Week Three

On Medium, Stick With It (But Get Better)

Lessons from week 3 of trying to grow a brand new account

I just wrapped up week three of my experiment to see if it’s still possible to start from scratch and make money on Medium.

In week three I earned $30.11.

Here’re what my previous weeks look like so far:

Week two: $17.50. Week one: $00.05.

So. Progress.

The goal is to see if I can get to where I’m earning $1,000 a month in 90 days.

A big part of my experimentation on my secret account this week was reaching out and doing some self-promotion.

I did two things.

Thing One: I Posted Links to My Posts to a Relevant Facebook Group

I took a look at the Facebook Groups that I belong to and realized that there was one that A) has a lot of followers (about 50,000) and B) allows followers to post links any time, not just on self-promo days.

I occasionally participate in the group, so when I started posting my links, they wouldn’t read like spam. Also, the group is very busy, so I don’t think the links (one a day in a group that gets more than 20 posts a day), which are very relevant to the topic of discussion, would have felt spammy regardless.

The links did bring lots of views. Hundreds. And reads as well. But it didn’t translate into fans, which are the metric by which Medium pays writers.

The post above did wind up getting curated, so it got a few fans, but for a while it had more than 400 reads and just 1 fan.

The thing is that traffic off of Medium is a funny thing. Medium’s ‘like’ feature (clapping via the hand icon) isn’t particularly intuitive, and we’re not allowed to instruct readers on how to do it within our posts if we want to be curated. Which is fine. Rules are rules.

But it means that when we drive traffic from outside Medium, it doesn’t usually lead quickly or directly to an increased paycheck. If you stay around long enough, you might find that you’ve written a post that has made it to the front page for some keyword on Google and has thousands of views — and has earned you $2.

That’s just the way it goes.

Those views, though. At the very least, they’re good for the ego.

When you’re just starting out, it’s tough to write for the tiny handful of early readers. It’s much nicer to see a few hundred folks are viewing and reading, even if they have no idea what clapping is (and even if they did clap, they’re probably not paying Medium members, so you wouldn’t get paid for their claps, anyway).

They’re good for more than the ego as well. Some of those readers might like what you have to say. They might come back. They might figure out they like Medium. They might become paying members. They might start clapping for other posts.

I would have loved for those readers to comment and discuss on Medium. Instead, they went back and talked on Facebook. But still, I found that it was a big boost to my motivation to have people actually reading my posts.

Thing Two: I Put a Post in Someone Else’s Publication

This one is something I’m still on the fence about.

My post didn’t get any more traffic or fans than any of my other posts that were curated and posted in my own publications. That post promoted someone else’s publication rather than my own, so I don’t think I got as much good from it as I did from my other posts.

I still fall in the camp that for the most part, a new writer’s best bet is to write a post that is curated by Medium and is published in their own publication, so that readers might choose to follow a) the writer and b) the publication.

I think there are times when publications that don’t belong to you might make sense.

Medium’s own publications (Human Parts, Elemental, Gen, etc.), for instance, are always a good idea. They are very heavily promoted and will get any writer a lot of exposure, but would be an especially big boost to a brand new writer that doesn’t have much of a following.

This post that you’re reading will eventually be published in Better Marketing, but Medium won’t curate it from my own publication because of the topic, so getting in front of a different audience makes sense.

For the vast majority of the posts, however, the benefits of posting in your own publication — even when you are just starting out and have a tiny following — still seem big to me, as evidenced by my experiment. I also have an established audience.

I highly recommend that you start a publication as soon as you start writing on Medium. A topical publication — one that’s tied to a subject that followers might be interested in— is likely to get the most attention.

One that just holds your personal essays will work, it just might grow more slowly.

You can start to send a “letter” to your publications followers when you publish, as soon as you have even one follower.

I’ve written a guide to publications, including how to write a letter, here:

I know that reaching out to followers is scary, but try to remember that they asked you to. Not doing it is rude. Don’t be a rude writer!

So to sum up: I’ll keep posting my links in that Facebook Group, but I’ll probably stick to my own publications from now on, except for pitching Medium’s own publications.

Things Are Starting to Gel

I’ve finally got enough posts on my account and enough followers that I’m starting to see some progress.

When I publish, one or two people usually click through right away. That’s super nice.

I can see the difference in my stats.

Here are my stats so far for views:

And for fans:

I’m seeing my baselines, especially for fans, move up.

I said it last week and the week before, but I’ll say it again.

And I’m sure I’ll say it every single week.

Being curated matters a lot. Learn how to be curated. That means learning how to write to Medium’s specifications.

I wrote seven posts on my secret account this week and six of them were curated.

I actually had to take two of my posts down when they weren’t curated, make them better, give them better titles, and try again. Which is to say that the learning curve is never-ending.

The key is to work through it. My experiment is impacted by the fact that I have experience writing on Medium. I already know how to write posts that the curators will curate a good portion of the time.

You might not be able to get to $1,000 a month in 90 days, even if I can. (If I can.) But that doesn’t mean you can’t in six months. And if you can in six months, your growth will keep going quickly from there.

You just have to keep growing.

You can learn to do that.

On this account (my regular account), if I’m not curated it’s not as big a deal. I have 20,000 followers. And I have my own audience that I’ve spent a long time and a lot of love and work building.

Medium and I both have people to share my post with regardless of curation. It sucks when I’m not curated. It hurts my pride. Writers have fragile egos sometimes! But it’s not the difference between some readers and no readers.

If you are brand new and you have no followers or almost no followers and you don’t have an email list, publishing on Medium is very similar to publishing on a Wordpress blog. It’s something like throwing your message into the ocean in a bottle and hoping Google will find it and share it with a few people.

Unless you’re curated. If you’re curated, now Medium is showing your post to some readers. Not masses of them. But some. And some of those will follow you. And your publication, if you’re posting in one of your own.

When you post tomorrow and you’re curated, Medium will show your post to the people who followed you yesterday, plus a few more. And you can send a letter to your publication followers. And a few more will follow you.

And it builds on itself.

Look at Medium as a giant publication. They want a uniform, professional look and feel to the work they promote. They’ve given guidelines to help writers learn how to create work that fits into their framework. This last week, they emailed out a couple of links to more guidelines (here and here).

Learn how to write posts that Medium will promote and you’ll give yourself a boost. Medium has changed a lot. Three years ago, when I first started writing here, things were looser. When you posted, it was easier to get attention.

You have to work harder now, but if you’re willing to do that, I think you can still make the platform work for you.

My stats on my new account so far

I had 53 followers last week. I have 71 this week. (I’m not doing as good a job as I could… and want to… with following other writers.)

My publication had 52 followers last week. It has 61 this week.

My email list had 43 subscribers last week. It has 48 this week.

What I Did This Week

In case you want to play along, here’s what I did. It’s a good beginning for anyone just starting out.

• I wrote seven posts. (Six of them were curated!)
• I sent out a newsletter to my email followers on Sunday.
• I sent a letter to my Medium publication followers for every post. The letters were an excerpt of the post with a button inviting them to come finish reading the post.
• I shared my posts on my personal Facebook and Twitter feeds.
• I shared five of my posts with a Facebook Group that was relevant to my topic.
• I followed three other writers. I need to get better at this!
• I posted once in a publication I don’t own.
• I sent one link to a Quora space where I thought it might be a good fit. It hasn’t been accepted or denied yet, so we’ll see how that goes next week.
• I pitched a story idea to a Medium-owned publication.

What I Learned This Week + My Plans for Next Week

I really don’t care very much about being in other people’s publications. I’m glad I figured that out for sure.

I do think that — especially for new writers — being in one of Medium’s own publications could be huge though. So, I’m going to make a habit of pitching them once a week.

I had a plan last week to come up with an opt-in for my email list, and time got away with me. I’m going to try again this week. I think I could be doing a better job with building my list up, especially because I’m getting readers from Facebook and they’re actually reading through my posts, even if they’re not clapping.

I still haven’t thought of a series, although I did do some brainstorming. I’m still working on that this week.

See you next Friday with another update!