It’s My One Year Anniversary On Medium

Deep diving into the details of my first year on the platform.

I actually joined Medium on January 15th, 2022, but since I didn’t submit an article until the 31st, I’ve decided to hold off on posting this until now. This, to me, is my real one-year celebration.

I call the first 2 weeks research and development.

It amazes me how quickly life can change. One year ago I was feeling like I was spinning my wheels with not much direction. I felt like I was out here on the planet aimlessly floating around. I dabbled in all sorts of different ways to make money, but nothing made complete sense. At least, none of it made sense in comparison to how much Medium makes sense.

I originally heard about Medium from a YouTube video that I was watching. In it, the guy talked about his different streams of income as a nomad. Medium was the last item on his list, and he barely gave it any attention. But I heard him say that he earned “roughly one hundred dollars per month for his writing,” and that was enough to pique my interest.

I figured that if he could make one hundred dollars per month, then surely I could as well.

I had messed around with a couple of different blogs but nothing seemed to take hold. I’ve always enjoyed writing and had aspirations to be a travel writer when I was in my early twenties, but I never could figure out how to do it. Plus, I will admit that I really never tried as hard as I could have either.

I have submitted articles to physical publications a few times. But somehow I never wrote what they were interested in, at least that is what I assumed as I never did hear back from some of them. It felt too hard and a bit demoralizing in all honestly. Call me lazy, I don’t care.

But Medium? No Medium felt easy to me and I relished in it from the beginning.

A timeline of my time on Medium

January

As stated earlier, it took me two weeks to finally feel like I was ready to post an article. It wasn’t that I was worried that my writing wasn’t good enough, I was more concerned with learning how to format my articles, and to learn the ins and outs of how Medium worked. As an editor of three publications now, I wish that more writers took the time to do this.

This is my first article:

February

I wrote 12 articles in February and continued to read and learn as much about the platform as I could. In the beginning, I struggled a bit with figuring out what I wanted to write, but over time this became easier and I got into a flow.

March

On March 8th I joined the Medium Partner Program after gaining my first 100 followers. I wasn’t in a big hurry to gain followers and I was interested in doing it the right way. I engaged with other writers, did a ton of reading, and continued writing.

In March I went gangbusters and wrote 46 stories. I was thrilled to make $30.08 that month and it gave me the inspiration to keep going. I knew that there was nowhere to go but up.

This month I also started writing my weekly wrap-ups that were inspired by Dennett and her publication Weeds & Wildflowers. I have now kept this up for most weeks and I post them in their own list.

April

In April I wrote 58 stories and made $55.92. I was happy with my progression but I knew that I wouldn’t rest until I made the magical $100 in one month.

In April I also started my first publication, Share Your Creativity. I could see that Medium was a good place to encourage creativity and I wanted to be a part of the movement. Plus I knew that it would be a great place for me to share my own artwork and creative projects.

May

In May I wrote 47 stories and earned $65.59, plus I had my first story distributed. I really felt like I had made my mark in Medium and was thrilled with this accomplishment. However, this was also amongst many people saying that distribution meant nothing. I didn’t care, though, because I figured that it was at least a sign that I must be doing something right and was headed in the right direction.

June

By June I had gained 1000 followers. Of course, many have gained many more followers than that in the same amount of time, but I was happy with my progression. That month I earned $98.37. So close to $100!

July

It wasn’t until July that I finally hit the hundred-dollar club earning $116.60. I was ecstatic to have broken through the threshold because I knew that only about 7% of writers earn over $100 per month on the platform.

I could already see that Medium was a legitimate way for me to earn money moving forward.

August

In August I started my second publication, Sharing Food. I wanted to create a space where travelers and non-travelers could share food that is unique to different countries from around the world. While I travel I am always fascinated with the food that we encounter, and this seemed like a great space to write about it and share it with others.

I was also thrilled in August to be asked to edit for the publication Globetrotters. It seemed like the icing on the cake of my travel writing journey and I am still so honored to be involved.

My August wrap-up article was my 300th article! My August earnings took a slight dip and I earned $5 less than the previous month at $111. But this was also amidst a lot of Medium upheavals and many were complaining about a drop in earnings and reads on the platform. So I took my very small drop in earnings as a good sign and kept on going.

September

On September 20th we celebrated 5 years of being nomadic. It felt like an amazing milestone and we were thrilled to be in Bulgaria, a country near and dear to our hearts, for this special occasion.

In September I hit a bit of burnout and only wrote 25 articles. I was feeling the pull of the negativity from so many people complaining about the platform and it sent me into a bit of a doom-and-gloom state. But I tried to remain positive and powered through.

Like many people's earnings, mine dipped again during this time and I just cleared the $100 club by $4. I wasn’t surprised, really, because my heart really hadn’t been in it like it was before.

October

In October I was largely in the same state, possibly even worse. However, I continued to write as much as I could. For the first half of the month, we were volunteering at a physically demanding job for much of the month, plus I took a bit of a holiday when our friend came to Bulgaria to visit us for 10 days. So I wasn’t surprised when I earned just $89.09 that month. Despite all of this, I still managed to write 29 articles.

November

I call November my ‘break-out month.’ In it, I finally published an article that I had been agonizing about for months. It is an article about why we had such a hard time traveling in Egypt. On one hand, I knew that it would be controversial, and because of its negative spin, it would likely make money. But on the other hand, I also felt that it was my duty as a traveler to honestly share my travel experiences so that others might know what to expect if they were to consider visiting there.

I hate writing anything negative, so this was actually a really hard article for me to write.

It took me most of the month to fine-tune and edit it to the point where I figured it was now or never. Then I hit publish. Despite publishing it later in the month, on November 21st, I was shocked to see that I made over $50 on it that month. This literally rescued my November earnings and pushed me back over the $100 mark, coming in at $134.37. I only wrote 20 articles in November.

This month I also decided to put my weekly wrap-ups into my own personal publication, Artistic Voyages News, so that I could craft my own audience that will follow our travels around the world.

December

Initially, I had no intention of sharing my December earnings with anyone. I know how hard so many people work on this platform and I didn’t want to come across as bragging and making others feel bad about themselves. But since I have now started writing this article, and I am sharing my monthly earnings, it seems silly to leave out the month that really has defined my entire first year on Medium.

Thanks mostly to the Egypt article, I made $2349.63 in December! I know, I’m as shocked as you are……still. It’s been amazing to see how powerful it can be to have an article go viral. To date, it has 19.8k views and it is still climbing, though not as fast as it was, obviously.

Despite the fact that I was sometimes making $100/day, I still kept up my writing and wrote 22 articles in December. I also earned over 500 followers and got 6 new referred members between November and December.

Things really took off that month, to say the least.

January

While January has calmed down and things have stabilized again (in other words, my poor stats took a nose dive), I’m happy to say that I am still going to earn over $700 for the month. Another $500+ is for the Egypt article, but I’ve also earned well over $100 for my other writing as well. This is an indication that I am getting new followers and more readers looking at my work. This will be my 22nd article this month.

I was also told in both December and January that I was listed as the top writer on the topic of ‘Travel’. Of course, this thrilled me to bits and I had to write an article about it.

All wrapped up

And so, in looking back at my first year on Medium, I can honestly say that I am thrilled with my experience. But, as you can see, before finding the ultimate success, it took 10 months of really hard work to get there.

To recap, here are some things I did that I think really helped me to gain followers and get eyes on my work:

• I started 3 publications, 2 of which invite articles from other writers.
• I became an editor for the fastest-growing travel publication, Globetrotters.
• I wrote relentlessly and am now sitting at 415 published articles.

• You can see that I commented relentlessly as well. I also learned that the responses count does not go over 9999 as I crossed that threshold a few weeks back.
• I have written for 25 different publications. However, I have now narrowed my focus significantly and likely have only published in about 6 (other than my own) in the last three months.
• I engage and encourage others as much as possible and do my best to remain a positive influence in this writing space.

It’s impossible for me to say how my life would look now without Medium in it. I truly could not be more grateful for finding this platform and for cultivating such a great writing community here. I always enjoy reading other writers' stories, and I am constantly amazed at the depth and breadth of the stories that come out of this platform.

Thank you to all of you who take the time to read, comment and engage with my stories. I am truly so grateful and I look forward to strengthening those connections as we move forward into the future.

With so much love,

xo Jill

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