My Medium Earnings Jumped Another $200 in One Month, and They Keep Going the Way I Want — Up
My one-year Medium journey.
My first anniversary is approaching at the end of this month. Here is another post on how to make a bazillion dollars on Medium, pay off a car loan, and a mortgage from one story. No, not really. I did make $1,975.05, and I’m thrilled.
In one year with the Medium Partner Program.
- I had my first viral story.
- My first story that went over 1k in first three months.
- I’ve reached 3,000 followers recently.
Wow. I love Medium. Medium is for writers and readers.
What I love about Medium is that anyone can join the Partner Program and make money from their work. My payout for May was more than the month before, and my earnings keep going up.
I’m not here to sell to you that it was easy; I’m just here to tell you it is possible.
We are in June, which means that on the 26th of this month, I will have completed a goal I set out for myself to publish on Medium every day for one year and make a part-time income. I have succeeded.
Here is my latest payout for May.
I’m thrilled. If I can do it, you can too. It only takes persistence and a lot of writing.
Here is my Medium Journey.
I’ve always had this dream of doing what I love for a living — writing. Working for myself in the comfort of my home or a coffee shop doesn’t feel like work to me because I enjoy it so much.
I see the same people every day at the coffee shop where I write, and it gives me a sense of community that we need. I live in a city where I love being out and about in it, especially when I’m writing. The atmosphere adds an intrinsic value to my words.
Although $1,900 a month does not a living make, especially when you factor in my espresso habit, it does prove it is possible to make a good chunk in less than a year here.
With hard work.
That I can leverage my passion for writing into a part-time income feels like freedom.
The gratitude, coupled with surprise when I read the last email with my payout amount for May (I don’t look at my earnings each day, I want to be surprised), was the same feeling I had when I made $0.01 from the Medium Partner Program in my very first payout back in July.
I will never forget where I was when I received the notification that I made one cent.
I jumped up and down for joy and didn’t stop smiling for a week.
It’s possible.
I was doing the same amount of work back then that I’m doing now, actually more, because the learning curve was steeper then and I published on Saturdays and Sundays the first three months, and now I take those days off.
There is no other platform like Medium that gives writers this kind of leg up and allows writers to find an audience with a lot more ease than starting a blog.
I became a Medium Partner Member is June 2019, I published nearly every day since then.
My goal — publish every day and see what this content schedule brings in terms of income.
I wanted to make $1,000 per month within the first year of publishing, and I’m ahead of that goal. I know the majority of writers don’t make $100 per month — only less than 10% of writers make it above that amount, but I was willing to post every day, and from what I know about Medium from other successful writers, that makes the difference.
First three months
- Published one article a day.
- Received 2 Top Writer badges in ‘Love’ and ‘Entrepreneurship.’
- Made above $100.
- Learned the ins and outs of Medium and Medium-centric Facebook groups by using them and interacting on them daily.
- Enrolled in Shaunta Grimes’ and Shannon Ashley’s workshop on how to make it on Medium. The class was helpful in that they gave me the confidence to publish and pushed me to. They gave the participants in the class a hard date to publish our first post for a homework assignment. Medium is a small community, and the other writers are very generous and kind. They were both incredibly encouraging to the newbies in the workshop, and humble about their success.
The first three months of consistent publishing exceeded my expectations, so for the next nine of the 12, I decided to concentrate on my writing skills and continue to post daily.
Last nine months
- Published one article a day and experimented with publishing two — I didn’t see much benefit it publishing two pieces per day, but to be honest, I didn’t do that often enough to know the kind of results I’d get if I’d stuck to that increased content schedule. It was too much for me, I’m working on other online streams of income.
- Enrolled in another writing class to sharpen my skills. This one simple act put me in the writing mindset and was an idea generator for me. It dramatically improved my blogging skills.
- Increased my earning to $667.83 by October 2019.
I was shocked. In three more months my income was past $500.
That is not an amount you can live on, but it will pay some bills and keep in me in chocolate and espresso.
Some of the things I did to increase my income each month.
1. Write either what you know, what you love, or what you want to know.
I write what I love to write, and in those topics where I have a lot to say. I often hear people say they don’t know what to write about; I have the opposite problem; there are not enough hours in the day to write what I want to write.
I have an editorial calendar that I have a hard time keeping pace with. I love to write about relationships, writing, and productivity.
I went through a traumatic divorce that left me reeling. Having a place like Medium to express and share my experience — I’ve healed from that trauma, so I’m in a position to share — is cathartic.
We are all different, but for me, making money on that pain is further healing.
We all have a story to tell. Share yours. You may see your experience as mundane, but I assure you others will not if you show it in a compelling story.
Having a home to express my authentic self through something I’m passionate about, like writing, is a dream come true for me.
I don’t have to get a publisher or an agent, pay them a percentage from my work, I’m not beholden to anyone, and I can express myself the way I want to express myself. I don’t have to go through the hoops required to self-publish or publish with a traditional publisher.
That is freeing.
But I can if I want to write a book someday, or compile what I’ve written here into a book. At the very least, I’m getting in substantial practice writing and earning some money also.
2. Consistency.
Whether you are a freelance writer or a starting your own tattoo parlor, the biggest driver of success is persistence.
You have to keep working at it every day, even on the days when you are rejected, especially on those days.
I don’t get into every publication, and on those days when I don’t, I publish to my own publications.
I stated one which focuses on life and relationships.
The other focuses on writing, productivity, and entrepreneurship.
They are my babies, so I nurture them as such. They are both growing in terms of followers.
After a rejection from a publication, I push myself harder to write better. I write something better that does get accepted to a publication.
The point is, don’t give up.
Rejection is a part of life; it is how we dust ourselves off and continue that counts.
Every person who achieved any significant success had at least 50 failures before they reached that success; they just kept going. We often hear of others’ successes without hearing of all the struggle which came before.
While quality content is what counts to make it on Medium, you don’t get to quality content without first writing some crap.
Practice leads to better writing.
As does studying the work of writers who speak to you. Who do you love to read? Study carefully every word, pause, sentence structure, paragraph break closely, and their style will seep into your writing.
3. Start a publication
Pick something you love and start a publication to represent your writing. It can be about anything. It can be about gardening, dogs, hiking, exercise, books.
Whatever you love to learn about, there will be others who want to learn about that topic. When you demonstrate a profound interest in something, others will follow.
Curiosity is contagious.
Readers want to see authentic enthusiasm for what you love, and they want to take away something valuable from what you learned, they want to better themselves.
We read others to seek understanding and knowledge or to be entertained. If you can do all three, you will be successful on Medium.
Within each of my publications are the topics I care most about, relationships and writing. Ester Perel says, “the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives.” I agree.
I have a genuine and profound interest in how we relate to others — loved ones — and how to make those relationships fulfilling. I aim for this to come across in the stories I write and to help others understand their interconnectedness.
I’m working to build these publications. They are important to me and serve as a place to post more intimate articles about writing and life. Some of the articles I write for these publications are just for them, and they wouldn’t work for larger publications.
I like having a platform that is all mine where I can publish my work while not having to adhere to submission guidelines made up by other people.
Medium is that place for me — home.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering perfectionist. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats
