The Ugly Truth About Making Money from Online Writing
Get comfortable with coins jingling in your pockets
I used to deliver drinks during my younger teens.
Things were simpler then. Orders were shouted to the drink store. The uncle would take the order, pass me the hot coffee, I delivered it to the patron, and he would pass me coins as payment.
Jing-a-ling, jing-a-ling!
That would be my life for 4 hours each day, each time I am there for work.
10,000 steps? I blew that.
And here’s the thing.
Making money online is like selling drinks at the eatery. You trade a lot for pennies. Coins. Pittance.
For a start, at least.
Question. Are you willing?
I can hear your screams from my laptop.
“No, I am not here to collect coins!”
Haha, yeah, I guessed that.
You are here for the big bucks. You want to be an internet millionaire. You are inspired by the tech tycoons sucking money from all corners of Mother Earth.
Hey, great aspiration, by the way.
But we start somewhere.
The question is, where?
Okay, how about here?
Let’s begin with a story. A story about Jeff Bezos. And the Washington Post.
Donald Graham, son of the Washington Post’s legendary publisher Katharine Graham, was the first to suggest Bezos buy the Post… By Bezos’s own accord, he wasn’t looking to purchase or invest in the newspaper business at all. He had no knowledge of newspapers.
The story continues.
The financials of the business weren’t promising. Bezos admitted the business was “upside-down.” …They were bleeding money… “The internet was just eroding all the advantages that local newspapers had. All of them.”
It became clear that our mindsets must change before business models can pivot.
With Bezos’s help, The Post… implemented a new business model. The old model relied on generating a high revenue per reader. Their new focus would forego revenue per reader in favor of acquiring more readers. In other words, a volume play.
The keyword to success [finally] appeared. Volume. Market volume.
Early signs of success indicated the strategy was working. The Washington Post was quick to post profitability and a growing newsroom.
The turnaround story of the Washington Post shines light on online writing success. You will need a sizeable volume of readers. And distribution prowess to reach them.
Also, it is about access to a portfolio of work.
Pay $X to read an infinite amount of content.
I repeat.
Pay $X to read an infinite amount of content.
This is the proposition to the reader shelling out coins, pennies, or peanuts for your work. Or $50 for 12 months.
Question is.
Do you have a sizeable portfolio [of work] to satisfy their appetite for your work?
The secret is having 100 articles making $0.01 each
The internet is the only place on planet Earth where chump change wins.
- Yes. You cannot think in big dollars.
- Yes. Think small. In drips. In trickles.
Trillions and billions and millions of coins change hands each day. They pass through you to me to him to her to you to me, ad infinitum.
And it happens daily.
You won’t notice it.
Let me explain using my trickle drips.
This is the screenshot of my Medium Partner Program payment page. You know. That holy place where you check your earnings.
Specifically, these are the 6 lowest earning articles for the month (and counting).
The point 2'sies. The point 3'sies.
Of course, they don’t tell the entire story. It takes some curiosity and dickering to unravel the mechanics behind the drips and tickles.
Pay attention to the date. Notice how your work accumulates coins and pennies as you push on. Yes, I repeat. Coins and pennies. With some peanuts also.
This alone is a testament to the Internet online writing model.
It tells us that,
- Our work online has a long tail.
- It earns slowly over the years.
- Volume is king.
This means,
- 100 articles making $0.01 each is as common as light is to day,
- 1 article making $100 is rare (relatively),
- And the way to win is to write… more.
This is my question to you. Are you willing?
Now, this is a slap on your cheek. I know what you will tell me.
Your online writing supermodels, larger-than-life digital gurus, and obsessive typing freaks of nature you look up to make 5 digits a month.
I have no doubts that they do, but.
How many articles do they have working for them?
Everyone I know wants articles like these.
But it takes time to get here.
And the hit-piece ratio over mediocre ones? Probably 1 out of 10 in a good month. Maybe 1 out of 20 in a so-so month.
Forget the numerator. Look at the denominator. 10, 20.
Are you prepared to go there?
I hope you do.
The close
This article demonstrates the ugly truth of making money from online writing.
It is not completely ugly, of course.
There are silver linings.
It comes in the form of volume and time. So long as we are willing to commit to our craft, get better, put our words out there for a long time…
… Trickle drips can become mega pops.
Outlasting our impatience and routine burnout is paramount.
So, this is my genuine advice if you want to make money from online writing.
Go slow. Go steady. And be prepared to keep going for a long~ long~ long~ time.
You will [in years to come] be able to grab money straight from your laptop screen.
You will. Have faith. Make time your ally, effort your friend. Money will follow.
That, to me, is the ugly [beautiful] truth of writing online.
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Oh, oh, you can buy me a cup of black too! Thank you!