My Medium Progress So Far

How I Did in My First Month in the Partnership Program

First off, I should say that this is not a “bragging post,” where I try to impress you with how much money I’ve made (it’s not enough to brag about). This post is for those who have just signed up for the Partnership Program or those who are thinking about embarking on that journey. Reading this post can be an encouragement for some, but a deterrent for others. It all depends on you and your attitude toward what it will take to succeed.

I have now finished my first month in the Partnership Program. I’ve read so many articles about the amount of money a person made in their first month (or claims to have made), how many followers they gained, etc. So, here I am jumping on the bandwagon! Haha. If you don’t want to hear about any of that, then here’s an idea: Don’t read this article!

As I said, I read several of these articles and I appreciated the writers who posted them. Why? Because it gave me some idea of what to expect as I worked toward my goals. As long as the writers are honest and straightforward about their experiences, any information is helpful.

What if the writer’s niche is cryptocurrency? That doesn’t apply to me. I don’t know anything about it!

It is still helpful information, because it tells you what NOT to expect.

Should I Have a Niche?

I mentioned not knowing about cryptocurrency because that applies to me. I know it is a popular subject, along with various ways to make money online, NFTs, etc. Again, there are so many people giving advice on the subject of niches and I can see the argument for having a niche:

Your followers will always know what to expect.

I have disregarded this advice. I love writing short stories and poetry and I have a bachelor’s in psychology, so I like the subjects of psychology and sociology. I use that to help people by giving advice on various topics. I have two cats, so I frequently post photos and stories about them as well. In addition to all of that, on occasion, I post reviews of movies and theater. Has this diversity caused my blog to receive nothing but the chirping of crickets? Have I alienated the blogging community with my “random” articles?

My Progress

This is the graph of my Views, Reads and Fans for the previous 30 days (mostly the month of October):

And this is from the past 30 days (the month of November):

I don’t know how this compares to other bloggers, and to me, it doesn’t matter. Compared to my blog on WordPress, the numbers are MUCH higher. Don’t get me wrong, I love blogging on WordPress and the connections I have made on that platform are wonderful! There are some very talented writers there and a lot of fun writing prompts in which to participate. I will continue to blog there, and of course, my writing portfolio will remain there on my website.

It took me over a year on WordPress to reach 500 followers, but on Medium, I got over halfway there in just two months! Most of those came in the month of November.

I began my paid subscription to Medium at the end of September, and as you can see, I gained 37 followers in the month of October. For those of you bad at math (like me 😀), that’s a little more than one follower every day. I was happy with that.

However, I wanted to strive for more. Looking again at the graph above, you can see that in the month of November, I gained 243 followers. This is about 8 followers per day, which was obviously much better than October. You may not care about followers; maybe you’re just here for the money.

I Broke Even!

In the first few days of November, I reached 100 followers and on November 9th, I received an email saying that I was accepted into the Partnership Program. Reading other bloggers’ progress, I was expecting to make maybe a dollar–IF I was lucky. Again, I wanted to strive for more. This is my total for the month of November (don’t get too excited).

Compared to some people’s claims of their earnings, this is not much at all. For me, it was more than I had expected, so I am very happy with it. I’m not going out to put a downpayment on a car or anything, but it at least covers my first month of paid Medium subscription and almost a second month. That, to me, is a successful result.

If you think this amount is pathetic and not worth your time, then you can stop reading here. It’s okay, I give you permission to exit this article (yes, I’m being facetious). However, if this is a goal you would like to emulate, read on.

How I Got There

I engaged with other writers. I could probably stop with that sentence, but I’ll go into a little more detail if you’d like to read. I have made several connections with other writers on this platform in ways other than just writing. Some of us like cats, some of us have similar senses of humor, some are part of a marginalized group (LGBTQ+), some of us have had or are managing depression, and some of us just enjoy one another’s differences.

I have read many, many posts during the past month. I’ve clapped, commented, and followed–not just articles, but comments made on other blogs. That is how I found several of the writers that I now follow. Whenever I read a post, I usually read the comments as well. If I agree with what they have to say, I’ll clap and many times I’ll visit that person’s page too. Sometimes just clapping for an article will gain you a follower, but leaving a relevant and insightful comment will raise the chances of a person visiting your blog and at least reading an article, if not following you.

Then, of course, if I like a person’s content (usually more than one of their posts), I will comment on the posts, follow the writer, and that will sometimes gain a follow from them. If it doesn’t, that’s okay with me, because I am not doing the “Follow 4 Follow” strategy that is so popular with many others. I have said it in other posts and I’ll say again that the F4F, in my opinion, is not a way to gain authentic and consistent followers who genuinely want to read and appreciate your content.

My Top Posts

This may be a surprise to you (it was to me, at first), but the posts with the most views or the most reads are not the same as my top earning posts. The post that received the most views and the most reads by far was:

It had 434 Views and 138 Reads, but as far as earnings, it brought me only $0.08. Why? Because 97% of the views were External referrals.

Next, with 117 Views and 55 Reads was:

This was one did a little better money-wise, earning $0.53.

Now, the top 5 earning stories are:

#1 — Clap, Comment, or Follow? $1.50

#2 — Views vs. Reads on Medium $1.40

#3 — Learning to Write Poetry $1.16

#4 — Learning to Write Poetry: The Tanka $0.66

#5–3 Great Tips to Care for Winter Finches $0.53

What Did I Learn?

Now, of course, I want to use this information to my advantage, so what can I gain from analyzing this data? First, people outside of Medium care a lot about theater and/or specifically The Rocky Horror Picture Show! Second, readers inside Medium want to read about topics concerning Medium. I’ve heard this sentiment from others and it seems to hold true with my posts so far.

What really makes me happy is that #3 and #4 top earners were about writing poetry, which is what I love to do. I will definitely work on more posts that focus on learning various poetry forms and how to employ them. Here I have to thank Martin Morrison and Jason Provencio for publishing my poetry and poetry articles in The Bouncin’ and Behavin’ Poetry Society. This added exposure helped to boost my views and reads.

The theater review really surprised me, but also #5. I guess there are a lot of bird lovers out there!

Quality vs. Quantity

I think I published about 27 posts in November. It’s a little difficult to tell, because a couple of my posts were imported from WordPress and when they are displayed on Medium, they are listed by their original publication date. So, I didn’t post every day, but nearly. If I hadn’t written some of these poems, stories or articles previously, I probably wouldn’t have been able to post so many.

The posts that I write take time because I put a lot into them. I write, format, edit, make sure I’m varying the lengths of my paragraphs, using headings, inserting links, using a thesaurus if I find myself repeating words or phrases. To sum it up, I try to maintain a high standard of quality. Having said that, some of my posts are written just for fun. I wrote one called A Medium Challenge: Ten Things About Me (currently awaiting publication in Bloggers Ink) that I didn’t put a lot of thought into and the one you’re currently reading is not my best either. I’m hoping my readers will forgive my occasional laziness, haha. I really just wanted to get this one out there as soon as November ended.

Will my growth continue? Will I be able to keep posting consistently? We’ll see…

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