Is Writing on Medium Worth It if You Don’t Make (Much) Money Out Of It?

Pros and cons of one month of being active here

I have been writing on Medium for slightly over a month.

During this period, I produced 11 stories, mostly in the non-fiction genre, where I talk about my life, my experience with a toxic relationship I recently terminated, my journey to recovery, my mental health, my pregnancy, and my becoming a single mom.

Moreover, I engaged with a number of other Medium articles, leaving comments on those I found useful, interesting, well-written, or inspiring.

I accumulated 74 followers, which is not a lot, but still a reasonable number, considering that, since I write under a pseudonym, I didn’t promote myself outside of Medium. I literally built my audience one follower at a time, by simply interesting them in my writing.

Though I didn’t track the exact hours I spent crafting the articles, I suspect it was a considerable amount of time.

My pieces are of medium length, require processing complicated emotions while writing, and are in English, which is not my native language. Moreover, I’m in no way re-chewing content produced elsewhere by me or others (else, where would the fun be?), and my writing is not AI-assisted (only heart-assisted!) — except for the language proofreading step.

Considering the effort I put into this, I must admit I am somewhat disappointed not to have reached the milestone of 100 followers or to have higher view counts (they haven’t surpassed 1k altogether).

It is also true that I didn’t start writing here to make money. It was more about finding an outlet for my creativity and processing my emotions — but in a way that is more compelling than just writing for myself. And now, the positive feedbacks from commenters, likes, and new followers fuel my motivation and keep me going.

Now that I'm in the game, however, I’m also beginning to understand how some writers make decent money out of it. So, obviously, my ambitious and competitive side wonders if I can achieve the same.

I know that starting from August the rules for earning money will change, but I’m not so positive that this will make a big difference for me, given my current low view and read counts.

On top of that, I am aware that, for the moment, I only have two more months to keep going. Once my baby arrives, I know there will be a long writing stop, as I’ll be taking care of him as a single mom.

So let’s assume for the next future I won’t earn any money from Medium, or maybe very little, like a few bucks. Will it still be worth it?

By thinking about it, I have compiled a pros and cons bullet list based on my last month of activity here:

Pros:

• I pushed myself to dig into the complicated emotions of this period and introspect. This provided some valuable intellectual understanding of myself, that possibly I wouldn’t have achieved otherwise.
• I connected with people who read and commented on my stories. It wasn’t a big number, but their comments were heartwarming! (Thank you!)
• I discovered some amazing stories and interesting publications. For example, nowadays I’m all into reading how people introduce themselves in their About Me Stories.
• As my curiosity about Medium increased, I learned a number of things about how the platform works, how to edit articles, where to pick great pictures and how to properly attribute them, which titles work better, how to use Grammarly, and I’m starting to grasp what SEO is.
• I’m basically starting to create a portfolio while having fun, without the pressure of formal work.
• I’m genuinely enjoying the writing process, and hopefully improving as a writer.
• I am certainly becoming stronger in writing in English as a non-native speaker.
• This experience may open or facilitate opportunities for writing jobs in the future.
• Last but not least, as Medium is my favorite game these days, I lately neglected other social media I’d usually spend time on, which are way more useless, aka not providing me with as much growth.

Cons:

• Writing on Medium consumed a significant amount of my time, potentially replacing other fruitful activities like more work, more socializing, more sports, or meditation.
• Some content I encountered on Medium — while trying to read as many different things as possible — was honestly subpar and felt like a waste of my time.
• I’m unsure how protected my content is from being plagiarized within and outside Medium.

Though the pros currently outweigh the cons, I recognize that the present moment is literally the most precious resource in life. Writing for free is enjoyable and not a waste of the present moment as long as it remains fun.

However, since I tend to live in my brain a lot, I know that sitting and writing can be a much easier choice for me rather than going for a swim, meditating, or joining friends outside. So I think I should set boundaries for my writing time in order to remain balanced.

Finally, I can’t say if I will see the same value in writing on Medium when I’ll have to deal with a newborn and I’ll be (realistically) exhausted and overwhelmed. Time will tell!