What does a vacation from Medium cost?

No surprise, a lot.

Did you miss me while I was gone? I know, it was hard for me, too, being away from you all while I was off partying. I shut down Medium for a week, but now I’m back. Who gets a vacation after four months on the job? The self-employed, that’s who. And when my fam said they were coming out to San Francisco to celebrate my 80th birthday, neither hell nor my at-risk Medium stats would stop me from celebrating.

These weren’t any run of the mill relatives that make you pull down the shades and ignore their knock at the door when they breeze into town. Harvey is my late sister and brother-in-law’s firstborn, the first of my parents eleven grandchildren and the patriarch of his own family now. He and his beloved Cathy told me at his mother’s memorial last March they would come from New York to mark my big milestone. I love Cathy like a sister; I bet most people do. So I was thrilled beyond words to hear they would visit the West Coast to see me.

This isn’t a trip down memory lane that will bore you all who don’t know my peeps. That will come in tomorrow’s article. Today, I have some hard news about what happened to me on Medium during my very brief hiatus. I just wanted to give you some background on why I took a break just as my stats had started to take off. There were consequences. There always are. Let’s take a look at the cost of a vacay on Medium.

My stats

I published my first article here in early May of 2019. I’ve had a lucky run because I got curated out of the gate and have had a decent rate of curation and acceptance into big publications since. I made a point early on of educating myself about everything Medium. How to read the dashboard; how to increase fans and followers; how to up your chances of curation. I’ve worked very hard to engage with other writers and to post in Facebook groups. My goal has been to write daily to make Medium part of my income stream.

Slowly, my fans and followers increased, as did my earnings. I’ve been fortunate to reach the 7–8% of writers earning at least $100 per month since I started. Before my break, I had two back to back weeks averaging $95 each, my biggest jump so far. Then my earnings dropped to half because I had started to pull back on daily posts.

Each day my dashboard looked like the downside of Mt. Everest, with deep slides every day. The day I pulled back, I was averaging 50 fans per day with 60 fans the day of my last daily post. Yesterday, after a full week of no writing, I had 11 fans.

I’ve had new followers and a few fans every day, but nothing like the numbers when I was a daily face on Medium. Here’s where my absence, brief as it was, hurt my stats.

Daily posts

In most of July and all of August, I posted at least one and occasionally two articles a day. I credit that output with my rise in followers and fans. I came to Medium to make money, though I’d stay for the friendships and engagement. My first priority, however, is to add to my income in a serious way.

I have a timeline to reach a monthly income. If I don’t make it, I won’t leave Medium; I’m having too much fun. But I will have to put this energy elsewhere to continue to pay my rent.

So far, writing, writing, writing, and daily posts are key to my strategy. I now have over 100 articles, so my backlog helps on days I don’t publish. But it’s not enough to keep fans from forgetting about me when I take a week-long break.

We have writers who earn a good income by posting weekly or monthly. But they have jillions of fans and followers. I’m a nobody, and I have to keep pushing my rock uphill to get noticed. Because I love writing, an article a day is not a chore, just a necessity. A week away showed me that my lack of production hurt.

From. The. Very. First. Day.

Engagement

If you want to succeed on Medium, it takes a village. You can’t do it alone. You have to make friends who will support you. It’s a scratch my back, etc., economy. And I’m fine with that.

I’ve made a point of reaching out beyond my usual circle of interests to find writers and articles each day that intrigue me, open new worlds to me. I highlight portions that interest me and leave comments. I check the fans of those articles for new writers.

I read their articles, and often they come and read mine. I love this tit for tat, but it’s time-consuming. Part of the price I pay for my own success, small as it is.

During my vacay, I read very few articles. I had nothing to post in my Medium Facebook groups, and though I tried to keep up with articles, at the end of the day, I was exhausted after sightseeing and visiting with my loved ones.

I lost track of world news, not just Medium news. So my engagement with other writers fell, which also contributed to my flagging reads and fans on my dashboard.

My takeaway

I wouldn’t give up my time with my family for a thousand new fans or a nice spike in earnings. But if I have some advice for writers who are in this for the money, don’t take a break too early in your Medium career.

Take a tip from Shannon Ashley who wrote at length about her experience with a vacation this summer. If you don’t know Shannon, take a look. She’s one of Medium’s stars making serious bank with excellent writing and a fanbase we’d all love to have.

But when she took a well-deserved and well-planned vacation this summer, that included posting from her backlist, she knew her income would take a hit. She’s a single mother and Medium is her only source of income.

Shannon’s monthly earnings fell by half, though at her level of income, half is stratospheric for most of us. According to her articles, she planned for this drop so it didn’t come as a surprise. Because I follow her, I wasn’t surprised by my dip either. However, I’ve come away with some rules the next time I take a break.

My tips for a Medium vacation

I don’t plan on another Medium vacation for a long while. But next time, I will do more planning and try to be kinder to my dashboard and earnings. Here’s what I’ll do in advance:

• I’ll write some articles in advance and publish them with a date in the future so they will take off while I’m away. Check the publication page for setting your pub date in advance.
• I’ll rework older articles that didn’t do well. I’ll give them a new photo, title and tighten the editing. Unlist them rather than republish them, and list them for publishing during the time I’m away.
• Each morning I’m away I’ll take a few minutes to drop an older article in one of my Medium Facebook groups to gain interest from new members or members who missed it the first time around.
• Most importantly, I’ll schedule time each day I’m away to read articles in my Facebook groups and those of my fans and followers to keep up my engagement and lessen the culture shock when I return to write. That way, I won’t feel like such a newbie when I return to Medium full-time again.

Do you have any tips for handling Medium when you take a break? I’d love to hear them.

I’m a writer and editor with Top Writer status in Writing, Psychology, Food, Advice, and Health and an editor for the publication, Rogues Gallery. I’ve published 55 titles on Amazon and edit fiction and nonfiction for private clients. If you’d like to hire me as your editor, please contact me here. If you’d like to read more of my stories and tips for success on Medium, click here sign up for my newsletter. I’ll make sure you don’t miss a word. Thank you for reading.