To Succeed On Medium, Stop Doing These 4 Things

The most common mistakes of new writers and how to avoid them.

Usually, I’m optimistic and lighthearted.

And I love motivating new writers to start writing on Medium and see if it’s a platform that could meet their needs. But sometimes, I get angry when seeing the complaints of new Medium writers.

Some people don’t seem to understand that

a) Medium doesn’t owe you anything

b) Medium is no get-rich-quick scheme

Medium is a business, it’s an open platform and an opportunity for anyone who is willing to do the work. But it’s certainly not the holy grail for success, it won’t work for everybody, and it will continuously change its rules.

If you don’t accept playing to the rules and working your ass off, don’t even start writing here.

And if you find yourself doing one of the following things, you might want to give them up asap to finally reach your desired goals.

Don’t spend too much time scrolling through the Facebook groups

Facebook groups for Medium writers are not bad, but many new writers make these groups a horrible place.

The majority of the content shared is negative and pessimistic. People complain about not being curated, not being accepted to a particular publication, not making good money through their writing, etc.

I bet most of these people would have better results if they stopped complaining and would actually spend more time writing.

Sometimes, I ask myself why these folks don’t seem to understand that Medium won’t pay them for complaining about how lousy Medium is.

Lately, I saw a lady complaining that her post related to family issues wasn’t accepted to a publication, but they instead published a piece about dick pics. I actually saw her complaining about that a few times in different groups, and I just don’t get it.

Why would you seek approval in a Facebook group full of strangers instead of doing the work and writing better pieces?

The piece was obviously not good enough or not a fit for the publication, or maybe the editor had a bad day and just ignored your article. Just get over it.

Neither Medium nor any publication owes you anything. You either play to their rules and accept the fact that they have the power or you stop writing on Medium. (Or you keep writing bad posts just to keep complaining in Facebook groups.)

And the second mistake regarding Facebook groups is that so many new writers spend more time posting their links to useless clap-for-clap threads instead of just writing great shit.

Sorry to be so harsh, but you won’t ever succeed on Medium by sharing your links in these Facebook groups.

Every member of these groups has the same goal: Being a more successful writer on Medium. None of these people is interested in reading your pieces.

Seriously, stop copy-pasting your links and start writing great shit that people are genuinely interested in.

Again: Facebook groups for writers are not bad per se, but the majority is using them poorly. I also have a group where I answer questions and help new writers, but I won’t allow any negativity or clap-for-clap threads there, it’s just a place where I offer my expertise, and others are welcome to contribute.

Don’t listen to the advice of people who aren’t ahead of you

Just a few days ago, I had a debate in one of the Facebook groups because someone asked whether you need to follow the advice of successful writers or just do your own thing and let your creativity flow to succeed on Medium.

As mentioned above, I usually don’t contribute to these groups too much, but I love helping new writers, so I wrote an extended, thoughtful response explaining why it’s so important to listen to the advice of those who already succeed here and that I’m even offering a mentoring program to support new writers who are taking Medium seriously.

To my surprise, one of the group members got offended by my response because I mentioned that I make a bunch of money on Medium and offer a program to support new writers.

She got angry and wrote that nobody should ever buy a coaching program to succeed on Medium, and they should instead pose questions in the group because so many people would be willing to help for free.

Now, you know what’s funny about this?

If everybody would know how to succeed on Medium, more people would actually be achieving great results.

According to Medium, only less than 9% of all active writers are making more than $100 per month:

There’s a good reason why so many people here fail.

If you keep getting advice from those who don’t create great results themselves, how can you wonder about not succeeding yourself?

Would you ever ask an overweight person how to get into shape? Or a broke person how to build wealth?

You wouldn’t.

So why would you ask those for advice about Medium who are failing themselves?

There’s, of course, a difference in the advice you’ll get from those making 4 or even 5 figures per month compared to the 90% that are making less than $100.

Don’t write for yourself

Bad news: You will never succeed if you are writing for yourself.

Again: Sorry to be so harsh, but nobody is interested in your opinion or personal stories.

Would you ever read the biography of a person you never heard of?

No, unless they achieved something remarkable.

Writing is a form of service. You’ll only succeed in writing if you serve your audience.

You need to deliver knowledge, inspiration, emotions, some sort of value.

You can indeed succeed through personal stories if they spark some emotions in your readers. If you write stories that your readers can resonate with, and especially if you write what others think, you can win through personal stories. Yet, only very few manage to do this properly.

There’s so much content on the internet and more books than one could ever read, why would anyone choose to read your pieces?

The moment someone sees your headline, they’ll ask themselves, “What’s in this story for me?” and if your headline doesn’t communicate that there’s some value for the reader, you’ll lose them.

Stop complaining and start writing more

One more bad news (last one, promise): To succeed on Medium, you need to write a lot.

I don’t know why, but some new writers just don’t seem to get that point.

You are competing with tens of thousands of writers here.

If making money or building an audience are your goals, you are doing business here. How can you expect a business to generate results without putting enough time and effort into it?

No business model on this planet will reward you without doing the work.

Compared to other digital businesses, Medium is quite simple. Given, you like writing, of course.

Sure, the quality of your work needs to be on point, but if you write every now and then, you can’t expect great results. I mean, you wouldn’t get paid for going to work every now and then, would you? (If your answer was yes, I want a job in that company, btw)

Just a few days ago, Zat Rana, one of the most prominent writers here, wrote a post about why he is not writing on Medium anymore. He stated that the platform was more about quantity than quality and that he simply doesn’t want to play the quantity game anymore.

He has more than 100,000 followers on Medium alone. So I bet he has thousands of email subscribers and a bunch of people who want to read his work outside of Medium. He can afford to ignore Medium because he has the power to do so.

If you are, however, just starting your writing career or online business and thinking anyone would find your work in the online world without Medium, good luck, buddy.

But you can still make it big here

I’m not here to tell you Medium is terrible or not worth it.

On the contrary: Medium is a fantastic platform, and it’s a fair place that rewards good, consistent writing.

I’m on Medium for two years, and along my journey, I learned lots of lessons about how to make it big here. Admittedly, I didn’t succeed in applying all these lessons right from the beginning, and I didn’t take Medium seriously for the first 1.5 years.

In fact, I made my first 4-figures on Medium in January 2020, one month after making my decision to write daily.

If I made such tremendous progress in so little time, you could do it as well.

I’m 22 years old, I’m not a native English-speaker, I’m not a writer with decades of experience, I’m not a copywriter or anything else that would differentiate me from anyone who’s just starting here.

Medium allows you to make a bunch of money and reach thousands, even millions of readers, solely through writing excellent posts. No email marketing, no social media, just writing.

And you can have all of this without being a “professional writer”, given you follow these steps:

• Stop scrolling through the Facebook groups and sharing your links in clap-for-clap threads. Instead, focus on writing great content.
• Don’t listen to people who are not achieving great results themselves. There are good reasons why only a few people are on the top of Medium, and you can indeed be one of them if you a) join the courses and programs of these people or b) read their posts and analyze their work in-depth.
• Stop writing for yourself and start providing value for those who should read your posts.
• Write a lot of great shit, and don’t expect to make thousands of dollars quickly.

Want to succeed on Medium? Join my free 5-Day Medium Writing Course.