

It was a funny month here, I’ll continue to write independently of the amount of money I make because I enjoy it.

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