Medium Continues to Dish out Bonuses for Writers

This is starting to look like a new trend!

Last month, 1,000 writers received a welcome treat in their inbox as Medium handed out a one time bonus of $500 for publishing stories with high engagement.

A mix of emotions swept through the platform, with many excited, overjoyed, and confused about why Medium made such an unexpected move.

Of course, it also raised a lot of questions. Was Medium competing with other platforms like NewsBreak who were offering bonuses, or was this part of a new policy to help retain established writers and new and promising ones?

My view is the latter. CEO Ev Williams wrote a story in March detailing his plans to phase out the editorial team at Medium owned publications, including Forge, Elemental and others.

Now, you may be wondering how this relates to bonuses, but we’ll come to that in a moment.

It’s worth remembering that the editorial team at these publications would’ve been paid fairly large salaries by being based in San Francisco. According to Glassdoor, the average salary for an editor-in-chief at Medium amounted to around $205k, which is certainly no small amount.

In addition, Medium owned publications were paying commissions for almost every published story, with some payouts being $300–$500 on average.

Interestingly, these figures are longer published on the submission guidelines, although payments are still provided based on the number of words, as can be seen from the LEVEL pitching guide.

Paying for stories by the word and having a professional editorial team would’ve been a significant drain on Medium’s finances so it’s no wonder that Ev Williams decided to pull the plug.

In contrast, paying a one-off bonus creates a sense of drive, loyalty and recognition among writers. As for the cost? It’s probably a mere fraction of what Medium were paying to run their own publications.

More recently, they’ve also stopped funding partner publications like P.S I Love You opening up even more capital to continue rewarding individual writers.

So is this a trend that we can expect going forwards? Absolutely.

A Surprise June Bonus

Rumours of whether or not Medium would reward individuals again have finally been dispelled. Writers who go to their Medium Partner programme page can see if they’ve been lucky to receive a one-off bonus of between $50-$500 in June.

It’s likely that these bonuses are a reflection of the previous month’s engagement — it wouldn’t make sense to award people for only a few days worth of work after all.

But by taking this approach of regularly rewarding their writers, Medium is encouraging them to work harder at getting a bigger bonus, and I think that this is a smart move.

For Medium, it means higher quality content, more engagement and hopefully, more subscribers. For writers, it means higher earnings and a chance of a bigger payout. A win-win situation is the best outcome, and it seems that Medium has found a way to achieve that.

Although there are still questions around what exactly entails a ‘high member engagement’, it’s inevitable that Medium has its own algorithm for determining this.

Can we expect more over the coming months? Well, given these bonuses are still only a fraction of what Medium owned publications would’ve paid for a single story, we certainly can.

What Does This Mean For the Future?

Medium has always been a great platform to write for, but the chance of getting an additional bonus is going to motivate even more writers to write here. I think we’ll also see a shift in focus on quality rather than quantity.

These bonuses are based on reaching a high member engagement score, and we know that higher quality tends to equate to more engagement.

The fact that Medium has awarded writers twice in such a short space of time is promising but remember that Medium is not a get rich quick scheme. Focus on incremental growth, not overnight success.

I don’t have a massive following, and I don’t have any stories that have reached 1,000 claps, yet I still received a $500 bonus in April and a $100 bonus in June. So if I’m capable of doing it while working full time, then so are you.

If you were one of the lucky few that did get the bonus, leave a comment here so that others get inspired. And if you didn’t get a bonus, don’t fret because it looks like there’ll be plenty of opportunities in the future!

I’m not the most accomplished writer on Medium; however, I have learned a lot during my time here. Here’s a compilation of some of the learnings which you might find helpful: