Medium for the Neophyte
Steps to start posting on Medium today when you know nothing — part one.
While there is a ton of great advice on Medium from the experts — writers who have been on Medium over a year, have thousands of followers and earn a significant annual income from blogging on Medium — I thought I would start from the beginning, for the newbies.
It can be daunting to start.
You may be afraid, scared to post your first story. I was. I was terrified.
However, I felt the fear and did it anyway. I’m highly introverted and a very private person, and a recovering perfectionist. It isn’t easy for me to write AND share — it isn’t easy to be vulnerable. If I can do it, so can you.
To clear this hurdle of sharing my content via Medium, I write as if I’m writing to one person. One person who I’m trying to help, be of value to or inform and entertain through a story. Basically, in writing content, I aim to add value to this person’s life. It is easier for me to think of it as writing one person rather than writing to “an audience.”
If you’ve been thinking about publishing on Medium but haven’t yet because you are not sure where to start this post is for you.
I started reading Medium from its infancy, but I only started writing for Medium less than three months ago, and while it’s no walk in the park to write every day for nearly three months, I now love it.
While it’s more challenging to get noticed and gain a large following than I thought it would be, it’s been so worth it, and not impossible to gain followers steadily with good, consistent content. If you’ve already started, great. Keep showing up.
However, if you are in a similar place that I was a few short months ago, and you keep putting off starting at all, leap today and start posting your content.
Why it’s worth it to find your legs on Medium
First off, if you’re a writer, it is a great place to grow as an artist, even if you aren’t great, or, even good yet.
I’m choosing to see my Medium journey as a learning tool — to become a better writer. I’m using the platform to build a writing career and to learn how to market my work.
While in the background I’m mildly concerned with stats and curation — I would like to make real money here eventually — right now I’m more concerned with becoming a better writer, and that is my essential goal. This mindset allows me to grow and view Medium as a platform to assist me in my growth as a writer and entrepreneur.
Anyone can publish on Medium; you don’t need a publisher or an agent or a book contract, you don’t even need a following. That is exciting.
You just need a story to tell.
Flannery O’ Connor said that anyone who has survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life. How true.
You will suck at first, but you’ll be in great company
Many of the experts who make a six-figure annual income on this platform claim they were not good writers when they started writing. It is true; many were not. Let that motivate you. It motivates me. It means if you put in the hours and the work your writing will improve.
Go back to the first couple of posts these giants on Medium posted, and the difference in their writing from then to now is remarkable. You know why? They put in the arduous work of writing every day.
How I wish one could become a better writer by merely reading all day, because if that were the case, then I would be great. However, no. It doesn’t work that way. You have to write, like, a lot, like, once a day.
I’ve only been writing consistently every day for about six months to a year, and when I take just two days off, on day three, I struggle each time to get back into it. The act of sitting down at the computer and writing that first sentence is harder after two days of not writing at all, and the blank page remains blank longer while I’m sitting in the chair waiting for my fingers to move than had I just written every day.
Writing is a muscle you develop, and if you don’t use it, you lose it.
Tell your story today. Just start and see where your Medium journey takes you. Here are the technical aspects of getting started on Medium, step by step.
Learn how to post on Medium in less than an hour
Sign up for Medium
Sign up for the Medium Partners Program (MMP). It is a one-time yearly fee of $50 or a $5 monthly fee. When you are part of MPP, your story gets published behind Medium’s paywall, and you could get paid for your stories depending on the number of claps your story receives. All you need is an email address, a user name, and five bucks a month.
Four steps to join Medium’s Partner Program
Here are four steps to join Medium’s Partner Program (MPP) to start possibly getting paid for your content.
1. Go to medium.com/creators. Click join the Partner Program at the bottom of the page.
2. Read and accept the MPP Terms. Read the terms here.
3. Connect your bank account with your Medium account. Then click “set up payments on Stripe.”
4. Create a Stripe account by following prompted steps.
How to publish your first Medium story in nine simple steps
- Click on “Write a story” at the top right-hand corner of your Medium page.
2. Choose an interesting title to make your reader want to know more about your story. Add your title in title case, which means that all words — with the exception of prepositions — need to be capitalized. Hit enter to add your subtitle next, below your title.
3. Add your subtitle in sentence case (a regular sentence.) To format your subtitle correctly, choose the small ‘T’ in the edit mode. To view the edit mode highlight your subtitle and a box of icons appear, choose the small ‘T.’ After you have added your subtitle and formatted it correctly, hit enter.
4. Add an image. Hit the looking glass icon to add an image from Unsplash.
5. Find the image that best reflects your story. For teaching purposes, I choose the word “love.”
6. After you choose the image you like best, make sure to give credit to the artist by citing them, by name, at the bottom of the image.
7. Write your story. Make sure you edit your work and check for any grammatical and spelling errors.
8. When you are ready to release your story out to Medium readers, hit the button “Ready to publish?” in the top right-hand corner of your Medium page.
9. Once you hit “Ready to publish?” you’ll be prompted to choose ‘tags.’ You can choose up to five tags. Use them all. Just make sure they are relevant to your story.
Voilà, you published your first story on Medium. Congratulations.
Join Medium, write, share your stories, hit publish, and see what happens. Anything is possible.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering Type A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.
