My 1st Paid Month on Medium. How I Got Boosted And You Can Too

Reflections on my 1st paid month on this platform.

So, I made just over $50 in my first month on Medium (Woop woop!). I consider this a promising sign of further success and a stroke of luck because most of this came from one story that got boosted.

The story in question was about when Cillian Murphy turned down a record deal to concentrate on acting. You can read it here. But here is why (I think) it got boosted.

It was submitted to a publication that boosts authors — The story was submitted to the music magazine The Riff, which is one of the many Medium publications that has an editor/editors who will nominate stories to be boosted.

Medium Guru Kristina God does a good video on 60 publications that have editors with the power to boost your story. Here’s the link. It would make sense to submit to as many of these publications as possible.

It followed the Boost Guidelines — Medium’s guidelines on how to get boosted can be read HERE. These are quite vague but can be a good checklist when writing or editing a story.

Originality — So, I exhaustingly went through Irish newspaper archives to find out more about the band. But essentially, I presented some information that was not readily available online.

Formatting /Presentation— This should be a given, but your article should be free of any mistakes and presented well. Credit any photographs, and have as little self promotion as possible. The Medium top earner Julie Writes does a great breakdown of this in her video HERE. (I’m referencing lots of more experienced writers as this is merely my first paid month).

Don’t Just Write About Medium — Medium are veering away from boosting articles like this about writing on Medium. While it’s great to share our journeys with fellow writers, Medium is mainly about the readers. And this is who they are looking to create value for with the boost option.

If you got boosted and want to share any tips, please let me know.