My First Month On Medium: Totally Shocked By The Money
Yep, I’m jumping on that bandwagon, but only because I’m REALLY surprised
Tired of “My First Month” stories yet?
To be honest, I’m not.
I’ve probably read around 20 of those out of sheer curiosity, which I felt after waking up one beautiful morning and seeing the first 0.30$ on my Medium account. I almost cried. And then it kept coming…
Just to explain, I didn’t join Medium to earn money. I did it because I thought it was a great outlet for all these stories and ideas that have been circling around my head for such a long time.
I tried to have my own website, but I’m technically impaired, and it was too difficult for me to upkeep it. There was some fucking error coming up literally every month, and at some point, I decided I had to get rid of the whole thing before I threw my laptop out the window.
To be honest, I thought that earning on Medium would be a lot like YouTube. I’ve had a travel channel on YouTube for about a year now, and guess how much I’ve earned?
79$. In a year. And I really hate editing, so go figure.
I love writing, though, and I thought, “Hey, it will be like having my own blog for free, plus they might actually pay me a few dollars here and there. Maybe I’ll even get the 50$ I paid for the Membership back at the end of the year?”
The reality surpassed my wildest dreams.
Before I jump into it, I have to confess I’m really stupid
I don’t know if I’m the only person here who hasn’t checked the requirements to apply for the Partnership Program, but I actually thought you still needed to have 100 followers to join it. This rule was changed months ago, but well, that’s just me.
That means that even though I started writing on Medium at the beginning of January, it’s been only two weeks since I actually joined the Program and started to paywall my stories. Hence, the earnings I’m about to share are from two weeks only, and I can’t wait to see what happens at the end of February, which will be my first ‘complete’ month here.
As soon as I was eligible, I paywalled my older stories, too, but they obviously didn’t earn as much cause the initial impact was gone. Here’s an example. This is actually one of my most-read stories this month. 58 reads, but it only earned 0.04$:
My Top 3 Stories
I posted 11 stories overall. I read a lot about the way that Medium counts earnings, but I still can’t understand it very well. I know it’s not just about the number of reads; the claps, comments, and overall engagement count as well. But even when I compare all that data between my second and third most well-paid article, I still don't really understand what the fuck:
My Cat Peed on My Face Tonight has 20 reads less than the other story. What’s more, it also has less engagement than Thank You SO Much For Saying I Don’t Look My Age. Still, it earned 3$ more. If somebody can explain that mystery to me, I gratefully invite you to the comment section.
In case you’d like to read and compare which one is worth more in your opinion, here are the links:
My Best Earning Story Is Actually….
Submission Guidelines for my publication. I didn’t really think about it as a source of income when I started it. I didn’t even paywall it until last week. Then I suddenly thought, “Hey, why not? I’ll just put a friend’s link at the beginning for those who don’t have the Membership. Let’s see what happens.”
That’s what happened:
My pub is for all the new writers on Medium who’d like to tell their personal stories of becoming a writer and connect. This was the first thing I did when I signed up for the platform. I really wanted to hear from other people who, like me, have been dreaming of becoming writers for a long time but are only starting out right now.
I find it extremely inspiring to read all these articles. If you’re new here too, I invite you to join us!
(and no, I’m not saying that to earn an additional few cents from you reading this; I am genuinely interested in all the new stories submitted)
Ok, would you stop fucking around? HOW MUCH DID YOU EARN?!
My total for the month of January is…. Drumroll, please.
Almost 70$!
I know, I know. There are people who earned 200$, 300$, etc, but I’m beyond happy with my 70$. I‘ve actually earned back all the money I paid for the Medium Membership and some more. And I did it without killing myself in the process. I read so many articles where they’d recommend you to post a story every day, but I cringed at the very thought.
I don’t want Medium to be my job. I don’t want to join the rat race, write about the things that don’t interest me but are “in fashion,” or optimize my posts for SEO. Fuck SEO.
Until now, I posted when I felt like it; I waited patiently for the replies from the publications I wanted to join, and I took my sweet time reading other people’s stories. And I feel I’ve been thoroughly rewarded for my approach.
My February goal is to earn enough money to pay for becoming a Friend of Medium so that every story I read will earn 4x more money. I love that idea.
I wanted to add some lessons I’ve learned throughout this first month here on Medium, but the article already got as long as it is, so I wrote another one about it. You can find it here:
Hope you all had a great January and that your February will be even better!
Agata Szymula is a travel addict with an impressive 11$ writing income a month. She spends it all on coffee, even though she’s been trying to quit for five years now. Agata’s biggest dream is to become a better writer and one day be able to buy food as well. She hates writing about herself in 3rd person, but she made an exception this time cause she saw cool people on Medium do it. If you want to support her addiction, you can buy her the next coffee ❤