This Article is My 100th

Lessons learned after 100 tries

In December 2022 I decided to try out Medium. My first article, the hardest one I have written, felt cathartic. Like a weight I was trying to push off my chest for a long time but did not have the required arm strength.

After that, there was no going back. I decided to keep it up for at least 1 year to see how things went.

Some articles did well, most didn’t. But any time a reader felt something in reading my words, or learned something new, it was my push to keep going.

After putting a lot of time into this in the last year, I have learned a few lessons that I would like to share.

Every article is an opportunity to learn, teach, or reflect

Everyone writes for different reasons. Some do it for themselves to get their thoughts out of their heads. That is what got me started. If that approach benefits any reader, that’s a bonus. You realize that if one person agrees, a lot of people likely think in a similar way.

There has been so much that I have learned from people commenting on my articles. I then take that information and write another article which elaborates on the point or looks at it from another angle.

My favorite thing to do here is to teach. Often, if a topic is interesting to me, I want to learn more about it. In this way I gain knowledge and then can disseminate it to my readers. As a physician, teaching has always been my favorite part of the job.

Not everything is about earnings

If you focus too much on statistics and earnings you will drive yourself insane. I did not earn enough to cover the monthly membership until month 6 of consistent writing.

Also, how many more articles can there be about earnings? Is anyone else seeing them every 3 articles or am I just being targeted by the algorithm?

I digress.

If you are trying to build a business, then of course statistics and readership matter. But you gain from every article you write. Don’t judge too quickly what will come based on a few months of trying. If you have the time, keep going. Pay attention to what readers are saying, not what your earnings are doing.

Respond to the comments that don’t agree

One of the best things about Medium is the lack of toxicity compared to other social media platforms. But, inevitably, someone will disagree with what you wrote. Even though you do not want to, responding to a negative comment (calmly) has been a really positive experience for me.

Just like when I had to see “difficult” patients, I give everyone respect and can never judge what their life is like. As a doctor I am there to help fix medical concerns in the best way I can. Even if that just means listening, which is most of what medicine is.

In the same way, you should “hear out” your negative comments. Think about how to respond and you will see, more often than not, that we are all just people with opinions. Discussing them openly makes us all better. When you respond to toxicity in a positive way, unaffected by the intention of the comment, it quickly changes the attitude of that person. See for yourself.

Reading is just as powerful as writing

I start most mornings by reading 5–10 articles. This helps my brain to rev up even though I may not be ready to write something down. I generate so many ideas just from articles I read here.

Make sure to comment with something you learned while reading or, even better, by asking a question related to the article. Don’t give one of those AI generated responses where the reader obviously fed your article into some summarizer and regurgitated back into the comments section.

Also when reading, read with purpose. Whether that purpose is to learn, be entertained, or make a positive change in your life.

You don’t need to write every day

Write because you want to. If you want to write every day, do it. If you want to take more time with articles, then do that. There is no formula, no matter what the next “THIS is How You Make Money on Medium” article tell you.

It is true that each article is a lottery ticket when it comes to virality on the internet. But you have to be excited about each one for it to have any chance of being successful. If you are writing for volume only, it will be noticeable in your work. And if you aren’t excited, why would your reader be?

I hope that this information is useful to someone who is just starting out in their journey. Writing here has been very important to me.

Make your experience here beneficial for you first. As long as that is the starting point, you will increase the chances that your readership grows in a way that you envision it.