Summary

The author humorously reflects on their unsuccessful attempts to increase earnings on Medium by following two popular writing lessons, ultimately leading to a $9,000 loss.

Abstract

In a satirical piece, the author laments their financial misfortunes on Medium, despite believing they deserve to earn $50,000 per word. They attribute their lack of success to external factors rather than their content, which they consider superior. The author then details two key lessons they learned from other Medium writers: focusing less on views and more on reading time, and engaging in aggressive networking. However, both strategies backfire; self-reading doesn't contribute to earnings, and guerilla networking leads to a significant financial loss in a cryptocurrency investment. The author rates these approaches with a sense of irony, acknowledging the value of friendship while ruefully noting the absence of monetary gain.

Opinions

The author believes their writing is of high quality and undervalued on Medium.
They are skeptical about the importance of views, initially believing that content quality alone should dictate earnings.
The author is critical of the advice given by other Medium writers, suggesting it may not be trustworthy.
They admit to hiring bots to comment on their comedic prowess, indicating a desire for validation and recognition.
The author reflects on the importance of reading time for earnings but humorously reveals that their own reading of their articles does not count towards payment.
They express a sense of disillusionment with networking strategies on Medium, particularly after losing money on a cryptocurrency investment suggested by a new connection.
Despite the financial losses, the author values the friendships made and maintains a sense of humor about their experiences.
The piece ends with a tongue-in-cheek suggestion to use the author's affiliate link when reading others' articles, implying that the reader should learn from their mistakes.

Two key writing lessons that have helped me lose $9,000 on Medium

It’s not a whole number so you have to believe me

In my unbiased opinion, I should be making roughly $50,000 a word. But external factors out of my control such as inflation, the burning of the ozone layer and NFTs are stopping me from attaining this goal.

Previously, I was taking back a salary in the low two-decimal places, and I would stay awake most nights asking myself, ‘Could there be something I’m doing wrong?’

It surely can’t be because of my evergreen content, I’m better than every writer on this platform. It can’t be attributed to an abundance of academic jargon either, I never fact check my work. And I know it’s not because of a lack of sassiness and humor, everyone keeps commenting about my comedic prowess — albeit most of them are bots I’ve hired in the first place, but I’m only making them say what I know to be true.

The Problem and the Solution

Turns out, 90% of talented writers (Source — working on it) like myself face this problem. Luckily, the solution is simple — Take advice from other Medium writers who may or may not be telling the truth.

After weeks of research, I managed to incorporate two key lessons from other pros on Medium, in hopes of attaining financial independence. (No writers will be mentioned due to the satirical nature of this piece).

Here’s what I learned.

Stop focusing on views

I read somewhere on Medium that the views don’t actually matter, since they contribute towards 0% of your earnings. So I decided to write content that nobody would want to click on.

Unfortunately, I only found out later that the content does play a role in your overall success since you get paid per reading minutes. So I adjusted my schedule and now spend 90% of my day reading my own articles — sometimes even taking 5 hours to skim through a 3-minute write-up.

Benefits of this approach — I don’t have to rely on others for my own success. I also finally know what my bots are writing about.

The negatives — Turns out, your own reading time doesn’t count for anything on your overall stats. I was back to square one after spending close to 89 hours stalking my own profile.

ROI — Luckily I lost $0 because I invested no money, one of the advantages of participating in a low risk-no return strategy.

Rating this approach — 7.5/10 (Got 2 new readers and my screen time on unproductive apps has reduced drastically).

Guerilla Networking

Every Meta Medium writer tells you to work on your networking to increase your reach. So I decided to take that to a whole new level. Each day I pick one new member on this platform and write an entire paragraph praising their work, calling them well-versed and asking for a follow back. I also re-type the exact same message at least 10–15 times on all their posts to make sure they reply back.

Benefits of this approach — I interacted with some really sweet people, one guy even asked if I was all right — I was. Another user brought me on to this new cryptocurrency which has a 100% chance of soaring according to their undisclosed research — so I invested $10,000 instantly. I also think my bots have started sounding less robotic since there’s not much separating their writing voice from the crypto dude’s.

The negatives — A majority of the people I tried networking with have shut their accounts, I can’t seem to find any of them on my search results anymore. I’m also down $9,000 on my crypto investment, but I’ve been assured that this is the right time to buy the dip.

Rating this approach — 7/10 (Met new companions along the way — and friendship is priceless. But, in a more quantitative sense, some cash would be nice too).

Key Observations — I made two keen observations after trying out these proven Medium writing tricks. Implementing the first lesson was an intentional mistake — so I could learn from it, and the second was an unfortunate financial burden — because I didn’t learn my lesson the first time around.

Key Learnings — I’ve realised that money is not everything, especially since I have none of it. Secondly, don’t read other people’s articles, everyone has their own selfish needs at heart.

But, if you were to read other’s articles, do it using my affiliate link.- https://medium.com/@virajrandev/membership