My First Month on Medium: How Much Did I Make?

Reporting on my earnings, and what I’ve learned

Hi, I’m Joanna, and I joined Medium one month ago in April 2020. I heard about it through Youtube, and I decided to check it out. The main goal was to get inspiration from reading articles, and hopefully learn new skills. I quickly realized this platform has a potential for both passive and active income, and decided to give it a go as a writer — or more like a blogger.

I reported my impression of Medium after the very first week — you can read about it here:

I would like to share my experience once in a while. Possibly, every month or every few months. After a year of writing, I will be able to look back and reflect on what I’ve learned. Moreover, I have recently challenged myself to do a year of writing on Medium:

By creating one article per day, I’m hoping to improve my — very minimal — writing skills and explore the creative world. And maybe — just maybe — I can also make extra income on the side. Join me on this journey!

The Beginning: What I Did Right and What I Got Wrong

I understood I should start writing right away, but I didn’t realize the idea behind Medium yet. I sincerely thought you could write about anything, starting from avocado toasts and ending with technological progress in Chile. As a result, I wasted some time writing useless stories that were unrelated to anything on this website.

The big publications work closely with curators, which means you have a better chance of getting curated if a popular pub accepts your article.

I should have joined the publications right away instead of publishing articles on my own. There is a case for publishing your own articles, but when you’re starting, the pubs are there to help you.

Curation was quite a challenge since it took around 2 weeks for my articles to get curated. The most important lesson I’ve learned was: the big publications work closely with curators, which means you have a better chance of getting curated if a popular pub accepts your article.

Publications Would Not Accept Me Right Away

Surprisingly, I was accepted as a writer to quite a few publications. After checking out Zulie Rane’s Youtube channel, I realized that pubs are crucial for attracting attention to my work. I started sending requests to numerous pubs — I was lucky with some and unlucky with others.

The Ascent accepted me right away, even though I posted only a few articles on my own. They were the first publications to add me as a writer. So far, I published a few articles I am proud of though them:

About a half a dozen small pubs accepted me as well, but I was yet to get into the big ones. I sent quite a few articles to Medium’s top publications — and heard nothing back.

Curators Didn’t Seem to Notice My Work

I read a lot of articles about curation and seemed to follow it, but it wouldn’t work. It’s been 2 weeks, yet all my articles were awaiting the curation. I was ready to give up.

Then, I noticed a note “Not distributed in topics” on two of my stories. I remembered Zulie’s suggestion that curators usually give you three tries to get curated, and if you waste your three chances — they may end up in the curation jail.

What did I do? I took a deep breath and removed those two articles. In hindsight, they weren’t quality pieces at all. Removing them was the right choice.

Progress: Getting Curated and Being Contacted by The Start-Up

I submitted between 5 to 10 articles to The Startup, but they never published those. Now, after investigating Medium for a bit, I understand why: my articles were not too very good. I decided to keep trying but wasn’t sure what to write for them. What can attract the biggest publication on Medium? Why didn’t they publish my articles? I was lost.

I still wasn’t getting curated. Until one day, I was reading the news and became upset about the scientists’ response to Elon Musk’s recent invention. I was so pissed; I wanted to write an article FOR MYSELF! I decided to gather all the most important resources, compiled them into a story — and hit “publish.” I didn’t have the time to submit it to any pubs — the news was fresh, I was mad, and I didn’t want to wait. That is how my first big article was born:

Guess what? The next thing I know, I received an e-mail:

I got curated! Out of the blue, after TWO WEEKS of waiting, the one article I wrote out of passion and anger, was selected for curation to two rare topics: Space and Technology. Okay-okay, maybe Tech isn’t a rare topic — but Space indeed is!

But you are never going to believe what happened next. A half an hour after the curation, I received an e-mail from The Startup:

Oh my! The largest publication was saying they loved my article, and they want to share it! I was over the Moon, especially since I started giving up. I was extremely grateful for this opportunity, and it also allowed me to understand what kind of content The Start-Up is looking for.

I was lucky enough to get a few more articles to be featured by The Startup:

My Articles that Were Curated

To this day, I published 21 articles (we’re not going to count the poem-related ones). Out of those 21, Medium curators selected 6. In my opinion, I can do better, but this is still pretty good. So, between a quarter and a third of my stories were curated so far.

The topics I was featured in are: Space, Technology, Freelancing, Marketing, Education, Work, Startups, Writing, Money and Mental Health.

Let’s hope I can explore other topics, as well. So far, the most topics one article would get at once was 4.

Views and Reads — How Many Did I Get?

I clocked 1,000 views in the first 2 weeks. Right now, 30 days in, my stats are as follows:

Just over 4,000 views in a month — I suppose that’s not bad. However, views don’t get monetized — it’s the reads you need to worry about. So far, I got 2,832 reads in one month.

The reading time is what matters. The only story that got me a 100% reading score was — ironically — a dating story:

How Much Money I Made?

In my first 30 days, I earned $34.88. It signifies earning $1 per day, which isn’t much, but I’m banking on time. The longer Medium is alive; the more earnings will accumulate.

Below are the four most-read story in my first month on Medium, and how much money they received:

Publication: The Ascent

Internal views: 455

Reading time: 6 hours, 34 mins (or 394 mins)

Earnings: $9.49

Earning per minute: $0.024

Earning per view: $0.0208

Publication: The Post-Grad Survival Guide

Internal views: 200

Reading time: 2 hours, 52 mins (or 172 mins)

Earnings: $3.84

Earning per minute: $0.0223

Earning per view: $0.0192

Publication: Better Marketing

Internal views: 227

Reading time: 1 hour, 55 mins (or 95 mins)

Earnings: $3.34

Earning per minute: $0.0351

Earning per view: $0.0147

Publication: The Writing Cooperative

Internal views: 205

Reading time: 1 hour, 49 mins (or 109 mins)

Earnings: $2.45

Earning per minute: $0.02247

Earning per view: $0.01195

Did I choose the worst time to join Medium?

Earnings Projections

To be honest, I expected to make $5 at best in my first month, so I’m pleasantly surprised it was more. My original plan was to, hopefully, receive $5 for month #1 and aim for $20 in month #2. Since April brought me around $35, I will try to hit $100 in May.

Quite a few writers were telling me their earnings went down in January 2020, and then this April. Did I choose the worst time to join Medium?

Medium Turned Out to be Essential During Quarantine

While food and housing are essential for survival, Medium unexpectedly became crucial for my mental health. I struggle with it once in a while — you can tell if you happen to read some of my articles:

Reading the news causes me to have anxiety. Staying home is depressing too. But guess what? Thanks to Medium, instead of thinking about the coronavirus, I’m thinking about what I’m going to write. My mind is full of ideas, no worries. Medium came into my life at the right time.

I published 21 articles, and I have 19 drafts sent out to various publications. The next goal is to get attention from the editorial groups — let’s see if that happens.

I promise to report on my earnings once in a while. See you in a month or two!