Six Lessons I’ve Learned After Writing on Medium for A year

Everyone should blog every day.

After 12 months of writing and publishing, I’ve come to understand why Seth Godin thinks why we all should blog daily.

“Everyone should write a blog, every day, even if no one reads it. There are countless reasons why it’s a good idea and I can’t think of one reason it’s a bad idea. “— Seth Godin

“Committing to having a point of view and scheduling a time and place to say something is almost certainly going to improve your thinking, your attitude, and your trajectory.”

Four months ago I joined the Medium Partner Program and during that time the profits in total is 2.238.36 dollars.

When I look back it's crazy to think that I am making money online, it turns out is possible to earn cash here, and the best part is that absolutely love blogging.

As Tim Denning says:

“I love the process of writing.

Writing is self-care.”

So without further ado, these are the six lessons I’ve learned after one year of blogging.

1. Be consistent.

I’ve said this repeatedly and I will continue to say it perpetually:

To be successful at anything, you don’t need to be different. You simply have to be what most people aren’t: consistent.

No one in Medium simply became notorious overnight. There’s no shortcut. All of them consistently put in the effort and work to get there.

And as James Clear said in one of his blogposts: “Rome wasn’t built in a day but they were laying bricks every hour.”

The thing that separates top performers from everybody else is not that they don’t make mistakes. They make errors, they make bad choices, they have bad days, but they have a way to always get back on track.

So just keep showing up.

2. Built a writing habit that works for you.

It's really not mandatory or absolutely necessary that you write and publish day after day, frankly, you don’t have to if you don’t feel like it.

And yes, I am aware many writers manage to produce pieces daily, but that doesn’t mean you should do the same.

You only need to find a pace of work that works for you, one that makes you contented, one that doesn’t add stress to your day-to-day living.

So in my case, I assigned two days of my week to write content and hit publish. My personal system is to put out 4 pieces every month, that's it, if I produce more than that great, and if I don’t that's okay too because my target has always been four posts.

Having that “assigned target” helps me avoid feeling like I am not doing enough, or that I should be doing more.

3. Develop Laser Focus.

Silence distractions.

Writing, editing even selecting the right image isn’t easy, it takes effort and concentration so is vital that you develop and master a laser focus.

In order to do that first you need to become conscious of what is distracting you.

As Chris Bailey says in his book Hyperfocus, have a notepad next to you and write a list of every distraction that makes its way into your mind — things you need to follow up on, tasks you can’t forget, new ideas, and so on.

Having this list, in other words, being aware of your distractions will let you refocus on the task at hand.

Another thing I personally do when I am working or when I am writing is that I don’t have my cellphone at my arm’s length. I keep my phone in a different room and I go check it when I am on my way to the bathroom or when I stretch, so I see it every two hours probably.

It’s a habit now so am not afraid of not having my cellphone around.

4. Do submit to publications or/and create your own.

I’ve done both, and without a doubt submitting to pubs can get you hundreds of readers.

In the very beginning though, I was afraid of submitting anything because I didn’t know what answer I would get. I was scared of someone telling me my articles weren't “good enough” and so the first time I pitched my piece to a pub the editor helped me tremendously ameliorate my article, and I also learned plenty of writing tips.

Another takeaway here to keep in mind is that you won’t get more views in other articles simply because of a viral one.

I used to believe that having a “popular article” would bring more readers to the previous posts, but that’s just not the case.

Also, you can try creating your own publication.

There are many reasons why starting your own publication on Medium is a good idea. It’s easier to grow and stand out as a writer being the editor of one or more. — Jessica Lynn

I created my own pub because I personally like the presentation of my stories in that format much better. I believe it creates more engagement because of the way of the layout.

On a side note, pin your stories to your profile.

I’ve noticed that the stories I’ve pinned do get more views in the long term.

Think about a new reader visiting your profile, she or he is very likely to read the pinned stories because all of your content is new to them and they are curious about what you have to say.

In contrast, your assiduous reader, when visiting your profile, will simply scroll down to see what are your new posts, because they already like your content and are familiar with it.

So for me, it’s a win-win.

5. The importance of titles.

I am sure there are great pieces we all don’t get to read because of crappy headlines.

Content that has a catchy headline is more likely to be clicked on and read. — Larry Kim

Don’t use vague headlines or titles that aren’t simple to understand. If the reader doesn’t understand your headline right away, they won’t click on your post.

Be specific.

For instance, the title of this post could have been:

• “Things I’ve learned from writing.”

Instead, I tried to be specific with the number of lessons and specific as well with the amount of time I’ve been writing here:

• “Six Lessons I’ve Learned After Writing on Medium for A year.”

In addition, I use the titlecase website for the headlines format.

6. Don’t compare your earnings with others.

Last but not least do not compare your earnings or your statistics of views with others.

Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today. — Jordan Peterson

Many of the content creators we see on this platform had been working for several months or years before they started earning big profits, so please do not assume it was an overnight success or that they had it “easy” or that they are just lucky because that's really not the case.

As Sinem Günel explained in one of her posts: “The month I made over $10,000 on Medium, I had already published 350 articles. At least 100 of them sucked because I had no idea what I was doing. It took time, two years, to be precise, but it was no magic.”

I know and I understand that it’s easy to get discouraged when we don’t note great profits or glorious triumphs, but you will get there, you just need to trust the process and have some faith.

To Conclude

This is a long-term game, there are no shortcuts, you need to put in the work consistently and be patient.

Remember things have a miraculous way of working out.

So simply keep going, keep writing, keep submitting and keep publishing.

You will get there.

Thank you for reading!