What It Feels like to Make 7k from One 13 Minute Blog Post
Let’s dive into the stats — something I should start doing more.
There is no other writer’s website like this one. News Break is a bit of a pain in the a**. I’ve made easy money from News Break and gotten many page views, but I don’t care for how the bots arbitrarily and unilaterally decide what will and will not be published. Even after I’ve removed all the foul language and carnal knowledge from a previous penned post, they sometimes won’t publish it -leaving me with no idea why. I also don’t want to be a journalist; deliberately writing a local story isn’t my thing unless it interests me.
If you want to try News Break on for size, here is my affiliate link to join the Creator Program. There’s a short (10 minutes, if that) application to fill out before acceptance. I may spend a little more time there and then call it quits. I’m already spread too thin.
Then there’s Vocal. I still don’t know how to make money on that site, although I haven’t put much time into figuring it out.
I’ve made a whopping $9.95 sharing my writing on Vocal Media, way less than the $9.99 they charge me each month to be a member. I worked on one piece for an entire weekend to submit to one of Vocal’s weekly challenges, only to not win. The prize money for the challenges has increased amply. Some guarantee a 20K prize. That kind of money has attracted several more writers than when I first jumped on Vocal. So, the odds… not good.
But for newbie writers, if you have nothing to write about, you can always go to Vocal and use the challenge writing prompt, submit to the challenge as well as publish it elsewhere.
This platform has spoiled me. It is user-friendly, easy to attract a loyal audience, no ads, the editor is simply designed, and I like the magazine-style visual aspect Medium goes for. I didn’t have a smartphone when I was a teen. Growing up my entertainment consisted of sitting on the floor in my room, listening to Prince while skimming through Vogue for photography and images of clothes as art. I love that Medium gets that a good image is part of a great story, but the priority is on the words.
I love words. All writers do.
I haven’t even been writing on Medium for two years yet, and I’ve made a good chunk of change that has made a significant difference in my life. I invest some of my Medium earnings into myself — taking online classes — into my online business, and into the stock market, which has made the most significant difference in my future financial life.
Money is one small byproduct of creativity. I’ve gained so much more. Most days of the week, I enjoy what I spend my hours doing and what I’m pursuing. What we spend our time doing is our life in the end. The satisfaction I get from writing something, anything — an idea, a sentence, an entire post — that resonates is worth more than money.
The time it takes to get into my daily writing, to reach a state of flow, and come out the other end with quality takes a lot less energy and friction than it did when I didn’t have a writing habit to build on. Starting the writing day with less friction and resistance comes from the habit of writing nearly every day.
It’s Sunday today, when I wrote this post. The previous Friday, I promised myself I’d take Sunday off from writing and work, and guess what, I’m writing. It is second nature to me now. If I skip a day, I get the same feeling when I skip brushing my teeth. Like something is missing and not right. I will take some time today to spend with family and just ‘be’, but only after writing for a few hours. However, I never log onto Medium, or any writing app, on Sunday. I take a break from consumption even though I still write.
With Medium, you can write something solid and get paid. The immediacy leaves a satisfying feeling. As soon as you hit publish, you get feedback and why I continue to hone my craft and voice here. The less I focus attention on making money and put the priority on writing better, the more money I make.
I have many top-earning posts. One of them is The Seven Books That Will Change Your Life, which was rejected by a large publication. Within one minute of that “rejection,” I published it in my own publication, The Happy Spot. I didn’t change one word of the piece, not even the title.
It took off right away and continues to get reads and bring in money. 7K of it.
It was fun to write. I’m proud of it because I believe these books will change your life, as they did mine for the better, if you make them a part of your habits, behaviors, character, and psyche.
Each book has laws I live by each day.
There is nothing more enjoyable than having a solid writing habit. I can rely on it. And I can earn money from practicing it.
Here are some stats about that post:
- OK. The title, The Seven Books That Will Change Your Life, is clickbait. I don’t know how well it would perform on Medium now. I still write clickbait titles accidentally (I don’t give it much thought to whether it is considered clickbait or not). The titles I come up with are never overly clickbaity or obnoxious. I deliver on the title. When a great title pops into my head, I write something for it. Titles are important whether you’re writing a blog post or a book. But you have to deliver, don’t get people to click and then leave them hanging. Your audience will lose trust in you. Trust is important between content creators and their tribe.
- I wrote this piece from the heart. These 7 books are actual books I read once every year or every few years. I look at them often. I carry the abridged version of The Four Agreements with me.
- The story is personal in that I relate how some of these books gave me better mental models. A mental model is a better way of thinking and figuring out how things work in the real world.
- The most popular day with a total of 7.9K views, it earned $173.96. It kept earning during smaller peaks that came after. Look at all those small peaks that lasted for a good four months.
- Earned over $7,953.23
- Views over 232K
- Average reading time 4 minutes 41 seconds
- Posted on July 29, 2020, and had its highest peak on August 3/4th, 2020 put continued peaking for months afterward.
- Has had several small peaks after it went viral.
- Continues to have small peaks and still earns money (the post that keeps on giving).
- 77% of views were from internal views.
Now, if I could just write one or two of these babies a week. When I figure out how to do that, I’ll let you know more.
Write on.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering Type A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.