Six Months Into The Partner Program — Is It Worth It?

Halfway through my experiment, I think it’s time we had a real conversation…

Last night I went to see Trevor Noah live at the 3Arena in Dublin. Fantastic show. If y’all haven’t got tickets yet to his “Back to Abnormal” show, I suggest you do, you’ll have an absolute blast. Prepare your face and belly muscles, you’ll be laughing long and hard. It requires stamina to laugh that much and not pass out. Brilliant show. Next week I’m going to see Daniel Sloss, and I’m now worried I might not be as entertained. But why am I even talking about comedians and shows, when this is all supposed to be about the Medium Partner Program and a cost-benefit analysis of it? Well, it’s called a segue.

If you look at Trevor or Daniel, and literally, anyone who has achieved anything notable in life, you will see the success, but not the effort behind it. Doing a bit of research you’ll also realise that the investment wasn’t weeks, or even months, but years. Look at Cilla Black’s career over the years, Freddie Mercury’s, or heck, even Lady Gaga’s.

Success happens overnight, but the work leading up to it is a long, winding and painful road.

About thirteen years ago, I realised that with coding I could get myself a career, and the last decade has proven me right. I taught myself everything I know in software development as a side-activity over the course of about three years. The investment paid off, and continues to do so. I got into coding because I wanted to create something from thin air. It’s a God complex. Last year, I realised I might have another talent — writing. Another form of creating something from thin air. So, I decided what many of us do here to put that to the test, and see whether writing is a good investment or not, and to that effect in my 7th year on Medium, I finally decided to join the Partner Program.

Six months later…

I’m a tech writer; therefore I mostly write about technology, the tech space, software engineering and thoughts adjacent to these topics. Occasionally, I post thoughts on writing, Lego and music. Essentially, I only write about things that interest me. As stated before, my writing, just like coding, stems from a sort of God complex. While many bloggers, writers, and especially marketers posing as writers here will swear by “writing for your audience”, my shtick seems to be:

Look at what everyone else does, attempt to do the opposite, and hope for the best.

When everyone else writes for their audience, I write for myself. Make no mistake, my writing is a very selfish endeavour. I can admit that in a heartbeat, but I can only do so because I know for a fact that this is a type of selfishness that doesn’t hurt anyone. There’s no collateral damage. In fact, quite the opposite.

Over the last six months I have gained a very active group of followers, who doesn’t just follow, but read. Some of them I have had actual conversations with, even outside Medium. A reciprocal loyalty and passion for each other’s writing has been developed with people I had no clue existed about six months ago. This proves that when I write about things I really care about, others will find me, without me having to herd them in by “catering to my audience”.

I am developing an organic audience with zero compromises. A bit like a stand-up comedian.

People recognise my name and style, and they decide to read, and keep reading. I haven’t spent a single minute analysing what they would like reading because frankly I’m not concerned about what others would like to hear. I’m here to tell people what I think. This. All this is about me, and for me. They can either love me or ignore me for it. I’m not commissioned to write anything, which allows me to stay entirely selfish in my writing, while offering value to those and only those who find value in it. They’re my audience. The people who get that. The people who get passion for one’s own ideas and thoughts. They’re my peeps. Everyone else can go read the Tim Dennings and Zulie Ranes of the world.

I know at least half of ye reading these articles are wondering — OK, but what’s he really making on the MPP? I’ve been very quiet about my earnings, and I will keep being even more quiet about it going forward.

You will never-ever, ever-ever see earnings reports from me. Stop hoping already! 😆

I did share my findings on making over $1000 with one article alone, and I will say that in six months I was able to recover almost all my tech investment costs:

• A MacBook Pro M1 Pro
• A 2022 iPad Air
• Apple Watch Series 7
• An Apple Studio Display (70% recovered)
• A black Magic Mouse
• A set of AirPods Max (yet to be recovered)

If you’re any good at maths, that admittedly puts me either in the three or four digit “club” of the MPP. But before you get all jealous, take a step back and think.

• In 6 months I’ve released 108 articles.
• That equates to 18 articles/month, out of which a few aren’t actually monetised.
• On average, I spend 2.5h of effort on an article.
• That’s a total of 270h spent on writing.
• I value my writing time at $50/h.
• That’s $13.500 (you can call this debt) I still have to make back from the MPP.

Still jealous? Maybe, and maybe you have a right to be because to be honest, these are the numbers after 6 months only, and they’re not bad numbers at all, but so far, this not a profitable endeavour. My time-investment far outweighs the tech investment.

Profitability is not even a conversation worth having at this point. This is a sobering, but also baselining realisation.

It made me realise a number of things:

• I have already proven myself that I can make money from writing. My talent is worth actual cash.
• I really need to treat writing on Medium as a business in terms of investment and returns.
• My immediate and mid-term goal should be breaking even.
• My long-term goal should be to have taxable profits.
• None of this can be achieved in a single year, even if I am an 8-year-old veteran on Medium.

So, where to now?

Empowered with all these realisations and data, I made the tough decision not to end my experiment in October 2022, but to extend it by another two years to October 2024. The reason this is a difficult decision is that this requires a lot more commitment and a lot more stamina.

Learning however from my software development journey, where I’ve put in three years of learning before making a single cent from coding, I thought it’s worth applying the same recipe to success here as well. Unless the MPP becomes a massive dumpster-fire over the next three years, all signs seem to indicate that three years will be enough, not only to break even but to turn this into a profitable side-gig, though not necessarily through Medium itself, but through potential other writing gigs that I would land via my Medium presence.

The next time you’ll hear from me and my journey on Medium will be the end of the first year, the second and finally the third year. In-between, you’ll likely hear little or nothing from me about writing or Medium in general, apart from the occasional encouragement article disguised as a cold shower.

I’m a software engineer and I love tech, so 90% of my stories going forward will cover that and just that.

Tech, software and all the surrounding weirdness — accessibility included of course! And sure, a few Lego and music related articles because life is meant to be lived. 😉 Oh! And Drunk Tech Takes — my new weekly tech series is becoming a thing and it’s here to stay!🍻

For more context…

If you enjoyed this read, and you’d like more context, feel free to read through these articles. I keep most of my Medium journey to myself, but there are a few things you might find interesting or learn from.

Attila Vago — Software Engineer improving the world one line of code at a time. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, Lego fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer!