It’s All About The Claps

Truthfully, we’re all just aching for the claps to come for every single article that we post on Medium

I’ve said it on a few of my articles how I’m here mainly to inspire and be inspired. I want to read the amazing work of so many talented writers on here and at the same time, I want others to love the work that I put out as well.

It’s not about the money, I said.

Turns out, I’ve been lying to myself the whole time.

Well, half a lie at least.

Because I DO want to make money with my writing and I DO want to make money here on Medium through my articles.

Reading about how only 57% of writers made something in August shows just how hard it actually is. And the fact that only 7.9% of active writers made over $100 kinda cements the fact it is hard.

On the other hand, you had a writer that made close to $23,000 in August and ONE single article made over $6,000!

ONE article.

Just ONE.

Honestly, I’d like to know what article that was and how many fans/claps it received. Must have been in the tens of thousands or more.

And that’s what we’re most fixated on for our articles, isn’t it?

The fans and claps that we get from writing our hearts and minds.

I used to check my stats every hour. Just to see if there are any increase in views, reads and claps. And when I don’t see improvements, I’d get so frustrated and ask myself…

“Are my articles just not good enough?”

I’d like to think that they are but have not found the correct audiences yet.

And honestly, there have been days in the past 3 months that I’ve been writing on Medium where I question if I’m any good to continue doing this. Is it really worth investing over 3–4 hours a day in this when I’m making peanuts?

In my first month, I only made $5 which was to be honest, an amazing feeling.

It was the most I’ve ever made from my writing.

My first short story that I published a few years ago only made a total of $3 and it took me 3 months to write, edit and illustrate. It was over 8,000 words long.

Making $5 from less words is nice.

My second month, I made $26 which was more than what I was targeting to make. I only targeted $10, double my first month. So, to actually double my target, that was nice.

But then, I read about people who makes hundreds, if not, thousands on Medium and I get all bummed up. That’s why I keep telling myself that it’s not about the money, it’s about the impact that my writing is making.

Which is why I said I’ve been lying to myself all these while, half lies.

As much as I do want to inspire my readers, I want to make money just as badly

In the past few weeks, I’ve been a bit of a busybody on this platform. I’ve been stalking other people’s profiles.

Do you want to know what I noticed?

A lot of users who USED to write but have not written a single article for a very long time.

Some for months, some for over a year.

And ALL of them had this one thing in common.

All their previous articles had very LOW fans.

And when I say low, I mean very, VERY low.

A clap here and there, some not even getting a single clap. Some of them, the most claps any of their articles received were not more than 10 claps. Bear in mind, any user of this platform is allocated a total of 50 claps per article. How many articles you can give 50 claps for in a month, I have no idea but you do get 50 claps per article that you read.

The fact that NONE of these writers received more than 10 claps on any of their articles must have been heartbreaking.

I think because of that, they stopped.

They stopped writing.

They stopped believing that they were writers.

They stopped believing that they’re good enough.

I bet you, that if they had gotten at least a 100 claps for each of the articles that they wrote, they’d still be writing now.

Instead, they’re probably just readers only now or they’d gotten off Medium altogether.

I won’t lie.

There have been articles that I’ve written that have gotten ZERO claps. Not just that, but ZERO reads too. Meaning people clicked on my article, but they never read it. Probably didn’t find the title or picture or the first paragraph interesting enough.

There were times, especially at the start where I doubted myself if I was cut out to be a writer.

But thankfully, I continued on.

I told myself that I’d give it a go for a month.

And when I saw that my subsequent articles after that started to get some traction, it got views, reads, claps and even curated, it gave me encouragement. When I saw that I had made $5 in July, I was thrilled!

That’s when I knew I would give it a real go at this.

But what truly sealed the deal for me was when I started to get comments and responses on my articles.

Readers telling me how my articles had resonated with them and it helped them when they needed it. That was when I knew that I am a good enough writer and that I should focus on getting better.

Because, the better writer I become, the better my articles will get.

The better articles I put out, the more readers I’ll get, the more followers of my work I’ll get and let’s be honest, more claps and more money too.

My target for September is to at least match my August’s earnings of $26, which some of you may find small.

Heck, even I find it small but I’m still new and I am starting small.

But I have no doubt, that I will eventually get to my aim of being in that 7.9% of writers that makes over $100 a month and eventually, get my earnings on Medium to the thousands per month. I’m planning to hit the $100 a month mark by January 2020 and hopefully the $1,000 a month mark by July 2020.

And for those of you writers reading this and are in it for the money, I want you to do it too. Because if others can do it, I don’t see why we can’t either.

Let’s keep putting out our best work.

Let’s get those claps in.

We got this.