What Happened When I Disappeared From Medium for 2 Months

Why I’m still making $100+ per month

What? You really quit Medium for longer than a week? But… what about reads collapsing? How did you manage not clicking your stats cold turkey? And most importantly: how on earth could you leave this magic platform for so long?

Let me explain.

Yes, I did leave Medium for exactly eight weeks now. And you know what? It felt great. A pyramid content machine detox.

I mean, be honest. When you wanna make some bucks you need to show up here, you need to play the game, and you dream of becoming that top writer. The viral piece dream should keep you going, the promise of the Pharaohs of Medium, the ones that make a sports car a month. The fact that they exist is your shot of writing caffeine. Every-single-freaking-day.

But not me. I dropped out, took a break, came to my senses. It feels great, this Medium detox. I can highly recommend it.

The reason?

I wanted to finish my latest coffee table booklet. And I was sick of making $2.44 for eight hours of work. That’s the money I make when I sell one coffee table book. I’m dreaming of selling ten while I sleep.

I am a writer. Are you? If so, you need to churn out titles. Build your body of work. You simply can’t rely on Medium articles being your life’s artwork. There’s more to it.

Here comes the gold, this is what I learned from leaving Medium for eight weeks. I’ll finish explaining to you how you can make more than $100 a month while writing absolutely nothing here for more than eight weeks.

There’s More to Life

Yep. There is.

I just scrolled through Medium’s front page after the eight-week detox. Guess what? Nothing really changed. The same top writers pop up first.

The same percentage of influencers are telling you what an amazing life they have, making tons of $, and you can have this too when you only… read their blogs. The political Trump B.S. posts, I mean, how long can you remain mad about a president and stay in a victim position? Come on, don’t keep on feeding on people’s sense of being disempowered.

One thing did change. Not even one post about the coronavirus. What a relief. Does this mean the crisis is over? No, but it feels like most writers have taken a break from delivering more fear to readers. My other best guess, coronavirus fatigue has set in, and people want to get on with their lives. That’s a good sign.

Then there is an army of articles about life hacks, listicles, and how you can improve almost anything. I must admit, clickbait seems to have decreased a little.

There is some real kick-ass creativity too.

I love articles that feed my intellect, in any kind of way. Having a glance over my feed, I am about to learn why a ship’s speed is measured in knots, how Elon Musk’s underground highways are becoming a reality, and why Eve was actually kicked out of paradise. Great stuff to know and share at birthday parties. That’s the entertainment compartment of Medium, not to be underestimated.

Reading a good book can make up for skipping Medium for two weeks. Having seven Tinder dates in ten days can make up for skipping Medium, and so can so much more.

Real-life can, and should.

Writing your first serious novel or any part of your body of work as a writer makes up perfectly for skipping Medium for a while.

Medium is not a God, you are in your own universe. Take this golden rule from me: Medium should be working for you and when you feel you are working too much for Medium, take a break.

Medium Is a Window of Opportunity

Medium is a means to an end, not the end goal per se.

Look at my ex-partner for a moment, she’s the perfect example.

She’s already got two full paying clients that found her through this platform. She’s a coach, she’s bloody good, and people started finding her, through Medium.

Don’t make Medium your end goal, don’t get stuck here making pennies unless you’re a top writer. Make your strategy, find your passion/niche/purpose, and use Medium to help achieve your goals, find your costumers.

It’s that simple.

It all starts with including a creative variant on the “subscribe to my newsletter” line at the bottom of your work with a link to your Mailchimp or Upscribe account. Medium will give you a solid list of mail addresses from followers. Don’t get too enthusiastic about it right away, but it all adds up.

For Medium to start working for you it might take three, six, or nine months or even more than a year. My ex did it in a little over a year writing one article a week on average. She got accepted in Human Parts, that helped too. And she included her posts on her website. Clever move, it is a great filler, shows your commitment and professionalism.

Medium has proven to be the decision breaker for two of her clients that made her $4K.

Let your clients find you via Medium. Period.

Let’s Talk About the Money

Thank you for sticking around to read how I am managing making more than $100, while not publishing anything for the last eight weeks.

I didn’t have any clue how fast my stats would tank after stopping. This is how my stats behaved after writing almost 250 articles in the five months before taking my break!

As you’ll notice, my July 2020 stats developed into a wave pattern, declining slowly. I stopped writing for Medium on June 30th and I scored 337 views that day. At the end of July, I had around 240 reads in a day. I made close to $150 in July having close to 2K reads.

So what happened with my stats in August 2020? Further decline?

Not really!

As you can see, my stats climbed at the end of July and in mid-August to over and close to 400 reads respectively. That’s more than when I stopped at the end of June (337 reads).

This is all due to the one viral piece I was lucky enough to create on Medium. This one article made me $2,792 and apparently the algorithms keep on finding it for it to keep on spitting out money.

I made $102.44 up till today in August, just over the $100 mark. As you’ll notice, the end of August looks less promising. Reads have dropped below 100. I am going to flip under 100 bucks for the first time in eight months in September unless I start spitting out articles again from today.

Takeaways

Take a break when you feel you are working for Medium. This platform should work for you. Make no mistake, you’ll need to put in the hours and invest your time when you start, that’s with all things in life. Maintain the balance.

First, plow the land, sow the seed, water and maintain the land, and then harvest.

There is more to life than getting addicted to writing for a content pyramid, like Medium. When you’re a writer, keep on working on your body of work. Use Medium to promote your work.

My honest best advice for now: stick to Medium in your first months (plow the land and sow the seed) until you write your first viral article (harvest).

Guess what, I’ve heard from several other writers now that the mysterious Medium AI does reward a lot of beginners here that put in enough content above a certain quality level with some kind of going viral. At the end of the day, that seems like a clever AI move. Give beginners a big fish, and they will stick around pretty long to repeat the process.

One of the other reasons I dropped out and took a break was because I tried really hard to create my second viral article and it just didn’t happen. Not even after writing more than 80 articles in three consecutive months. Don’t get obsessed with this. Stay in balance, keep your strategy and goal in mind unless your only goal is going viral.

When you’re a coach, when you stick around long enough, clients will find your articles on the web and start to contact you. This will also happen to online marketing heroes, therapists, writers, and anyone who is passionate about their work and knows how to package it in well-written stories that bring enough value and are not the obvious “buy my product” articles full of boring and not-allowed CTAs.

Hey, I am back here and it feels fine. The main reason is, I just love writing and blogging. I am not here for the money.

I am here to connect to you via my thoughts, words, and inspiration.