My Medium earnings finally exploded in my 4th month

My last two months of writing on Medium are a perfect example of how good things happen when you stick with something — even when it feels tough.

One month ago in this space, I was telling you about how my earnings had seen a big dip in my third month on the platform and that it was all my fault.

After getting off to a quick start on the platform in my first two full months, my earnings dropped to the tune of -17% in Month 3.

I believe very strongly in taking responsibility for what you can control and then letting the chips fall where they may.

All I can control is my effort and my attitude, and my effort and attitude were not up to snuff that month.

I came up with all manner of excuses for not writing or developing my audience to the extent I should have been: fatigue, starting a YouTube channel, travel tournaments for my kids’ competitive sports, a flight to visit my dad.

But the simple fact of the matter is I chose not to find the time to give my main Medium account James Julian the attention it needed to flourish.

And I paid the price, going from $453 in earnings in Month 2 to $358 in Month 3.

Before we move on to how I turned a -17% dip into a more than 200% gain, here are a couple of videos I made about the journey so far.

They’re worth checking out if you’re interested in the evolution of an account, and I sprinkle tips throughout.

Oh, and please don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel while you’re at it!

Month 2

Month 3

The difference between me and a lot of people on this platform who write whiny articles about how the algorithm is out to get them every time they see a dip (like Medium owes them a living or something) is I look at setbacks as an opportunity to learn and grow.

I don’t get blown off course, even when there are high winds.

I take responsibility for what I can control and I get back to putting the puzzle together.

I would definitely say a lot of those pieces fell into place in my fourth month.

I say (and write) this not to brag, but because I want to take you with me.

Hard work is typically rewarded — sometimes handsomely — and I love to see people succeed.

I read articles just like this one when I was just starting out, and I found them inspiring.

The problem is, most people aren’t willing to put in that kind of effort.

They’ll say they “don’t have time,” then go back to watching Netflix.

But this is an amazing platform for people who are willing to rev it to the redline.

If you’re interested in knowing more, join me as we dive into the Month 4 numbers.

THE NUMBERS

First off, here are my views, reads, and fans for the month in question:

And here’s a screencap of my earnings:

So what changed?

№1: I got back to work. I put my nose to the grindstone, did another deep dive into what was and wasn’t working for my account, and I produced.

I wrote 23 articles (each around 1,000 words), engaged with the community more than ever, and never took my foot off the gas even for a second.

That’s part 1.

The viral story

Part 2 is the viral story.

I know there are people who are going to read this section, roll their eyes, and say, “he got lucky.”

The same people saying it was just the algorithm smiling on me are the same people crying when things aren’t served up to them on a silver platter.

Listen, I believe that, for the most part, you create your own luck.

Yes, you will run into variance along the way, but if you keep your nose pointed in the right direction, you’ll get to where you want to go.

The viral story that caused my numbers to explode in Month 4 wasn’t my first on the platform, but it was different in one key way.

The first was viral outside of Medium, which means the earnings were … less than inspiring.

You can check that story out here and see the numbers below.

In order to generate income, your reads need to come from subscribers.

All the blue you see above indicates that my views on that story were coming from outside of Medium. Many came from Google.

Now contrast that with this bad boy:

So you can see that, although this story actually had fewer views than the first one, it has earned 25x more. That’s the power of an internal viral story.

“So what James, you got lucky, that isn’t sustainable.”

While I agree it isn’t sustainable unless I have another story catch fire and get a generous distribution across the site, that is outside of my control.

What I can do is increase my odds by working my butt off.

Yes, the above story got a boost from Medium, but would the algorithm, or anyone else for that matter, have found it if I hadn’t published so many stories and been so active on the platform?

Very doubtful.

Also, if I’d written fewer stories, I may not have even gotten around to publishing the one that turned into a hit.

As I described in this post, my viral story was actually a huge pain to finish writing (and I didn’t have high hopes for it doing anything special).

Have you ever heard of the 80/20 principle? Generally, it holds that 80 percent of your results will come from 20 percent of your efforts.

This is true of content creation as well.

I listened to an interesting interview with MrBeast recently, and his entire focus, his raison d’etre, is thinking about how to generate viral content. It’s his obsession.

He knows that the big hits make up for a lot of misses.

Let me use a baseball analogy.

I’m a coach’s dream. I work hard and I hit a lot of singles.

And I’m happy with that! I’d say my revenue per thousand views is roughly $40. I usually hit a few of those a month, but even if I wrote a 250-view story, that’s still $10 more than I had yesterday.

I think that’s cool too!

But the more times I step to the plate, the more chances I get to crank one out of the park.

Consistency is everything.

Let me repeat that: CONSISTENCY IS EVERYTHING.

And the magic of hitting a homer in this game is that, with so many more eyes on your work, your past singles start turning into doubles.

When I do really get a hold of one, I see results like last month.

I estimate that it takes me, on average, 45 minutes to write an 800–1,000 word article. That means I spent approximately 17.25 hours on the actual writing process last month.

As a Canadian, I currently benefit from a very strong US dollar, so the amount of money that actually landed in my bank account was a shade over $1,650.

That means my hourly wage writing on Medium last month was $95.

Pretty good for a part-time job!

There’s a reason I’ve written posts in the past month that argue:

You can go ahead and check those articles out if you like, but one point I would like to reiterate above all others: this platform is amazing, I absolutely adore it … but it is what you make of it.

If you think you’re going to log on here once a month, post one of your amateur poems, log off, and start banking, you will be sorely disappointed.

This isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme — it is work.

But if you enjoy it, it won’t feel like work … and you could enjoy awesome benefits like my fourth month.

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