What I Learned from Publishing 200 Articles on Medium
Even if you are super busy, you can continue your Medium writing journey
I started writing regularly on Medium during the start of the pandemic at the end of March. Since then, I have written around 190 articles.
This is my 200th article and I would like to take a stock of my Medium journey until now.
Four months ago, I shared my reflections with you on having published 100 articles on Medium. At that time (July 2020), I had 399 followers. My monthly total views were around 1000 views. I lamented on not attracting enough traction, views, and money on this platform. My earnings on this platform were still negligible — around 7–8 dollars a month. However, I also celebrated my journey of writing, learning and asset creation, underlining how this is a marathon and I am here for the long haul.
I am sharing that article again below as a reminder:
Two months ago, I published another article sharing my reflections on having published 150 articles on Medium. During that time (September 2020), I had 525 followers. My monthly views reached around 5000 views — which represented quite a significant improvement. My earnings have also increased to about 20 dollars around this time.
I started writing about different topics that I was curious about during this period: GPT-3, neural laces, artificial intelligence, 2030, and futurist visions. I loved researching these topics and learning more deeply about them. I acted like a relentless learning machine and I continued to follow topics that would purely excite me.
Sharing my curiosity adventures and new discoveries that excite me became a turning point for me. My GPT-3 article, for example, has got around 2800 views and it has made $46.83. I would have never guessed such engagement and interest — you can almost never guess which of your articles will gain traction.
In this article, I would like to share my reflections with you on having published 200 articles. Before I start analysing, let me start with some basics. Right now, I have 663 followers. My monthly views have jumped to more than 15,000 views for the first time. My earnings have also increased to about $30 a month. This is not impressive, but it still represents a trajectory of consistent growth.
Today, I will reflect on how my Medium journey is currently unfolding and continuing to evolve. I will take stock on what happened since September 2020 and what I learned from adding a portfolio of 50 articles to my Medium shelves. Here are the lessons I have learned:
1 Do not ever give your Medium writing journey. I still remember how I have felt like a big and fat failure even after writing 100 articles. I felt overworked, depleted, unappreciated, and stressed out. In some tougher moments, I thought of quitting Medium. However, I decided to continue my journey, and it has got much better since then. My page views increased 15 fold after 4 months, and I almost doubled my followers. My articles have started getting more traction and curation. So, the overall lesson here is that you need to hang in there and give it a bit of time. It is a long and difficult journey to establish yourself on any platform — and Medium is no different. Moreover, judging yourself just by numbers or comparing yourself to others is a formula for misery. Consider how much you will learn and progress in your Medium journey, and treat it as a long term venture. Writing is a very valuable skill you will use throughout your life, and consider your Medium journey as an investment in yourself.
Let me reiterate my message: Do not expect quick returns, virality, or victories on Medium. Your growth as a writer takes time. Provide yourself a lot of opportunities for failure and experimentation. When you are at the start of your journey, everything is hard. You need to work hard for a long time before expecting any success. Most people never finish the marathon. You will need to hang in there, be persistent, and continue loving what you do. You will get better eventually, but this is a numbers game. In order to be original, you need to write and produce a lot. Give yourself a lot of opportunities and chances to thrive. Some of this is purely probability theory: You are increasing your chances with each post.
If you really want to get lucky in the long term, you need to provide yourself more opportunities for failure. This is a marathon — play the long game. You need to master a steep learning curve and hang in there. This often means you will pass through a long valley of disappointment before making any progress.
2.Even if you are extremely busy, try to find ways to continue writing and publishing at your own pace. You might need to find creative ways of doing this. For example, I have been super-busy in the last few months due to online teaching, online grading, and online meetings. Still, I have tried to continue creating new content for my Medium blogs. There was no way that I could create completely fresh and long form articles from scratch. Therefore, I decided to publish a series of articles based on my lectures and seminars. In other words, I have combined my teaching and my Medium journeys together to create synergy between these two domains. For example, I started publishing my workshops on Medium:
I also started a new series of articles that summarise our seminar activities and contents. This is one of the articles that comprises of two seminar activities:
I illustrated each seminar exercise through an article. In each article, I have provided suggestions, tips, resources, and examples to complete each exercise. For example, in the following article, I illustrate how a business model canvas can be used to systematically think about your asset creation for the long term:
So, here is my message for your Medium journey: Try to combine your job responsibilities with your Medium writing. You can sustain your writing practice alongside your day job if you can find ways of combining the two together in smart ways. Perhaps you can write about how to perform well on your job or you can reflect on what happened or what you learned during that day. The point is to make your Medium writing process easy. It is normally impossible for me to create fresh and regular content during the semester. However, I can easily turn my lectures, seminars, and workshops into new articles on Medium. Therefore, I have been able to create synergy between my teaching (day job) and my Medium journey (writing). How can you adapt this strategy and do a similar version of this in your own job?
3. When I am super-busy, I tend to escape and watch a lot of dramas and TV series on Netflix. For some of these series, I tried to write short reviews. One of these series was Ethos — I loved watching this new Turkish series and wrote the following review piece on Medium:
I wrote this piece just after watching the series on November 15. Since then, this review piece has got 14,200 views and it has made $17.27 pounds. I would have never guessed this piece to get so many views and reads — it was a case of accidental virality. I think this might be about the timing of this piece, as this series has recently captured huge attention.
So, consider writing very short and easy review pieces about the series and films you have watched recently. This does not take much time, and you can feel more accomplished if you write about what you have just watched. At least, you will create something out of your binge-watching or hobby. Here is another example of this — I have reviewed “Dash and Lily” in the following piece:
4. When you are super-busy and tired, think of creating the easiest pieces you can create in one hour or less. An example might be to create a short reflective exercise. Another alternative might be to write a short book review about a book you have recently read. Another idea might be to create a micro-story to share an idea you do not want to lose or to reflect on a work or life experience you have had. Whatever you do, do something that is super-east for you.
Even if you do not have time, you can still allocate a short amount of time every day on your writing. Let’s say 15 minutes. Try to do this consistently every day even if you are very busy or tired. These principles are summarized in the poster below. Please write down how you will apply each principle in your life.
How do I use the ‘easy’ principle in my journey? For example, I have started a new series which is pretty easy for my to write: Top 10 Ideas Series. I can finish each article in 1 hour or so. Considering the fact that I invest many hours on writing each article, this is a pretty easy thing for me to do. Here is a typical article that I have written as part of this series:
I aim to continue this series — it will be a set of 10 articles in total.
Make your writing easy and do it every day. Change starts in very small increments. You can build positive habits by starting small and giving yourself a lot of opportunities for small experimentation every day. Show up each day even if you do not feel like writing. I do this by setting myself a very tiny writing goal every day. I make my goal so small that it is very easy to accomplish. For example, I will write for a minimum of 15 minutes every day. Or, I will write a minimum of 100 words every day. Starting small will give you the confidence and the momentum you need.
Writing is difficult and you need to approach your writing routine with a sense of patience and self-compassion. You need to develop your own system of creativity and productivity that works for you. Do not wait for inspiration — it is not coming. You first do the work, and inspiration comes in later anyway. If this means you need to eat the frog first thing in the morning, do it by all means. Develop a consistent writing routine every morning. Do not break the chain and make sure you write every day. If you write every day, your writing will improve tremendously after a couple of months — and you will be surprised how much you have grown as a writer.
5. We are living through a revolution in entrepreneurship, content creation, and creativity. You can kickstart your personal renaissance in all of these domains if you invest in your Medium writing. You can be a content creator, a writer, a creative, a journalist, a teacher, and an entrepreneur at the same time on Medium.
Imagine that your articles on Medium form up a shop of contents.Your readers are your customers. Your stories are your inventory. And the good news is that your inventory never diminishes. Each article you write is an asset. Good content is like a golden egg-laying goose — it keeps on giving. Treat each of your articles as an investment for the future.
I have just started writing for Medium this year. I have written about 190 articles since the Coronavirus lockdown. This is my 200th article. Let’s view each article as a product. Whenever a reader comes and reads the article, you can consider it a sale. If you provide a good reading experience, your readers will be satisfied and they will follow you.
My Medium shop is open. I now have 200 articles on my shelves. The amazing thing about the Medium shop is the following: When you have a sale, your inventory is not diminished. Thousands of people can read your article and your article is still on the shelves. In fact, the more reads, the merrier. My Medium operation is a small business now with 200 products. However, I intend to grow it slowly and consistently over the next couple of years. My goal is to continue growing my product line by writing consistently.
Consider your Medium operation as a business. Grow it consistently and add new articles to your portfolio every week. If you write four articles every week, you will have more than 200 articles in a year. In just five years, you will have more than 1000 articles and you will be (almost) like Walmart. Establish your own game and play for the long term. You will have your own content empire in less than a decade.
Keep improving and compound yourself. Will you get better every day? Will you keep creating better writing every day? As James Altucher suggests, if you improve at anything 1% per day, by the end of the year you’ll become better at it by 37 times (1.⁰¹³⁶⁵ = 37.7834343329). This illustrates the power of compounding. This also illustrates the power of non-linear growth.
When you write and publish 100 or 200 posts, you will become a different person. You will feel that you are learning, progressing, and innovating. You will collect fascinating ideas, stories, experiences, friendships, and connections. You will also develop your own voice and skillset as a storyteller, a writer, and a content creator. And that is what matters.
This is your hero’s journey — keep calm, move on, and keep writing every day.
I hope you enjoyed my reflections and perspectives. I will update you when I reach my 250th article, and then my 300th article. You will then witness my writing adventures and my progress unfolding in real-time.
Until that time, adios amigos!
Sincerely;
Fahri
