Thoughts On My First Medium Paycheck
I wish it were bigger and other unrealistic expectations.
So yesterday was the 30th of the month and my big Medium payout. How did I do? What have I learned?
Were the hours I spent trying to game the system and make bank worth it?
Here’s my take. (And this is a listicle because I have a right to annoy people too.)
- I wish my check were bigger.
2. My check was bigger than it had a right to be, given the gifted writers here who apparently earn nothing. It’s a jungle out there.
3. Like every writing endeavor, if you want eyeballs on your work, you have to market.
4. Like every writer I’ve ever known, marketing is our kryptonite. We’d rather coat our teeth with battery acid than market, but grow up, bunky. Medium is the real world.
5. Have I learned anything from my three weeks trying to get away with earning the big claps without doing the work? You bet I have. I don’t have all these wrinkles for nothing.
6. When I learned claps spelled M-O-N-E-Y, I started clapping like a mad woman just to get followers who’d clap back on my articles. I was even clapping for stories in languagesI didn’t speak, opening them, zipping to the bottom, leaving my claps, and moving onto something in rocket science, the latest in bitcoin scams, or learning theories. Subects I knew nothing about. So what, the writers might follow me back. And I didn’t have to read the blinking articles, did I?
But the old saw, if it’s took good to be true, it usually is kicked in when I read one of the helpful pieces some our generous writers read for dumb clucks like me. If you clap for an article without engaging, you’d been better off taking out the trash because the clap is worthless. What’s engaging? Reading to the end (Big Brother Medium knows how long it should take), highlighting some text, or leaving a comment.
Medium only likes claps that come from the heart, not the wallet.
So I’d attack my daily list of new articles with my morning cup of coffee, determined to finish every one and make tons of new followers. Once I opened an article, I’d read from beginning to end, clap, put something meaningful in the comments and move on to the next. But then I realized I was spending a lot of time reading articles that weren’t relevant to my life or of interest to me. They just came across my screen. Not that they weren’t good, but everything isn’t for everybody. And Medium was eating up my life.
7. So my new rule is only to read what interests me, is new to me, or will open my mind, my eyes, my world.
I’ve found I enjoy the reading so much more, whether or not it leads to followers and clap backs.
8. Big surprise to the life-long fiction writer I’ve trained myself to be, I like writing non-fiction. I’ll do it even if it doesn’t pay, though maybe not with the same intensity as I am now if I can’t find a following. I need to marshall whatever time I have left on this earth.
9. Medium for me is also about making new friends, even for just a clap.
I’ve loved getting to know people through their writing, their comments, and posts in FB groups for Medium. It’s opened a new avenue of relationships for this LOL who works at home in her kitchen and doesn’t get out much as they say.
10. And let me say in closing, 66 bucks is nothing to sneeze at.
So has Medium been worth it to me? As far as earnings go, somewhere in the writing universe, somebody owes me a whole lot of money.
My hourly wage here is so far under water I need deep diving gear just to breathe. But in terms of satisfaction, there’s no way I’d ask for my money back. Which maybe is why I’m not a rich woman. I’ve always found myself doing things for love more than money. I’d love to turn that around on Medium and earn enough to pay myself a decent hourly wage. I was lured in by tales of some folks hitting five figures a month, so why not me.
But if I don’t, I’m here for the joy.
