My Secret Sauce for Success on Medium

Quarantined Income Workshop #5

Hello everyone! Welcome to the fifth workshop in the Quarantined Income Workshop series.

I was quite nervous about writing this one because it’s a topic that’s already extremely widely covered here on Medium.

Seemingly everyone on the platform has written at least one article that instructs other writers on how they can “make it”, regardless of whether or not these writers have themselves “made it.” I’m personally guilty of writing more than a few Medium-focused articles over the past year of being on the platform.

I don’t really know what “making it” is supposed to look like, I personally think if you’re having fun and are expressing your creativity, then you’ve already made it.

The big number that gets tossed around a lot in regards to “making it” is the $100 per month earnings benchmark that Medium includes in an email that many of us receive every month. (I don’t get that email for some reason).

Every month the email updates us on the tiny percentage that represents the active writers who made at least $100 during the previous month and were therefore admitted into “the club.” Those of us that succeeded in reaching that goal get to feel special, while those who didn’t are left feeling bad.

This bad feeling then leads these writers down a rabbit-hole of worthless advice that’s prefaced with a title like “Wow! I made $1,000! Look at me, everyone!” Which just opens into an article written by someone who wanted to strut around for a few minutes for whoever they could convince to stick around.

So I really didn’t want to contribute to the pile of dog crap that is these “how to succeed on Medium” or even worse, “how I succeeded on Medium” articles, but I also didn’t want to leave Medium out of the workshop series. I feel this way because Medium is by far my biggest money-making hustle, so it would certainly feel wrong to leave it out just because there are so many other likeminded articles out there.

Because of my Medium paycheques, I haven’t had to stress about being furloughed from work as I would have otherwise done.

December 2019 was the first month I joined “the club”, and January 2020 was my first month in the lounge (that’s what I’m calling the unknown percentage of writers who make at least $1,000 a month on Medium).

Both the club and the lounge are really difficult to get into, but once you’ve made it, it seems pretty easy to stay where you are. I believe that’s the case because if you have a formula that won you entry into the club to begin with, followed by the lounge; your formula must be potent enough to keep you there.

So today, since this workshop series is specifically about making money, let’s leave the creative expression, joy and satisfaction out of it. Let’s discuss making money on Medium. And hopefully, let’s do it in such a way that this article isn’t relegated to the afformentioned pile of dog crap.

The Series Strategy

As I discussed in a previous article, part of my income strategy is to create what I call declared and undeclared series.

A declared series is any string of articles that I have explicitly announced is a series.

I give the series its own section of the publication in which it’s featured, and I talk about the series inside each article itself.

This includes the Quarantined Income Workshop series, the Coronavirus Stock Experiment series, and the Streaming Wars series.

These were intentionally written so that readers could feel a theme, and would hopefully become invested in the material.

The goal of this strategy is to keep a pair of eyes on my writing for as long as possible because writers on this platform are (nowadays) paid per minute read.

Chances are that if someone likes one of my workshop series articles, they may like another, and another. Hopefully, this person may read all of them, and if they do, I’ll be far more handsomely compensated than if the reader had left it at one.

The other kind of series is the undeclared ones. These are the many series of articles I write that are connected, but it’s never pointed out.

This includes my Disney series, investment series, and my series of articles about businesses who’ve messed up. Writing articles that only loosely tie together ensures that a certain type of reader is going to come back again and again because I constantly hit a theme they like.

If there’s a reader out there who loves to revel in the misfortune and stupidity of large companies, chances are they’ll like what I write.

I also write articles that intentionally take strong stands on seemingly trivial issues. I’m not looking for readers to hate me; I’m looking for the readers who love to hate me.

These are the ones that write angry comments, read the article ten times, then share the article to 20 friends with the message “can you BELIEVE this guy?!”

That reader will always be the most profitable kind. You’ll never find that reader by attacking something deep like religion, identity, race, or anything meaningful. This special type of reader materialises when you attack food, travel, Trump, drinking, and anything else trivial that people feel strongly about.

What I’ll Never Write About

The types of articles I avoid writing are those that live on either side of the cringe spectrum. These are the “yay I’m the best!” and “boo everything sucks” articles.

Articles that tout how amazing the author is will never attract a loyal reader because the reader is here to consume the product; they’re not here to watch you bask in your own brilliance.

When I talk to people about Kim Kardashian, people who don’t watch the show will say “I don’t know how she has an audience, all she does is talk about herself.”

But those people are wrong. The Kardashians (while not role models in any way) are the highest-rated show on their network for a reason.

They don’t talk about how great and wonderful they are; they engage in carefully planned conversations about how busy their lives are while sitting on a couch doing nothing. They talk about being “self made” while we can clearly see their mother in the background doing absolutely everything for them.

Their content is binge-worthy because they inspire the viewer to have a conversation about how ridiculous they are.

No reader wants to watch you shower yourself with affection; they want content that inspires thought and conversation, even if that conversation is about how much they love to hate you.

The Kardashians have perfected ‘love to hate’, and it’s something I want to improve on with my own writing.

Another thing the reader doesn’t want is too much information, or to be brought too low. There are so many articles on the site complaining about how little money the author is making, how hard they have it, and what they wouldn’t give for a decent readership.

While I’m attracted to these articles for the drama, I’d never return to an author after having read an article that brought me down.

Also, I’m a little turned off when a depressed writer shares the exact figures they earned last month. It feels a little like I caught you coming out of the shower.

I’m never going to tell you my exact numbers, all you need to know from me is that I’m going to close this month having earned four figures, and I’ll do it by not bringing the reader down with depressing rants about how empty my life is.

I admire strong writers who can use real-life stories to tell a narrative of triumph. For writers who are brave enough to share the horrors of their experiences to teach the power of resilience, they have a level of bravery I’ll never know.

But you don’t see these writers telling stories of abuse, sharing photos from the event, then leaving the story open-ended and sad.

An author ending an article right after a dark story shouldn’t ever expect a reader to return.

Shooting for Numbers

People say that this is a numbers game, and as long as you’ve written a large number of articles, you’ll make money.

While it is true that the numbers sure add up, the articles actually need to provide value to make any money at all.

You can have 100 articles under your belt, but they’ll all add up to zero if they were created in a second and thrown out into the world because you just wanted to build the numbers and not the value.

A writer who’s written 100 examples of garbage is going to make a lot less than a writer who’s written ten masterpieces. No matter what number of articles you’re hoping to write each day/week/month, you’re only wasting your time if you’re only thinking about the quota.

I’ve reached the point in my writing where I can pretty accurately predict the financial results of an article, based on my motivation for writing it.

There are several out there I wrote to reach a quota for the week, and I regret it. All that wasted effort on articles that never needed to exist.

A better use of my time would have been a walk in nature, some time in the kitchen, or anything else that may have inspired me. I know I need to treat this like a job now that I’m not working, but I’m still not interested in wasting time and effort just because I’ve committed to an article a day.

Purge Your Mind of What Doesn’t Matter

Here are the things that have either been completely useless in my journey or don’t need to be worried about too much.

Big publications are 100% worthless to you as a writer. I believe they probably served a purpose once upon a time, but that time has long since passed.

Instead, submit your great stories to small publications that have a modest but involved following. You can estimate an active following by checking the comments of articles featured in a publication.

Do the same readers tend to turn up in different articles? Do conversations get started? Are people getting emotional? How alive does the publication feel? A living publication that inspires thought and conversation is rare and valuable; those are the ones you should be chasing. Leave the old behemoths to rest in their graves.

Disclaimer; I’m not talking about Medium owned publications. I’ve never even submitted to one of those, but I’ve heard both good and bad reports of the results. But I can’t give advice in this area because I’ve never done it.

Stop worrying about curation. While this is something that’s important for earnings, I rely on my non-curated articles as much as I rely on my curated ones for money.

Every massive-earning story I’ve ever written (meaning an article that’s earned four figures) has been curated, but not every curated article has become massive.

I’ve never yet had a non-curated article earn even three figures in a month, so the difference in value per article can be massive depending on curation.

However, it doesn’t mean you should stress about it. My behemoth articles always make me about half my income, but I rely on the little guys to make the rest.

That doesn’t mean I should pump out a million “little guys” so that they’ll add up to a lot of cash. They still all need to be well thought out articles that are of similar quality to the ones deemed worthy of curation.

Let’s Sum Up the Strategy

The most important element of my strategy is making sure I begin writing all my articles with a feeling of peace and freedom.

I don’t worry about what some massive publication will think of my work; I just worry about its quality.

I research ahead of everything I write and make sure it’s as strong as it can be. I also try to be a part of the conversation.

I write about companies that are being talked about right now and try to take strong stands in trivial issues that will make some readers react passionately, either positively or negatively.

I stay away from praising myself, but I also try not to depress the reader and make them feel worse than they did before they started reading.

Whether it has been announced or not, almost everything I write is part of a series. I connect articles with themes and points that when read sequentially, will take the reader on a journey. I encourage people to stay on my profile or publication for as long as possible with articles that closely relate and work well together.

Lastly, I keep myself from sweating the small stuff. Don’t worry about being rejected from big useless publications, and don’t worry about curation.

Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes an article blows up, mostly it doesn’t.

Instead of counting your earnings each day individually, why not update your daily average?

If you’re someone who checks your earnings every day, divide the total money earned by the number of days that have taken place so far in the month. Watch the change in your average, rather than stressing about a bad day, or over-celebrating a good day.

You’re on a journey, and if you’re applying yourself, your writing will be getting better the longer you do it.

If you’ve been here a year and you’re still making $10 a month, don’t be ashamed to try something new. You should know when your strategy isn’t working, and when you’ve figured that out, don’t dwell on the negative.

Pick yourself up, figure out a new strategy and try that instead. If you don’t have a strategy at all, then maybe it’s time to figure one out.

The reader is in charge, and if you’re not making money, then you’re not giving the reader what they want. Find a strategy that works and stick to it, then before long, I’ll be there to welcome you into the lounge. The champaign is free!

That brings us to the end of the fifth workshop in the series. The next one will arrive at Money Clip on Saturday May 16th, see you then!