My Six Month Experience from 100 Articles on Medium — $0 to $6000

Milestone completed 100 articles on Medium

I don’t know whether I should thank the covid lockdown for giving me a pause from my past life and then changing it for the better! What we all have with us is our present. We can do nothing about the time that is gone — neither about the time that is yet to come.

When the nation was experiencing the complete lockdown in the previous year, I was at my in-laws’ house. All I was with my son to play with, television to watch, mobile, and a few books that I already had read like ten times.

But I didn’t know that the lockdown will get extended to months from days, and my previous busier life will haunt me.

What Was I Going Through?

Within a few weeks of the lockdown, I was sure that I wasn’t myself. I was having my nerve cracking on little things. I wasn’t happy about anything. All I wanted was to go back to my workplace and drown myself in work all over again.

My wife, my soulmate, noticed this abrupt change of mine. I knew she was helpless, like me.

How Medium Came Into the Picture

Two months of lockdown got complete. I had started adapting to my lockdown life. One day, my wife came up to me with the idea of writing blogs and articles online. At first, I gave little appreciation to the picture. But after two to three weeks, I started learning about how things work.

I started writing my blogs on health as I was much inclined towards nutrition and health. I was a gym freak, missing my gym life.

I was working on my blog site and Quora when I made a Facebook group for Medium writers out of boredom. (I wasn’t a Medium writer). My group's name is ‘Medium Writers -No Spam & No Fake Reader.’

• Another milestone: On 18th August 2021, the group will be having its first birthday with 3.4K followers.

On 13th January 2021, I was finally on MEDIUM.

I self-published my first article on Medium. It was fascinating that within a few days of publishing, the first article of mine was further distributed(curated)!!

Although I had no idea what curation of an article was all about!!

Writing for me came as a spark in the darkness. I was finally able to channelize my core self into something. I started enjoying writing every word of every article.

Gradually, history became my niche. What was more overwhelming was the amount of love and appreciation from many people.

Medium slowly became my love; I was enjoying every minute spending on it!!

Medium made me a completely different person. Reading History books has remained my hobby for a quite long time.

But writing was never on cards.

Earning was never important to me. I do believe that earning from writing kills creativity. All great writers wrote without having any expectation, even my all-time favorite George Orwell.

But most writers’ bread and butter come from their writing these days. Things have been completely changed over time.

Online platforms have given a boost to the writing industry. We are witnessing many new full-time writers these days.

More competition — more quality!

My experience with Medium earning

January-

When I saw the earning of my very first article on medium, it was $0.20. The happiness of the moment is indescribable. I was feeling overjoyed as if I have earned millions!! These 20 cents made me addicted to notice my Medium earning every single day. I published three articles in January on Medium, and I was paid $4.58.

February-

In February I pushed myself to publish at least ten articles, the total earning was $33.98.

This month I got to know the fine line between writing and quality writing. I started writing more quality-wise articles which were a bit hard for me back then as English is my third language which I happened to learn after leaving my village.

My mother tongue is Haryanvi, and my second language is Hindi.

March-

In March, I published 18 articles, I aimed to hit the $50 earning mark. I would be happy with $50 but Medium made me happier with $67.74.

Also, I am extremely thankful to Lesson from History, for their unconditional support.

April-

This was the month when the nation was witnessing numerous deaths due to the second wave of Covid19.

I too got infected by the virus. I was drastically ill. My head kept spinning all day long with fever ranging from mild to high. I was getting negative thoughts — I didn’t know whether I’ll make up until next sunrise or not!

All I could think of was that if something happens to me, then how will my family face it? It took me twenty days to recover from the virus and speaking of Medium, I published 10 articles which I had piled up in drafts as I wasn’t able to write anything new.

This month's total earning was $114.33. To my surprise, I was also one of the names on the $500 bonus list. (Total — $114.33+$500=$614.33)

May-

I call May the game-changer month.

May gave me so much — the top writer tag, four-figure earning, and most important of all: a sense of worth within myself!

June-

In the sixth month of mine, I published a total of 18 articles. The total earning for this month was $1579($1079+$500). I noticed my previous months published articles were giving a good boost to their next month.

My experience was, in my case 5–8 minutes articles work well and a great ‘Title’ is the real game-changer.

It is everyone’s wish to publish an article on time. Lesson from History has remained the best home for my articles. But still, I thought, there should be a home where I can publish my article anytime, whenever I want. So I created a publication The History Magazine. Everyone is welcome to this new publication.

July-

In July I published a total of 20 articles. In July my earning was $703.03. Again Medium distributed a $500 bonus. So total it was $1203.03.

I find myself lucky that I received $500 for all four months. This bonus credit completely goes to my fellow writers and readers.

My message to the new writers

I did not mention my earning to brag about it. But what I thought, it can inspire and can motivate new writers who want their food on the table from their writing. If a guy like me doesn't know grammar and English can do then you also can do it.

We have to keep learning which makes us grow every day. To write, we should read first. Sometimes to write just 5 minutes article, we have to read many books. Give yourselves time to read.

Earning from writing is never in your hand. it is all about the reader. You need to hook readers to your writings.

Writing is a byproduct of reading, more reading more ideas to write.

A word of advise

Medium although being great in every manner had turned into an addiction, which I find as the only drawback of any platform. With time I have achieved a physical state of mind where I completely plug off medium from mind when I am with my family.

If you spend four or five hours on medium and two hours with your family, let those two hours be completely dedicated to them.

A special thanks to my fellow writers

I am always thankful to my fellow writers. You did not even support me, everyone taught me so much about writing, about my grammatical mistakes. All the credit goes to you guys. Wish you all good luck. Thanks for being you. Thanks for your support.

Here let me mention some of the honorable names worth following on this platform:

Vishnu*s Virtues Dr. Preeti Singh Amy Marley Rakshit Shah Luay Rahil Jairam R Prabhu Noorain Hassan, BMS Alexander Briseño Rambling Rose Myriam Ben Salem🦋 Anne Bonfert Darshak Rana David Rudder David Spero Rn Trista Signe Ainsworth MikeSemantics Ching Ching Muhammad Nasrullah Khan Darryl Brooks Sylvain Saurel Blessing Akpan Ruchi Thalwal AnBento Elvie Lins Suraj Ghimire Anthony Galli Jessey Anthony Jennifer Pitts John Gruber P.S. Sara Melissa Frost Sarah Lau Parker Anshuman G. Shameem Anwar Dinelka Athena Milios —RAINNA afzal khan Angela Phan Soha Nisar Graceygee Akarsh Nalawade Arem Daich Rocío Rivers Mia Verita Felicity The Power Within Dennis De Silva Lanu Pitan Terry Mansfield Aswin Sajjad Choudhury Robert Trakofler NBPrime Anirban Kar Rui Alves Josephine Crispin Vivek Naskar Brajendra Kumar Tom Handy Yana Bostongirl Ilham Esse Bob Dumont Thief Mark Tulin Shireen Sinclair Freda Savahl Diana Braune Adebola Alabi Kassondra O'Hara Mariza Writes Niharika Chhabra Alvin Ang Anita Durairaj Abdullah Safi Chrissie Powers Rahul Anand Gurpreet Dhariwal Fareeha Arshad JJ Sum Synthia Stark Kavish Kamat (KK) Arup Roy Satbir Singh Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) Zsófia Sáfár Seema Virani Kholiya. DMTakeshi Jehan Senai Worthy Skippy von Alte Welt Indubala Kachhawa Hugo Bertrand Massùod Hemmat Yamin Ohmar Mukul varshney Elle Blooms Jan Mozer Amy Marley Ankit Priyadarshi Amit Chauhan Srini Sh*t Happens - Lost Girl Travel Alberto García 🚀🚀🚀 Yang Zhou