If You’re a Whiney Pants About Your Pay on Medium, This Is for You

Time to put your money where your big mouth is

If you’ve been a writer in Medium’s Partner Program for any length of time, you’ll have felt like you’re riding the world’s biggest, best, hairiest, ugliest, and most exhilarating roller coaster on the planet. Sometimes, all at once.

You’ll have likely heard of the thousands of bucks a month some of the Big Kids were earning, the ones who had been lucky enough to jump on this particular bandwagon in the early days, when there were plenty of readers and not as many writers as there are now. You might have been one of those who flocked to Medium, expecting to pound the hell out of your computer keys and make a fortune.

And maybe you succeeded. Although if you did, I’m pretty sure you ain’t readin’ this.

More likely, you arrived in the last couple of years. And maybe were one of the discouraged, downhearted and defeated wordsmiths who watched their stats — and earnings — do a dastardly swandive in early 2022 to the point where countless hours a day spent sweating and toiling on Medium resulted in nothing more than pitiful pennies in their pockets.

Whining, complaining and griping, oh, my!

Every other Medium article seemed to be on this miserable topic. I don’t read that stuff, but I sure spotted an awful lot of titles on the subject. Ew. Life’s too short to deliberately insert someone else’s negative attitude and energy into it.

Then (trumpets blaring, cheers aplenty, parades and marching bands) August of 2023 happened. Yay! Yippee!! Woohoo!! We will finally be rewarded for our efforts!

Annnnd…there was the fraud glitchy thing from late September/early October. Once again, let the whining commence! About 4 seconds after the trouble started, people were freaking out that Medium had faked us out with their audacious August offerings.

Even after word spread about what had happened and why things had gone wonky there for a minute, there were still those hangers-on who just had to be all gripe-ity gripe gripe gripe. (Insert exasperated eyeball-rolling, head-shaking, oh-for-Pete’s-SAKE expression *here*)

Medium should do this. Medium should know that. Medium should fix this. Medium should be able to cough up zillions of dollars for each of us! So what if they’re working with a mere $50/year per membership? Medium should do better! Blah blah bloody blah blah!

Jeez, Louise. Don’t like it? Pack up your toys, get the hell out of the sandbox and go home.

Well, for all you Mr./Ms. Whiney Pants Gripe-ity Gripe Gripes out there, now you get to put your money where your mouths are!

You wanna earn more? Well, yay! Medium has created something just for you!

But wait! There’s more!

It’s also for the rest of us who are grateful to be here, grateful to have a place to write whatever the heck we want (mostly) and as often as we want, grateful to be earning anything at all, and grateful to have such a splendiferous community and gobs of support and friendships!

And let’s not forget the banter! Best, beautiful, bickering, blissful banter you’ll find anywhere. Gotta love that!

So what’s the Magical Marvellous Medium news?

More Trumpets Blaring, Crowd-Cheering, Parade-Parading

Last night, I picked up my phone to have a quick peek at notifications as I was winding down for the night. I like to stay on top of them; it’s the respectful thing to do, making sure I respond as quickly as I can to those who have spent their precious time reading and commenting on my work.

Well, up popped a somethingorother suggesting I become a Friend of Medium. Huh? What’s that?

It’s a chance to help your fellow writers earn four times more when you read their work!

It’s a chance to use Friend Links again — AND have them factored into earnings, even when non-members use them!

Confused.com? Don’t believe me? Here’s what Alex Benzer says on the Medium blog:

“Friends of Medium will be able to create and share Friend Links for any paywalled story. When non-members follow these links and bypass the paywall, their read time is factored into the writer’s earnings. This means you can drive more earnings and reach for writers you love by sharing Friend Links to their stories.”

How freakin’ amazing is that??

Plus when you become a Friend of Medium, you get this really cute little picture by your photo, like I’ve got now:

And of course, you still get all the usual benefits of the Partner Program. All this for the low, low price of $15/month or just $150/year (Woohoo, still 2 months free!) – instead of the $5/$50, not “as well as” – and if you upgrade in the middle of a subscription cycle, you’ll be credited accordingly.

“But wait!” shout all the Whiney Pants people out there in Gripe-ity Land. “You said this was a chance for ME to earn more! But all you’ve said so far is that I can help other writers earn four times more money, AND I’ve gotta pay three times the fee to do it? ME ME ME ME ME! What’s in it for me?”

Well…okay. (Insert more eyeball rolling *here*). You really can’t figure this one out, eh?

(*Sigh*) All righty, then. How about this?

If everyone had your sucky attitude and no one became a Friend of Medium, nothing would change. If you want everyone else on Medium to cough up the extra cash for this new level of membership so you can earn more when they read your work (including your whining, complaining, please-God-don’t-make-me-read-them posts), then, um, maybe you ought to be back in kindergarten where they teach you how to play nicely and to share and to treat the other kids the way you’d like them to treat you.

Physics, Anyone?

And if plain old good manners and generosity don’t work for you, Newton’s Third Law of Motion applies here. For every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Throw a ball at a wall and it’ll come straight back and smack you in the face. Which you probably need if you can’t figure out how this whole Friend of Medium thing could work in your favour if you quit being a selfish cheapskate and sign up.

Please note: It’s one thing if you really, truly, geniunely do not have the extra money to sign up. But those are not the people I’m addressing. I’m well aware that not everyone is able to afford this, and their desire to do so has no bearing on whether or not they’d like to do it.

However, if I AM talking to you — well, you know who you are.

If you keep putting out an energy of selfishness and being a skinflint and not wanting to part with more of your own pennies while expecting all the other writers on Medium to do it so you can benefit, then the Universe will respond by limiting the number of people who want to read your work and interact with you. And it’ll be exactly what you deserve.

Medium is doing its best to please everyone and although that’s bloody impossible in any situation on the planet, I think the Powers That Be are doing a damned fine job trying to make this enormous and complicated machine work for everyone. Cut them a little slack, would you? They’re trying to help you.

But that means you have to do your part, too, Mr./Ms. Whiney Pants.

Be nice. Share. Help your fellow writers. And they just might help you in return. Become a Friend of Medium. Read read read read read the work of the other writers here. Clap, comment and highlight; all of it factors into payment. Then read some more.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

And maybe, if you are consistently putting out enough wonderfully generous energy in the spirit of what you can do for others, you might see it show up in your earnings.

Become a Friend of Medium here. You should also be able to see this option near the bottom when you click on your photo (top right of your profile, you know, where settings and all those other goodies are kept).

When you open your wallet — and your heart — you will be rewarded accordingly.

A heartfelt “Thank you” to J.J. Pryor for publishing on Feedium!