My Medium Income Has Declined by 75 Percent. Thank God for Income Streams.

This is why every writer needs a business plan.

For the first time in over a year, my Medium income has fallen. It hasn’t just fallen, it’s fallen off a cliff.

Let me show you.

Now, I’m not complaining. I want to make that very clear. I know very well that most writers on Medium don’t make nearly $2100 a month. And the amount of money I earned in November and December was crazy.

I know how fortunate I am.

But what you’re looking at there is a 75 percent decline over five months.

And I have a feeling that if I’m seeing that kind of shift in my income, you might be as well. So I figured it might be worth talking about. And I also think this is a perfect opportunity to talk about why income streams are so important.

Writing is a job, but Medium is not your employer.

They don’t owe me or you or anyone else stability of income. They don’t promise any sort of base rate of pay or a promise that if you do the work, they’ll do their part and fill up your bank account.

In other words, Medium is too volatile to count on for stability and certainly should not be your sole source of income.

I have theories about why my income has declined. And there are a couple of things I know for sure.

Here’s what I know for sure:

• I went on vacation in November and while I wrote, I only wrote one post a day, which was the first time I wrote so little in a solid year. My income didn’t slip in November, but you can see that it did in December. But it stayed high enough that I just kept writing one post a day, rather than two or three like I had been prior to November.
• Medium stopped showing a handful of evergreen posts to new readers in February. I had a core collection of about 10 posts that for months Medium shared widely and they made up the bulk of my income. The reason my income slipped so much from January through March is because those posts made less and less money, and finally now in April are not among my top performing posts at all anymore. (I’m on track to earn $1500 or so in April, so the slide continues.)
• In March I didn’t even write once a day. In fact there was a whole week where I didn’t write anything at all. I was focused on other income streams and since Medium wasn’t paying well, it lost it’s position as my top-of-mind work.
• I have no more control over how much money I’m making this month than I did over how much I made in November. In other words, I didn’t do anything special to make nearly $10,000 in November and I haven’t made any major mistake in April. There are SO MANY things about writing on Medium that are outside of our control.
• I believe that what’s sustaining my income right now is the fact that I wrote so much last year and the year before that. I have more than 3000 posts on Medium. Those posts continue to earn some money month-over-month. If I had less of a backlog, I would absolutely be earning less money.

Here’s what I suspect:

• I think that Medium has shifted away from evergreen posts in favor of much more timely, in-the-moment posts that deal with coronavirus, remote working, and what’s happening in the world today. This is a response to the crisis the world is living through right now. As a result, my pillar posts have stopped performing all together.
• I think there have probably been algorithm changes or something at Medium that affected me adversely. I literally have no idea what these might be, but I know from other writers that we all experienced drops in stats and pay at the same time in mid-February.
• I have a feeling that with way more time on their hands and a sudden need for money, there are way more people writing on Medium right now than normal. Which means that the money that’s available to pay is is spread thinner.
• I don’t think that the decline in my income is permanent. I suspect that at some point my income will come back up somewhat.

What I’m Doing About It

In March I slipped into the habit of only writing on Medium when I had something I wanted to say to Ninja Writers. In other words, for the first time in a long time, I stopped seeing it as my job.

I’m big on experiments. I love them. So, I’ve decided in April I’m going to experiment with writing more again — being a little more deliberate about it — and see what kind of impact that has on my bottom line. If for no other reason than I’ll be able to report back on it to you.

So, my goal in April is to write twice a day. One of those posts is a series that I know for sure won’t ever be curated — because Medium doesn’t curate series — but that will be easy and fun for me to write. And the other post will be deeper and designed to be curated (Most of the time. This post won’t be curated because it’s about Medium.)

So far in April I’m averaging about $50 a day income, which is a $1500 pay check. That’s a good size decline from last month’s $2100. I want to see if I can nudge that back up. And also? I want to see if writing more often actually does increase my pay at all.

Why I’m Not Panicked

I won’t say that I’m particularly happy with the decline in my Medium income. Who would be? I didn’t expect the amount of money I was making in November to stick forever, but I also did not expect to slide down to making less money than I have in more than a year.

I’m not panicked, though, and here’s why: Medium is only one income stream.

There are other income streams that are part of my writing business that I can focus on to fill the gap. I’ve taken on more coaching clients in the last two months. I didn’t have time for that when I was writing on Medium so much. And I won’t have time to write as much as I was, now that I’m spending time working with those coaching clients.

But those clients have filled the gap left by my volatile Medium income.

I’ve also designed a new program for my membership community, which will help me to bolster that income stream some. And I hope will keep it a little more stable in a crazy time.

I also really think that it will help my writing community.

I’m Super Excited About That New Program

I’m calling it the Working Writer Program. The core of it is a six-month class designed to help writers figure out what their own, personal writing business looks like. And then write a business plan that they can actually implement.

People who participate will come away with a solid plan and a community of writers who are excited for their success.

Rather than sell that program, I’ve just included it in Ninja Writers Club. It starts on April 19th and will run every Sunday at noon EST for six months. (Followed by three more smaller classes to fill out the year — including one about building an email list.)

You can find out more here.

My own business plan and vision for what being a working writer looks like for me has absolutely helped me to shift gears as what was my main source of income not long ago has entered a steep period of decline.

Bottom Line

If you’re goal is to be a full-time, working writer it is not a great idea to put all your eggs in one basket.

If you do, you run the risk of falling victim to things that are entirely outside your control. Like changes to someone else’s business that affect your own income.

Income streams are important and every single writer can develop them. There’s no better time than now to start thinking about what that looks like for you.

Here’s my secret weapon for sticking with whatever your thing is.

Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, two dementia patients, a good friend, Alfred the cat, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. She’s on Twitter @shauntagrimes and is the author of Viral Nation and Rebel Nation and the upcoming novel The Astonishing Maybe. She is the original Ninja Writer.