Should Writers Jump on Simily Fast?

It could be a promising payout, especially for those who don’t qualify for MPP. Read on for Simily FAQs.

Simily is a new platform for writers to earn money for their writing. Currently, the website is in beta testing, which means it is the perfect time to hop on and make a name for yourself before the big wigs from Medium and elsewhere start swarming the place.

By the way, the payout is big and they pay writers from any country via PayPal. That means incredible, groundbreaking writers like Uwem Daniels from Nigeria can make money from this site!

I discovered Simily back in December but was hesitant to start creating on there until I learned more about the platform. It’s really important for me to study a new place thoroughly and understand what performs the best before I dive in headfirst.

After all, we have all seen what the Medium algorithm favors. Sometimes, we don’t realize this until after we have sat in “curation jail” for a little while. So I figured since I could start fresh with their algorithm, I would use this to my full advantage.

“Innovation is taking two things that exist and putting them together in a new way.” — Tom Freston

As writers, we should constantly be looking for new ways to showcase our talent. I personally think we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn’t.

I have learned a lot from the platform after spending hours just navigating the place and reading about it from fellow writers. I even reached out to their support team via email to ask them specific questions so I could provide you all with a detailed description of how to be successful there.

If I were you, I would head to Simily ASAP. But first, stick around to learn everything you need to know. I did the research so you don’t have to. (Here is my profile — let’s connect!)

Is it Worth it to Write on Simily? Yes!

“How to make money writing online” is searched thousands of times each day by blooming new writers and seasoned ones looking for the next new opportunity.

Success can be found anywhere, which has been personally proven to me by one of my fave writers, Zulie Rane. I watched her grow on Medium, a Youtube channel from scratch, a newsletter, Twitch, and more.

She inspires me every single day to keep getting better and embracing my talents. If you are comfortable on a platform, and it’s working for you, you may be thinking, “I’m not going to fix what isn’t broken.” But it’s far more than that.

Getting out of your comfort zone can lead you to opportunities you couldn’t have even dreamed of.

What Type of Writing Does Simily Accept?

Simily is branded as a platform that favors fiction writers, but with further research, that isn’t exclusive. They also accept non-fiction and poetry, and they have space for every genre of writing you could think of.

Writing is my art

It fills my days with courage

I embrace it whole — Haiku by Author

How Does it Work?

Create your profile by choosing your membership tier. Membership options are described in detail below. I recommend starting with the free version as you can always upgrade. Sign-up is a breeze. All you need is your name, email, username, and password.

Customize: Once you get to your profile, you can add your profile picture, cover photo, pronouns, bio, and links to your social media accounts.

Here is an example of my bio is you need inspiration. By the way, there is no obvious character count!

How Much Does Simily Pay?

The best part about Simily is that it pays both for internal views and external views. This is huge and it may not be this way forever. Simily’s payment model is .02 for every unique view their story receives. “Unique” means people other than you checking it out, lol.

Compared to Medium, this doesn’t stink. Who knows if Simily will be the next “Medium?” It’s hard to tell at this stage in the game, but I’m thinking it might be worth investing time in.

While there is a $10 minimum payout, I don’t mind this at all. If you don’t reach ten bucks in a month, it just keeps rolling over until you do. This is amazing compared to Vocal Media’s $35 payout, which I still haven’t accomplished.

Though, some folks may not appreciate this delay in payment since Medium will deposit as little as a penny via direct deposit. All is to be considered.

Vocal Media is another story, and a platform I definitely do not recommend based on experience.

What are Simily.co’s Membership Fees?

Simily offers a free membership where you get access to five stories a month (which is obviously more than Medium’s 3 stories per month.) You can also submit as many stories as you like, with no mention of a maximum amount you are allowed to publish within the free membership.

Special Launch: Currently, they have a special price since they have newly launched of 1.99 per month for unlimited viewing and special access to other features of the site. This promotion is only for your first month, but is definitely a small price to pay to get your feet wet on the website.

Unlimited: After your free month, the fee is $7 per month, which is surprising since it is more expensive than Medium! I’m not sure if they will change this in the future to be more competitive with Medium. I imagine they decided on this price to have the ability to pay their writers more than Medium does.

Yearly: On their website, they advertise an annual plan of $69 which is obviously more than Medium’s $50 annual fee. Oddly, this annual plan wasn’t included in the promotional email they sent me, but can be found on the website. Perhaps they plan to adjust this in time based on the success of the platform. The only other perk of investing in the annual membership compared to the monthly unlimited is that you get your first two months free.

What Should I Write?

Before you start spending time curating articles specifically for Simily, consider recycling your articles from Medium and sharing them there. If you write on Vocal or Newsbreak, I would recommend cross-posting, at least in the beginning. This will help you with experimentation to see what works specific to you. It will also help you build your following more quickly.

There is a technique to this, though.

According to Burk, you should share your Medium articles with higher external views than internal views. This will take some time and analysis, depending on how many stories you have published to date.

Remember, Medium doesn’t pay for external views, so even if you are reaching people via Google search or elsewhere — people who aren’t members, you aren’t earning anything from those outside views.

Simily does pay for external views.

Analysis Break Down of Top Performing In Terms of External Views

1. Go through all of your stories and discover which ones have experienced or maintained external views consistently. On your stats page, the light blue color represents outside views (which typically aren’t paid unless this person converts to a member straight after reading your article.)

See a prime example below. I wrote this article just as it was trending like crazy on Tiktok. I didn’t know that because I don’t have a Tiktok. I had met with an old friend and she was telling me about this new technique she heard of. I researched it on my own afterward out of pure curiosity, and before I knew it, I was ranking on the first page of Google for days, then weeks, then months!

Here’s the kicker → Most of my views were and still are external so I made just about $124. As you can see, today January 25th at 10:45am EST, 57 people already viewed this article. This article was posted July 31st, 2020, and it still maintains its shelf-life on the vast internet. If you like, read the article here. It must be good since Google likes it!

So how do I work with this?

2. Copy and Paste. I took this article and changed the feature image to something I edited myself (to help my reach even more, even if it turns out to be minuscule to SEO Gods).

3. The most important step: do not forget this step! Go to your article on Medium and change the canonical link.

• Click the three dots on the top right of your draft
• Click more settings
• Scroll down and find advanced settings. Click on the drop-down arrow.
• Select the box that says “This story was originally published elsewhere.”
• Paste the link from your Simily article.
• Save.

This apparently helps Google to recognize or “think” that your Simily article was the original, so they will index or “show” that one before they show the Medium one.

The benefit of this is because since you know the article has done well so far, you can earn money from external views on Simily instead of not earning a dime for the same story on Medium.

There’s so much more to learn about Simily like how to navigate the notifications, story of the week, groups, story sharing checklist, story categorizing, and more. As I created deep-dive articles on those topics, I will come back and link them here.

I am just really excited and I think you should be too!

Edina Abena Jackson, rockstar writer on Medium embarked on a 30-day Simily challenge and so far she says she likes the community and what the platform has to offer.

Don’t Wait- “Simi”-Late

Join Simily today and start earning for those external views, no matter what country you reside in! I am really excited about this new platform and I hope you will join me there!

Let’s connect on Simily!

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