A Brief Summary of My First 90 Days on Medium

How was July my most profitable month so far?

I started writing on Medium in May of this year as something to do while I was bored and stuck at home. I didn’t really expect to earn a living off of it, but I liked the idea of having a platform to share my ideas and get feedback on my writing. Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way. Here are my basic stats for my first three months writing on Medium:

May 2020

Stories published: 13 Curation: 4x in “Writing,” “Food,” and “Lifestyle” Views as of 8/10/2020: 1149 Reads as of 8/10/2020: 629 Earned: $5.94

June 2020

Stories published: 10 Curation: 11x in “Science,” “Health,” “Language,” “Writing,” “Education,” “Gaming,” “Digital Life,” “Culture,” “Creativity,” “Makers,” and “Technology” Views as of 8/10/2020: 2662 Reads as of 8/10/2020: 1480 Earned: $25.44

July 2020

Stories published: 6 Curation: 5x in “Work,” “Gaming,” “Digital Life,” “Creativity,” and “Technology” Views as of 8/10/2020: 427 Reads as of 8/10/2020: 260 Earned: $34.54

My most popular article as been “Liquid Breathing,” with over 1300 views. It is also my highest earning story at $41.47, which for an hour or so of writing and research isn’t half bad. While this story was published in June, it really didn’t start to make money until July when there was a sudden splurge in views. The article got curated right away in “Science” and “Health” but only had 33 views its first day.

I have a few things brewing for August but I’ve been having a tough time getting motivated lately. I’ve been working as much as possible and that leaves little time for leisure time or even fun work time, like writing. I started taking a computer programming course and even that has fallen to the back burner because I’ve been so encompassed with teaching lately that I’ve hardly had any time for anything else.

Part of what is discouraging me is the randomness of it all. I’ve had plenty of curation and almost every article I have published has been in a publication. So why am I not getting the high number views that many others are getting?

While I am by no means “doing this for the money,” I can’t deny that it does feel good to be able to point to something and definitively say “Hey, this earned $40 because it was good.” It’s validating to see the numbers go up and comments and claps increase over time.

I had one piece that I published myself after it was rejected from two satire publications and after a week still had zero views. I ended up deleting it completely because I was embarrassed to have such a poor performing flop next to my bigger pieces. Maybe that was the wrong choice. Maybe I should have waited it out to see what would happen.

If there’s anything I’ve learned so far is to be patient. My one and only science related article has turned out to be my most popular so far and it’s taken two months to gain traction. Sometimes it’s worth waiting before giving up completely.

July may have only pumped out a few pieces but thanks to traction from older pieces, it ended up being my highest paying month thus far. I got myself a s’mores frap from Starbucks to celebrate.