Self-Editing Tip #9: Are You Getting Paid for Your Posts? Is Your Story’s Meter On?
It pays to double-check before hitting submit or publish
It can be as simple as clicking the metering box (‘meter my story’) when you select your five topics. That’s right under the topic selection box.
Do make sure you use all five topic opportunities. Please make sure Middle-Pause is one of them. Many of you are not doing that. But it helps our visibility on the platform, as both Middle and Meno Pause are hot topics! Pun intended!
Let me back up and start at the beginning.
In order to get paid, you have to be in the Medium Partnership Program.
To qualify to apply, you have to have published at least one article on Medium. In or out of publications.
How do you get followers if you’re brand new?
Following other writers may or may not get you a follow back.
But reading and commenting on posts shows that you care about this community.
What kind of comments?
If you like a story or a passage in it, tell the author. Or share your perspective on the topic. If you disagree, do so respectfully, of course. This is what’s meant by engagement. So engage!
And Middle-Pausers, let’s support our new writers by following them!
Once you qualify, I believe you have to sign up. That process involves linking your bank account to Stripe so you can get paid and providing Medium with a tax ID number.
Read more about this here: Getting Started in the Partner Program.
Once you’re in the program, you still have to make sure your meter is turned on when submitting or publishing a post.
FYI what that means is only other Medium members can read your post unless you share a Friend Link with them. Non-members get three free reads before a box shows up inviting them to join Medium so they can keep enjoying our stories.
You can of course always share your story’s Friend Link with non-members. That’s under the three-dot menu in the upper right corner of your story.
How do you turn on your meter?
That’s the question box that’s right below the aforementioned topic box that shows up when you’re submitting or publishing your story. Click the little box that says Meter my story.
If you forget, it’s not too late.
Click on the three dots in the upper right corner of your story.
Then click on Edit.
Go to that menu and scroll down to manage paywall setting. Click on that.
Then click on the only box that shows up: Paywall your story.
If you’re in the Partnership Program and your story meter’s on, there should be a yellow star and the words Member-only story above your title in small print. This is a way you can quick-check yourself.
When putting together a recent newsletter, I noticed some of you didn’t have your metering on.
While that’s not my primary focus, you can make it yours.
Please do!
Here’s the complete set of Self-Editing tips for you:
Marilyn Flower is a sacred fool who writes every day — fiction, poetry, and blogs — inspired by a process called SoulCollage®. She’s the author of Creative Blogging and Bucket Listers: Get Your Brave On. Follow her Sacred Foolishness or SoulCollage® for Writers, and Stay in touch!
