Key Takeaways From “The Truth About Writing On Medium,” A Webinar With Tim Denning And Todd Brison

The best and most meaningful knowledge gathered from an informative 90-minute webinar

Unless you live under a Medium-sized rock, you’ve probably heard the name Tim Denning. He is currently the top writer on Medium and writes content on self-improvement and productivity.

I am one of his many email subscribers and I enjoy perusing his daily content, so when I received the email about a FREE webinar hosted by himself and writer Todd Brison, I signed up right away.

Like many new writers, when I first joined Medium, I clicked on so many “writing about writing” articles that my News Feed still suffers from Bloated Algorithm Syndrome. I was obsessed with learning as many “hacks” and “tricks” for increasing views and gaining followers as I could.

Now that I’m a 6-month Medium veteran, I’ve become increasingly frustrated with all these “hacks” that basically just repeat what every other article has said before.

So I was both excited and a bit skeptical when I read the title “The Truth About Writing on Medium” and learned that it would be presented by two incredibly experienced writers. Maybe now I could finally get to the bottom of how to truly be successful on Medium from those who have conquered it, and ditch those hack articles for good.

And having taken thorough notes throughout the full 90-minute webinar, I thought I would share my key takeaways from this very informative and useful experience to help other new writers get a better start on this platform. I don’t want to give everything away, but you can at least get the gist of what was discussed to determine whether attending one of these sessions is worth your time.

Medium is Just the Beginning

A lot of what was discussed during the session was why Medium is one of, if not the best platforms for writing. One of the answers is Medium was made for and designed for writing, pure and simple. It’s not trying to be anything else but a place to read, write, and get paid.

But if you want to build a really successful writing career, you should use Medium as a stepping stone, not a final destination.

One of the best ideas that stuck with me is that you use Medium to build a writing habit and begin to build an audience, but in order to be really successful you need to take your Medium experience and leverage it in other ways.

Manage Your Income Expectations

As a segue from the previous point, Tim made it pretty clear that while you can make money writing on Medium, it is not going to be the major money maker many new writers are hoping for.

It is possible, he says, to earn $100 or even $1000 a month on Medium (maybe more), but you will probably never earn enough to replace your traditional 9 to 5 job.

As I understand it, this platform wasn’t really meant to be a career replacement. It is better used as a career builder, which leads me to my next key point.

True Success Means Embracing the ‘Creator Economy’

Whether you call it the creator economy, creating passive incoming, or taking on a side hustle, this burgeoning form of entrepreneurship is the way writers can become truly successful and start seeing the 5 or 6-figure incomes they’re looking for.

There are many ways to turn your Medium writing into real passive income. Some of the ways that were discussed were:

• Turning your Medium articles into an eBook to sell on Amazon.
• Creating a paid course for sites like Teachable or Skillshare.
• Creating products to sell on sites like Gumroad.

Here’s where I must include an important sidebar:

At this point in the webinar, Tim and Todd introduced us to their paid course, “Medium Bad-Assery,” a course on Teachable that will cost you several hundred dollars of cold hard cash.

I have to admit, my initial reaction to this sales pitch was one of distaste. Were they just putting on this webinar to sell me an expensive course? Was this one of those time-share operations that promises a free something-or-other and then tries to con you into making an overpriced mistake?

But then I pumped the brakes and had to give myself a slap on the wrist for not realizing that I was about to criticize them for doing exactly what they were teaching us to do at that very moment.

Tim and Todd were leveraging their success on one platform to try to make money on a different platform, the very thing we had come to learn. How could I criticize them for wanting to make money using the same method they were teaching me now for free?

Yeah, I felt like an ass. Good thing I didn’t say anything out loud.

After this realization, I sat up straighter and listened just a little bit harder to what they had to say (I also ended up buying the course. Don’t tell my husband).

Now back to the main program.

The Low-Down on Curation and the All-Powerful Algorithm

Many of the articles I read as a Medium newbie had to do with “hacks” or “tips and tricks” on how to get curated or how to beat the almighty algorithm. As you might expect, this was one of the top questions those of us attending the webinar wanted answered.

The answer was both unsurprising and disappointing.

There is no hack or trick for getting curated. It’s really just a combination of luck and quality writing (the latter of which is *fairly* important).

Curation (or distribution) is controlled by both humans and machines who sort through thousands of articles a day. If you happen to get an article curated or distributed, congratulations! This has no bearing on whether or not you will get curated again.

As for the Holy Algorithm, I honestly had a little trouble following this part of the discussion, because when it comes to this sort of tech talk, I am almost illiterate.

One thing I did note was Tim calling the algorithm just a “discoverability mechanism,” which I took to mean that the algorithm uses your reading history and favorited topics to put certain articles on your News Feed. So again, there really is no way to game the system or “beat” the algorithm. Just continue producing quality content and perhaps you will hit the mark.

Embrace the Slow Burn

This has many different meanings depending on who is listening and what their goals are. My interpretation of this phrase was “Keep Working And Have Patience.”

Success rarely, if ever, happens overnight. I know most of us would love to discover that one golden trick for hitting it big in one go, but let’s be real. The world doesn’t work that way. You have to put in the work, and you have to learn to do it right.

One thing Tim spoke of was building your “Proof of Work.” Essentially this means building up your back catalog of stories and articles to use as a resume or portfolio when exploring new opportunities. This is how you attract clients and collaborators. You have examples of not only the quality of your work, but also your time in the business.

It can take months or years to build your back catalog, but that’s what putting in the work means. Your back catalog is also a way to earn passive income on Medium. Your old articles are always there to be discovered, so there is no telling when one might blow up, go viral, or get curated.

Traits Shared by the Strongest Writers

The final takeaway I want to share is something I think most of us are aware of but may be reluctant to accept.

We discussed some of the traits possessed by the strongest writers.

Strong writers are consistent. This doesn’t mean they publish every day (although they might), it means that the quality of their writing and their message is always the same or improving.

Strong writers build email lists. Yes, I know, this seems a little banal. Why do I need a bunch of emails from random people in order to be a strong writer?

Well, you need an audience. And having someone’s email means you have a direct line to their inbox, and thus their eyeballs. To be a strong writer, you need a strong audience.

Strong writers work on more than one platform. Medium is amazing. It is a unique platform for showcasing your writing. But to achieve real “success,” whatever that may look like to you, you need to diversify. Branch out. Embrace that creator economy and use multiple platforms to build your empire. How you do it is up to you, but actually doing it is essential.

There was so much more discussed during the session I attended, which included an initial discussion of Medium followed by a great Q&A. This was the very first time I have attended a webinar about writing or Medium, and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of info I was able to gather.

If you are interested in attending one of these sessions, I believe they do them monthly. If you subscribe to Tim Denning’s content, you should receive the sign-up email like I did. The great part is, while you may hear about some of the same topics I discussed above, the session is really dictated by the participants and the questions they bring to the table. Each one is unique.

I highly recommend this webinar to all new and semi-experienced writers who want to learn some of the hard truths about online writing and how to make it work.

And if you want to mention to Tim and Todd that I sent you, well hey, I won’t be upset!

Thanks for reading!

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