The Medium $500 Bonus

What the bonus is, who got it, why were they selected, and is this any indication of a shifting strategy for Medium going forward

EDIT: There has since been a second Medium bonus payment. To learn more read the new article:

As you are no doubt aware, Medium distributed $500 bonuses to 1000 writers. As an avalanche of articles were posted about the mysterious $500 bonus, I found myself (and other writers) asking four primary questions:

1. What is the $500 Bonus?
2. Who received the $500 bonus?
3. Why were these writer picked for Medium’s $500,000 payout?
4. Is this indicative of the future of Medium?

1. What is the $500 Medium Bonus?

For those writers that didn’t receive the email (myself included), Medium issues 1000 payments of $500 to writers, with the following explanation:

“Medium members are discerning readers, drawn to great writing — like yours. To recognize the writers who made the most impact on members this past month, we’re rewarding 1,000 writers with a $500 bonus. Congrats, that’s you!

You made it here because the stories you published in April received the most member reads, claps, and follows. So nice work! It’s writers like you that make Medium and the Partner Program a living network of insightful thinking. Keep the good ideas coming.”

And as promised, these writers received this $500 bonus.

2. Who received the $500 bonus?

Determining who received the $500 bonus is a matter of curiosity, but it is also a legitimate questions asked by those who are looking to understand Medium’s strategy when it comes to writer relations.

Below is a list of self reported recipients of the $500 bonus. While many shared screenshots to prove that they did in fact receive this amount, some did not. So as with all my other commentary on Medium earnings, this list is not intended to be exhaustive nor 100% accurate. But I think it’s a good starting place to better understand Medium’s strategy.

Note: All of these authors posted their confirmation of a $500 Medium bonus on either Medium or Twitter. I have not included all the other data from Medium Facebook group discussions, as most of the groups are private. If you want to be added to this list, leave a response to this article. Any data is appreciated!

1. Melinda Crow — Source
2. Rachel Presser — Source (Article Comments)
3. Jenny Mundy-Castle, M.S.T, Ed.Spec, ENL, Ed.Lead — Source (Article Comments)
4. Kristi Keller — Source (Article Comments)
5. Eric Pierce — Source (Article Comments)
6. Garry Lee — Source (Article Comments)
7. Sajjad Choudhury — Source (Article Comments)
8. René Junge — Source (Article Comments)
9. Dr Michael Heng — Source (Article Comments)
10. Bhavna Narula — Source
11. Trista Signe Ainsworth — Source (Article Comments)
12. Wonsuk Choi — Source (Article Comments)
13. Angela Volkov — Source (Article Comments)
14. Krishna V Chaudhary — Source (Article Comments)
15. Vishnu*s Virtues — Source
16. Kristina Segarra — Source (Article Comments)
17. Liam Ireland — Source (Article Comments)
18. Bertilla Niveda — Source (Article Comments)
19. Rebecca Romanelli — Source (Article Comments)
20. Kat Magik — Source (Article Comments)
21. Terry Mansfield — Source (Article Comments)
22. Kim Petersen — Source (Article Comments)
23. Rakia Ben Sassi — Source (Article Comments)
24. Desiree Driesenaar — Source
25. Mario López-Goicoechea — Source (Article Comments)
26. Ali Hall — Source (Article Comments)
27. Somsubhra Banerjee — Source (Article Comments)
28. Angela Phan — Source
29. U-Ming Lee — Source (Article Comments)
30. Violet Daniels — Source (Article Comments)
31. Paroma Sen — Source (Article Comments)
32. Kevin Ervin Kelley, AIA — Source (Article Comments)
33. Lena — Source (Article Comments)
34. Roz Warren — Source
35. Eva Rotolo — Source (Article Comments)
36. Alecia Kennedy — Source (Article Comments)
37. Xin Xin — Source
38. Liam Sturt — Source
39. Anangsha Alammyan — Source
40. Neera Mahajan — Source
41. Tom Kuegler — Source
42. Burk — Source (Article Comments)
43. Jamie Bullock — Source (Article Comments)
44. Jack Heimbigner — Source (Article Comments)
45. Sude Hammal — Source
46. Shreya Badonia — Source
47. Charlie Brown — Source
48. Clément Bourcart — Source
49. Derick David — Source
50. Em Hoccane — Source
51. Doran Lamb — Source (This article’s comments)
52. Tina L. Smith — Source (This article’s comments)
53. Younes Henni — Source (This article’s comments)
54. Shamar M — Source (This article’s comments)
55. Adam Hrankowski — Source (This article’s comments)
56. Letters from E.K. — Source (This article’s comments)
57. Eugenia Anello — Source (This article’s comments)
58. Carol Lennox — Source (This article’s comments)
59. Synthia S. — Source (This article’s comments)
60. Kurtis Pykes — Source (This article’s comments)

So these 50 writers represent 5% of the total recipients of the Medium bonus writers. You can browse their profiles and draw your own conclusions, or keep reading to hear some of my thoughts and read some of the (limited) data I was able to collect.

Note: Since publishing this post, several other recipients of Medium's $500 bonus have identified themselves, so I will try to keep this list updated over the next week or so. This is also why there are now more than the original 50 names.

3. How were writers selected for the $500 bonus?

According to Medium, these writers were selected:

…because the stories you published in April received the most member reads, claps, and follows.

It would be impossible for me to try to categorize everyone’s engagement metrics (member reads, claps, and follows). But it was possible to aggregate some data and qualitatively assess the general profile of who received the $500 Bonus.

Combining the data above with the user data on Facebook (which I anonymized), I was able to identify 187 writers who received the $500 Medium bonus.

Sample Screenshots:

The results?

Number of Posts

The average (mean) number of posts published in April was ~21. This was skewed somewhat by a few writers with significantly larger post counts (as much as 245). The median # of posts was ~10:

Followers

The average (mean) number of followers that a writer had was ~2885. This was skewed somewhat by a few writers with significantly following (upwards of 50,000+). The median # of followers was ~1150:

In general, most of the writers who received the bonus were:

• writers who had started writing on Medium within the past 18 months
• writers who posted a mixture of article formats (poems, responses, and longer form articles)
• writers who has been curated in April

There were certainly exceptions to these trends. And after pouring through all the data, my guess would be that at least half were picked after meeting some basic thresholds like consistent clapping, ratio of responses to other writers’ article to their own publishing, and new member reads generated from April content specifically.

The Future of Medium Payments

Theories Explaining Payment

Some have theorized the payments were to lure writers in who were new to blogging in general (persuade them to stay), or to keep writers who are using multiple blogging platforms (Substack, News Break, etc.) from jumping ship.

This is possible, and a very logical explanation, but Medium tends to make decisions that are, well…not always the obvious choice:

I think that the decision to pay writers a one time $500,000 bonus was largely a reaction to the recent survey (which I’m pretty sure laid out the frustrations many writers have with Medium).

I think the popular belief that Medium is concerned with News Break (in particular) is vastly overblown.

Medium didn’t realize Substack was a threat until it was too late. In fact, I’ve talked to many at Medium who say they still don’t believe Substack is a threat.

News Break is likely barely on their radar. Why?

Because, as demonstrated by the hundreds of posts about $500 posts, writers can be satisfied fairly easily because they are so accustomed to providing their services at rates that are far below minimum wage.

And all News Break really has going for it is the (relatively) high payments to writers.

Even that has already been revised twice since its inception, essentially lowering the amount they agreed to pay:

No platform can win by throwing money randomly at writers. And even if News Break want to get into fight with Medium, Medium is still a much more established brand and is better capitalized.

It is also important to understand that this payment may have been a one time deal.

As Kristy Lynn astutely speculated:

Unfortunately, in my monthlong (mostly) hiatus from Medium, my attitude towards it has become ever more cynical — so be forewarned, my conspiracy theory isn’t rainbows and sunshine! Here it is:

I think the top folks at Medium did some research on human behavior — namely, Operant Conditioning, Intermittent Reinforcement. It’s essentially been proven to help continue behavior without “extinction” (for these purposes, avoiding extinction means to keep writers writing on Medium, under the potentially unconscious premise/hope of another potential reward, rather than falling off or switching to another platform).

While I don’t think this was the only purpose of paying out the money, Medium just fired or cut ties with many of its staff and is undergoing a major pivot.

Frequency of Payment

It’s also important to recognize that this may just be a one time payment to writers (I’ve noticed a lot of writers starting to infer that this is the new normal on Medium).

But Medium has a history of offering one-off payments to writers:

In the article I wrote:

In March 2018, Medium announces it is paying some writers $100 bonuses on “stories that our editors designate as high quality in important topic areas.”

This is a one time program/payment offered by Medium, and it is on top of any Medium Partner Program earnings that writers accrued.

Also of note, Medium has received some goodwill in its writer community, but the move does not seem tot have generated much or really any major press. If Medium wants to announce something ongoing, they usually do some level of PR.

So what does all of this mean?

My guess is that it is a mixture of testing out a new payment method. While Medium can make a one time $500,000 payment without too much trouble, this would be very expensive to pay writers on top of the current Medium Partner Program earnings.

Regardless of whether we see this $500 bonus again, I would guess that Medium is at least considering new payment structures as it continues to pivot.

To be clear — even if it was just a one time payment, I am thrilled for the writers who got it! While I may not always agree with Medium’s general strategy with respect to writer compensation, seeing so many people get a $500 bonus did bring a smile to my face :)

Let me know what you think in the comments below!

— Casey Botticello

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Casey Botticello is a partner at Black Edge Consulting. Black Edge Consulting is a strategic communications firm, specializing in online reputation management, digital marketing, and crisis management. Prior to founding Black Edge Consulting, he worked for BGR Group, a bipartisan lobbying and strategic communications firm.

Casey is the founder of the Cryptocurrency Alliance, a Super PAC dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain advocacy. He is a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania, where he received his B.A. in Urban Studies.

You can connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or by following his Medium publications, Digital Marketing Lab and Medium Blogging Guide.