Want to Find Out What Qualifies Medium Writers for Bonuses? Take My Survey!

Medium is handing out cash bonuses to top writers like candy. What qualifies you to be rewarded?

6/25/2021 — This story is now out-of-date! To see the results of the story, check out this link:

Were you awarded a bonus from Medium at the end of May? Take my survey! It’s quick, easy, and anonymous. I’ll be sure to share the results in a subsequent article in a week or you can see the results for yourself after successful completion of the survey. (You can take the survey if you didn’t get a bonus as well! More data means more insights)

Many Medium writers received a welcome surprise when they checked their Partner Program earnings earlier this week — a cash bonus! For some, it was their second consecutive bonus as Medium started rewarding top writers the previous month.

When I logged on and checked my Partner Program earnings page, I noticed a big green box at the top of the page that congratulated me for high engagement on my stories. I was rewarded with $50 which was added to my May earnings. Personally, this is my first bonus as I was on a writing sabbatical in April and most of May (I chose a hell of a time to take a break from writing on Medium, eh?).

On social media, I wasn’t the only one surprised by the second consecutive month of rewards for top writers from Medium. Some writers were reporting bonus rewards of $100 and $500! Yay! I want to take this opportunity to extend my congratulations to all who have found themselves the recipient of the bonus.

I must commend Medium on their decision to take this path and reward the writers that contribute to their platform. I’ve always thought that the financial ROI (return on investment) for writing on Medium wasn’t that high. I’m fortunate to have a career that pays comfortably so the money I earn from Medium is just a bonus for me.

However, I know there are plenty of writers on Medium that need the money more. Some even make a living off writing on Medium full-time! A bonus program like this is exactly what Medium needs in order to motivate people to produce more quality content.

New Regular Thing?

Now that Medium has awarded top writers in two consecutive months, it’s safe to assume that the process will continue. This was furthered validated by an email I received this morning from Medium, congratulating me on my standout stories. Here is the email:

To be honest, the creation of a Partner Bonus Program isn’t that surprising. The people who contribute to Medium (the writers) are also readers — the customers of Medium since Medium is funded by memberships and not advertisements. If good writers feel that their work isn’t producing a good return for their time, they could reduce the number of stories they write which could diminish the number of readers.

For a while, Medium had bet that publications on their platform would be the next big thing. The vision was that Medium would be home to a decentralized platform of writers and editors who produced content for relevant publications that is compatible with magazines in the media world.

Unfortunately, the cost of running and funding publications didn’t produce the results that the team desired. Recently, Medium has taken steps recently to diminish its focus on publications and instead, focus on the writers themselves. This strategy pivot has been evident with their decision to stop running the Medium-owned publications and funding some of the top non-Medium-owned publications such as P.S. I Love You and The Ascent.

I imagine all of the funding for these publications required a lot of resources and money. Now that the money that was typically used to fund publications is freed up, I think the Medium team decided to use the extra cash flow to subsidize writers. I imagine that their goals are to incentivize and motivate people to write quality content and drive traffic. What better way to produce quality than financial incentives?

But here comes the next big question that I’m sure many Medium writers are pondering — what qualifies you to earn a bonus? The green boxes seen in the Partner Program earnings page for both months said bonuses were given to writers with stories that had “high engagement”. Hm…Does high engagement or top writer mean high read ratios? Claps? Reads? Views? Earnings? Distribution?

In their congratulatory email to writers who earned a bonus, Medium said “When we awarded bonuses in April, we heard from writers that the criteria for qualifying wasn’t clear.” Uh, I don’t know about y’all, but the criteria still isn’t clear. The only hints they dropped in the email to continue or improve upon your success were “regularly publishing unique stories for members to explore, read, and love” and “keep doing what you’re doing.”

Helpful, guys. Helpful. While I commend Medium’s new approach with the Partner Bonus Program, I still am amused by the vagueness of their parameters.

Take the survey!

However, there are clever ways to guess and figure out what all of this means. I think writers on the platform want to gain insights into what is required to be a top writer and adopt strategies that will help position them for a bonus. I bet you’re curious, right?

One way to gain insights is to share information transparently with other Medium writers. Some of the best learnings about Medium for me came from talking and discussing Medium with other fellow writers. Hit up your Medium writer friends and if they’re okay with it, ask them about how they performed in May.

Alternatively, another way we can get some insights is through Medium writer surveys since Medium can be quite secretive about their plans sometimes.

Since I’m a data nerd, I love surveys and collecting surveys. I’ve been eager to find out more information about the program so I created a short survey in the hopes of gathering information from fellow writers. The survey is seeking information from writers about their writing performance in May. I’d be glad to share the results or takeaways in a subsequent article once I collect a few responses!

Please feel free to share this article or survey with other Medium writers on your networks, stories, and email lists so we can get to the bottom of this. To take the survey, click this link, or complete the survey below. You can view the results of the survey after completion.

Sharing is caring, guys! The more results I get, the more insights we can glean from the survey. Also, it’s okay if you want to take the survey if you didn’t get a bonus!

Now get writing! The rat race to the top has now begun.