The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Getting Started Writing on Medium

Are you ready to make money by writing about what you love?

I started writing on Medium because I wanted to bolster my cats’ Instagram account with a blog and I was too intimidated by Wordpress. Seriously.

Today, I make over a thousand dollars a month writing on Medium about literally anything I like. That’s the beauty of writing on Medium — as long as you can find an audience, you can be compensated for your writing.

Many people ask how to get started writing on Medium. I can summarize this entire blog post by saying: write as well as you can, as often as you can, and study what other successful authors on this platform do. For those of you who prefer the step-by-step, this article is for you. If you prefer video format, you can check it out here:

Before I go any further, I want to clarify: this is not a get-rich-quick scheme. This is not going to get you a $500 paycheck tomorrow. You won’t become a millionaire from your Medium earnings. And this story is not about gaming the system.

Medium is a place to get paid for writing about what you love. So long as you love stuff, and you love writing about stuff, and you want to get your best chance at making money doing it, this is the blog post for you.

This story will have five sections:

1. Setting up for success
2. Your profile
3. Your first blog post
4. How to keep going
5. FAQs about writing on Medium

1. Setting Up For Success

Account setup

There are a few boxes you have to check to make sure you’re set up correctly.

First, if you don’t have one, get a Gmail account. This will make it much easier to log in later on. It’s dead easy to do, and it means all your payment info, your notifications, and your stats will be sent to one place.

Next, make sure you have a Medium account, and ensure you’re signed up to the Partner Program.

Let me clarify one thing: You don’t have to be a paying Medium member to be a part of the Partner Program. They’re distinct. However, it does help to be a paying Medium member because it means you get to read unlimited stories on Medium. This is good because there are tons of amazing writers on here, and because it means you have unlimited chances to study what other successful authors do on here.

It’s up to you, but it’s $5 a month and with any luck, you’ll be making more than that within a month.

Following topics, people, and publications

When you sign up, you’ll be prompted to follow a few topics.

Topics are how Medium decides what to show you and every other reader on Medium. This matters a lot for your long-term success, but we’ll get into that in a bit. There’s no gaming this system, so follow ten you’re actually interested in. This is going to inform how Medium fills your homepage with personalized recommendations.

You should also follow some folks. Some people recommend doing follow-unfollow, but I definitely don’t. Medium is far more topic-driven than follower-driven when it comes to showing readers your stories. That means it matters a lot more if readers have shown they’re interested in the stories you write about than if they follow you. Choose your follows based on what they’ve written about, and what interests you, and don’t count on a follow-back. Even if you get it, it might not count for much.

Finally, follow some publications. While writers on Medium don’t often stick to any niches, publications do. Publications will be a selection of stories about the same types of things. I recommend following Medium’s in-house publications — they’re super high quality, and they’re a case study in what Medium considers “good” writing.

2. Setting Up Your Medium Profile

Medium gives you exactly one place and 160 characters to tell the world who you are. That’s your profile.

There are a few elements that you should consider mandatory.

First, a profile picture. Ideally, it should be a clean shot of your face. If you write under a pen name, like me, and you prefer to keep yourself fully anonymous, grab a photo from Pexels or Pixabay. A profile picture proves to readers subconsciously that you’re a real person, worth listening to.

Next, your bio. Keep this simple: you can list three things you like or write about, your credentials, and a website you’d like to point people to (if you have one).

Listing things you like or write about humanizes you in the eyes of your readers. Your credentials will tell them why they should listen to you about any subject. You don’t have to be an adjunct professor in nuclear physics— just “nuclear physic nut” is enough to get you some credit.

Finally, make sure your tone is in keeping with the style you’ll be writing with. If you’re aiming for fun, make it quirky. If professional, throw in a LinkedIn profile. The tone is hard to get right, but worth it when you do. It’s the one place you have to show Medium who you are. The crucial difference between regular blogs and Medium is that here, people don’t follow for single-minded expertise. They follow for personality, for voice. Let that shine through in your bio.

The reason you’re going to so much effort on these 160 characters is that Medium is transparent about favoring curating people with a filled-out, fitting profile. We’ll get into curation in a bit more detail below, but for now, all you need to know is that curation means Medium’s staff likes your work, and they’re going to show your story to people who like the topic you’ve written about — even if they don’t follow you.

3. Your First Blog Post on Medium

Ok, you’ve borne with me for two whole steps without actually getting to the writing, but this is that step. The very first step you’ll take actually putting content out there into the world. Let’s get into it.

Create your publication

First, create your publication. Remember how earlier, I said followers didn’t really matter? For regular writers, they’re not much more than vanity.

However, Medium editors of publications to send out newsletters to everyone who follows it, which can be a powerful way of reaching your audience. And it’s why you want to start your publication now.

Creating a publication is simple. Head over to Medium, and click on your profile, top right. In that drop-down list, you’ll see “Publications.” Click on that and create a new one! It looks like a lot of set up, but don’t worry.

First, give it a name. I recommend using something with your name — one of my favorites is Emma Austin’s “Love, Emma.”

If you’re going to aim for a collection, I’d recommend a single, slightly uncommon word about your subject. For example, if I were creating a publication about cats, I’d probably name it “Feline.”

Then, give it a description. Don’t overthink it — it can be as simple as “A collection of my stories about [interest 1], [interest 2], and [interest 3].”

Finally, Medium makes you add a publication avatar. I’d recommend going into Word, creating a color block of your favorite color, superimposing the first letter of your name onto it, and saving that as an image. It can be that easy. Have a look at these two:

The rest is optional!

Learn about curation

OK, now you have your publication set up and I know you’re itching to write, but there’s one more stop: read Medium’s curation guidelines.

Earlier, I mentioned curation. Every story that’s submitted is read by Medium’s curators, who decide whether or not to distribute it, based on quality.

If it gets distributed? Amazing! People who don’t follow you will see this in their emails, on their homepage, and in their digests. If not, some of your followers might still see it.

Medium has a few basic standards for curation which you can read about here. Personally, I’d add to make it personal to you — something related to your lived experiences, rather than just a summary of other people’s work.

Finally, go to Medium.com/topic/[your topic]. This can be any one of Medium’s list of topics. This is where they show you all the stories they have curated in that section. Read at least three in the topic you think most closely matches your story subject. This is going to teach you what is “curate-able.”

Write your first Medium post.

It’s here! The big moment!

Go to your profile in the top right, and select “New story” in the dropdown.

I can’t tell you how to do this part — hopefully, you know how to type! The best advice I can give at this point is to write about something you care about deeply, and something you know something about.

Some folks get overwhelmed with the Medium editor, so I’ve created a video going over the basics, including how you’ll add it to your publication. Here’s the link.

People ask about length — stories from 3–11 minutes in length have done well for me, but I have heard others say 5–8 minute read time (1000–1600 words) is the real sweet spot. Up to you! Experiment with what feels right.

I recommend reading aloud and then publishing. Don’t worry too much if it’s not perfect. This is a big milestone. There might be typos, your flow may not be perfect, you might miss a comma, but this is your moment.

Celebrate!

Your first post on Medium is exciting! It’s out there in the world now. Have a celebratory drink, or bath, or smoothie, or however else you want to celebrate.

4. How to Keep Going on Medium

You have, so far, set up your profile for success, made your publication, and posted your first story. Now, the really hard part comes: you have to keep going.

To date, my first story on Medium has made me about $5 altogether. It was poorly written, didn’t meet the formatting requirements, and was not curated by Medium.

In my opinion, the second story is harder to publish than the first. You’ve published your first, you’ve seen it flop and earn maybe two cents. You don’t know what the point is in continuing.

The point is this: it wasn’t enough to publish one thing. If you want to be successful on Medium, you have to continue. Publish that second story. And the third. And the fourth. Let’s talk about the strategies you can use to do exactly that.

Expand out of your niche

First, you want to brainstorm five writing ideas. The great thing about Medium is you do not have to stick to a niche. Write about anything you like. Pick something that makes you feel deeply — something that strikes emotion in you. This is going to resonate the best with your readers.

Choose five ideas that you are excited about. It can be pets, chocolate, startup culture, blogging ideas, feminism. Take inspiration from the other people you’re following!

Determine how often you can publish

Next, decide on a timing strategy. With Medium, in my opinion, more is better. This is because of three reasons.

First, Medium pays on a royalty model. The more you write now, the more you’ll get paid tomorrow for your readers. In practical terms, it means you might get paid 40 bucks one month for a story you wrote a year and a half ago.

Secondly, writing takes luck. You might write ten perfect posts, but for some reason, only the tenth will go viral. That’s great — but you have to write those ten posts first to even have a chance.

Third, writing on Medium is different from writing anywhere else. There’s a learning curve. The more you write, the more you’ll learn.

That being said, consistency is hugely important, and for similar reasons: writing is hard. You’re going to burn out. It might be in a day or a week or a year, but it’ll happen.

By being upfront with yourself about how often you can write, you’re going to increase the chances of realistically doing exactly that. If you can write three times a week? Amazing. Once a month? Amazing. Twice a day? Amazing. Pick a schedule and commit to it.

Engage with your writing community

Try to read at least three Medium posts per day, and try to leave long, thoughtful comments.

This will get your gears churning about what you can write about next time, and puts you on the radar of the people whose work you find interesting, as well as the folks who read those people and make it down to the comments section.

Submitting to other publications

At this point, you should have your own publication. You should definitely be publishing stories in it but especially as a beginner, it’s important to submit to other publications on Medium.

Why?

First, publications on Medium have access to an audience you don’t. When you have zero followers on Medium, they might have thousands. It doesn't guarantee your work will be seen by thousands, but you can bet it’ll be more than publishing on your own, especially to start.

Secondly, publications have that letter functionality we discussed earlier — you never know when a publication owner will like your story enough to send it out to all their followers via email.

The best tool to do that is Smedian. Smedian is a fast and easy way to find publications whose niches you think will fit with your interests, and apply to them immediately. Simply create an account, and request to contribute to at least three. I recommend searching by keywords for topics you’re interested in, potentially even ones related to your first story.

You have your own publication, but especially in the initial stages before it has many followers, publishing in other pubs gives your work a chance to get new eyeballs, and to find people who might love your stuff.

Rinse and repeat.

Brainstorm. Write. Publish. Submit. Read. Comment. Do that every day for a week and see where you are. Now do it every day for a month.

That’s all success on Medium comes down to. If you can keep going, you’re doing better than 90% of beginners on Medium.

5. Potential FAQs about writing on Medium

How do I get paid?

Medium rewards you financially based on member engagement. What that basically means is if someone who is a Medium member, paying $5 per month, reads one of your stories, you get a chunk of their membership fee, shared among all the other authors of stories that member read. You also get money if someone reads your story and then becomes a member in the next thirty days, so share your content as widely as you can! Payment stats get updated on a daily basis.

Should I worry about my stats?

Honestly, no. Success on Medium comes through hard work rather than analyzing stats to try to game the system. Focus your energy on writing rather than stats refreshing. But if you want to know how to use your stats, this is the video for you.

How long should it take to be successful on Medium?

This is a hard question to answer. Folks like Shannon Ashley started earning five figures less than a year in. I earned $500 in my second month. Other people make their living here, and some never get there. It’s a function of writing ability, determination, and a pinch of luck.