Writing

One Secret From All Writing & Earning Success Stories

They all have a common denominator to financial success for writing online, on Medium and in general

Many writers, including novices and veterans alike, from the likes of your average Joe to Tim Denning, have written articles on their own secrets to financial success on Medium. You can find tons of these articles published on Medium, and they are frequently quite popular.

Medium has a unique algorithm. Not only do writers spend time writing articles and figuring out how to increase their chances for curation and “virality” of their articles, but Medium also individualizes your newsfeed at least partially based on articles you’ve clapped, saved, and indicated an interest in in some way in the past. As a result, I’ve seen and read quite a few “How to make … writing on Medium” and “How I made [hundreds or thousands] in [relatively short timespan] on Medium”.

In other words, I did the dirty work so you don’t have to. You can either spend hours reading all those articles (or maybe you already have, too) or you can just read this one. And it’ll be short, I promise.

What’s the one most common denominator to success? You guessed it. Writing. Writing more and writing consistently. Who woulda thunk it? That’s like saying the secret to becoming a good chef is spending more time in the kitchen cooking or the secret to becoming a good physician is to see more patients. It’s not rocket science, people.

Just like many other stories you’ll see in life, the process to attain success isn’t necessarily difficult to crack. It’s just tough to actually commit to and perform at that level for days, weeks, months, years. And that’s what separates the Tim Dennings of the world from the rest of us Medium plebeians.

Then why is it still so hard to attain success on this platform? Because that’s the way it’s designed. If every single writer earned hundreds monthly, there wouldn’t be enough in the pool for the top writers to make thousands. Then we wouldn’t have the likes of Shannon Ashley or Tim Denning writing articles about how they made thousands solely from Medium (even if those articles they write may be few and far between).

There are more reasons every writer who has written consistently for months still hasn’t even attained moderate success. Of course, you have to be realistic with your goals. If you have 25 followers and you’ve cranked out 150 articles already, you might need to work on raising that follower count first before you focus on raking in thousands from your articles.

Many novice writers I’ve seen on this platform haven’t read enough about how to succeed. When I say that, I mean it quite literally. You can have the greatest idea for an article in the world and write what you consider to be your magnum opus, but if it’s formatted poorly and rife with grammatical and spelling errors, it probably won’t do well. That’s not because you’re a bad writer or the article itself is shoddy; it could just be because your reader is struggling to figure out what you’re trying to say or it’s not easy to read.

At Medium, the reader has always been king (reminder: you’re not just a writer here, we’re all readers, too). That’s one of the many things that makes this site so special. Nowhere else could I have found such a well-established community of writers and made money so quickly from my writing. That’s a great feeling to a new writer; you don’t have to get caught up in making thousands just yet.

Catering to your followers, continuing to write on topics that have been well-received in the past, and making your articles captivating, easy-to-read, and informative will all help you succeed on this platform.

Engage with your followers; read their stories, leave a positive comment and clap if you enjoyed it. This will help you connect with your peers, increase your chances of your articles being similarly lauded, and you may even learn a thing or two from one of your followers’ stories.

Just as an example, read success stories on here, maybe ones that have been published in a publication you want to be in too. See how their articles are written and formatted, from their headline that made you want to click to their use of bold and italics in the article itself. How they write. How you feel reading their writing. Try to replicate that feeling in your next article.

So write. That’s it. That’s the secret to success on this site. But it’s not just writing. You have to write not only consistently, but also on topics that will attract a wide gamut of readers. And you must ensure your articles are error-free while remaining as engaging and useful as possible.

Then, maybe then, with a sprinkle of luck, you might get your first curated article or break even in your first month. Success is relative; just because I’m not making thousands on here [yet] doesn’t mean I can’t celebrate my small successes like breaking 1K reads or turning a profit monthly. That’s progress and you have to enjoy the process, not just the end result.

Enjoyed reading this? Follow me for more! I’m a medical student from Atlanta, Georgia interested in medicine, health disparities, and more. I love connecting with peers.