The Less I Read, The More My Reads Are Worth!
This is wild!
I have been experimenting to see what my reads are worth. The answer is they’re all over the place! But at one point, they were worth just 1 cent to a certain writer, presumably because I was reading his work a lot.
At the time, I was also trying to engage quite widely, reading and commenting on loads of articles by different authors. I was expecting to reach the 100 limit on comments, but it didn’t happen.
Anyway, I took a break from this writer, to spread my goodwill elsewhere. I returned to his stories a few weeks later. He reported that my reads were worth a whopping 21 or 22 cents after that break! He doesn’t have many readers, so is able to identify these things!
Anyway, I was exhausted from all my reading and engaging, so went quiet for a bit. I then returned to Medium and read a few things from his feed — my reads was worth an incredible 37 cents!
That’s crazy! A couple of weeks ago, they were worth 1 cent.
I did another experiment with another writer. He read my old stories and I read his. He was coming back saying my reads were consistently worth 21 or 22 cents, while his were consistently worth 51 cents. Selective readers are like gold.
Then, some of you decided to partake in an experiment to determine your own read values on my stories. You asked me how much your reads were worth when I published this article, to see who wanted to find out the value of their reads.
The results were all coming in at 2 or 3 cents, even among Friends of Medium, with the exception being one chap whose read was worth a whopping $2.40!
He was surprised, as he said he read a lot. I do wonder if there’s some randomness thrown into these calculations.
A couple of Friends of Medium, who’d assumed their reads would never fall below 4 cents, did point out that 3 cents isn’t 4x 1 cent. FoM reads are supposed to be worth 4x that of a standard member. Perhaps some earnings from standard members are calculated at less than a cent?
So what are my reads worth now? 37 cents three days ago. 20 cents yesterday. 10 cents today. Not terrible. It’s the weekend, so I’ll be increasing my reading and catching up with everyone.
Read values do fluctuate. The volume you read, and the regularity with which you read work by the same author, certainly seems to play a part in the calculations.
So, if a reader swings by once a month, be pleased. You may earn more from them than from regular readers. 😆
André Canilho has done some research of his own and concluded that, while some reads have a value of up to 30 cents, on average most writers earn between two and five cents per read.
This is broadly consistent with my findings.
© Susie Kearley 2024. All Rights Reserved.
More from me…