What I’ve Learned Blogging for 6 Months Every Single Day

My honest journey and key lessons learned

Today is a big day for me. Exactly six months ago, I wrote and published my first article on Medium. I had 11 followers back then, four of whom were family members. To understand why it’s a big moment, you need a little context.

On October 2, 2019, I was sitting in a coffee shop in central London and staring at the Medium editor. It was only me, the blinking cursor, and an encouraging “Tell your story…” Having just moved from Russia, I had no money, no prospects, nothing. Nobody knew me in this new big city, and I had no idea what I was going to do next.

I tried applying for marketing positions at several agencies. I didn’t even know how to fill up a resume properly, I was the one checking resumes just a couple of months ago. The day before, I’d had dinner with my girlfriend, who goes to a prestigious university in London, when I just burst into tears. I told her I thought of myself as a loser, a disappointment. I told her I didn’t know whether I could keep going. She looked at me then and said, “Well, what do you want to do? Besides making money.” I was shocked by the question. Money was the only thing on my mind because I had none. But I closed my mind and tried hard to imagine what I’d be doing if I didn’t have to worry about money. “Write,” I said finally. “Then write,” I heard her reply. “We’ll be fine.”

So, there I was, sitting in front of a computer, trying to let go of the money problems. I was trying to come up with something to write just to forget about it all. But hadn’t written anything in English before, I felt scared.

I read some posts by Tim Denning and learned that you could make money writing on Medium. “I like this Aussie guy. If he can do it, maybe I can do it too,” I thought to myself. And then I remembered my old friend: the “six-month-rule.” I used it every time I came up with a new project in my old marketing business. It’s simple: if you start something, stick to it for six months without thinking, judging yourself, or quitting.

The biggest obstacle to getting marketing, and all other, projects done is not the environment, the audience, or the perpetual lack of budget, it’s quitting too early.

So, I told myself: “No matter what happens, I’ll write and publish one piece each day for six months.” I wrote the date down in my Moleskine: April 3, 2020. Which, as it happens, is also my birthday. And it’s also the date when this post will be published.

What Happened During My First Six Months of Daily Blogging

1. I improved my writing. I wrote more than 300 pieces over six months and it made my writing better.

2. I got to e-meet and learn from great people. Including, but not limited to: Joseph Mavericks, Megan Holstein, Niklas Göke, Linda Kowalchek, Melissa Gouty, Rachel Verdoorn, Nicole Akers, Tom Kuegler and Tim Denning.

3. I started an email newsletter. It keeps growing and allows me to interact with my readers every day. I also increased my audience from 11 to 2700 followers in six months.

4. I wrote three books. One about blogging and one in the self-development space. The third book is coming out next Monday.

5. I made money. My average monthly income this year (2020) is higher than $1,000/mo, which is not much, but way more than you’d expect from a six-month blogging project that feels more like a hobby.

But most importantly, I learned a great deal about content, blogging, and myself. I never forget to learn from my readers as much as they learn from me. And I realized that anything is possible if you aren’t afraid to follow your dreams.

Of course:

• I’ve made mistakes.
• I’ve had days when I doubted myself.
• I skipped a day or two.
• I wrote crappy articles, which I regretted publishing.

And of course, I can’t say that I am by any definition “successful” on Medium. Not yet, at least. But I know that I am on the right track to building my platform and to becoming a full-time blogger. If I was a blogging spaceship, I entered what they call “escape velocity.” And I am grateful every day to Medium and the internet age for this opportunity.

In this piece, I want to hack time. A while ago, I vowed not to write about Medium success. Plus, they can’t curate those pieces anymore. So no, this is not another “success on Medium” article, like the crap you see everywhere. I want to travel back and talk to myself six months ago. I want to give Sergey of October 2019 the key things he has to remember when it comes to blogging and content creation in general. These principles are universal and will be helpful to you regardless of whether you decide to blog on Medium or not. And if you have anything to add, you always know where to find me.

Who and Why Should Blog

James Altucher said, “The secret to success is to build a foundation for it.” There are numerous examples of platforms in life: money, inheritance, fame, good looks, real estate, business, but if you have none of that, that’s fine. A blog is your platform. A platform is anything that gives you opportunities. A blog can get you hired. It can help you build a business. It can allow you to learn all your life. It can make you money, teach you how to write, or help you make friends.

You don’t just start a company in 2020, you build a media-first one. You don’t just tell people to buy your freelance services, you build a brand of “you” through content. You don’t just become a book author these days, no publisher will want you. Instead, you build what’s called an “author’s platform” first. If you’re going the self-publishing route, this matters even more. And if you do everything right, you might even end up being a business. Not your blog, but you. In today’s content-driven world, everyone, regardless of what they’re doing for a living, should blog. The best part: you don’t even need a lot of followers to become successful.

Don’t Obsess Over Your Follower Count

Everyone wants to become Kim Kardashian, but only a handful of people will. Stop trying to build a huge following and focus on building trust. Your Medium followers don’t matter, because they’re not your real friends. The only asset that a blogger builds, except for content, of course, is their audience’s trust. You build trust by:

• Showing up like you want other people to show up for you.
• Serving your readers because they matter.
• Build loyalty and engagement by giving gifts.
• Having a silent rule that everything you publish is worth your readers’ time and attention.

These days, I use my email newsletter to build genuine relationships with my readers. I give them free copies of my books. I give them occasional gifts and surprises. I gave up chasing the “number,” e.g., followers on Medium, and focus on building engagement. And if you’re into making money, the math works, too: If you have just 1,000 followers, but they read just you and nobody else, you’ll earn their full Medium fee ($5), which is: $5 x 1,000 = $5,000.

You MUST Promote Your Work

Whether you write on Medium, where you can publish in publications and get curated, or on your WordPress site, you’ve got to put in the same effort in promoting as you do in creating content. It took me a while to realize this. I hope you won’t be as dumb as I was. Many creators I know make the same mistake. But believe me when I tell you: it’s part of your job as a content creator.

If you don’t promote your work, nobody will come. Or — if you’re lucky like I was a few times — people will notice and promote your work for you, by sharing your articles on Twitter. But don’t leave it to chance. Promote your work through:

1. Facebook groups on blogging and Medium
2. Reddit threads
3. ManyStories, if you’re on Medium
4. Your email newsletter
5. Publications, if you’re on Medium

But don’t go to the other extreme: don’t think that if you promote the crap out of your articles, you’ll be successful. No. The rules of physics don’t change: to be noticed, you’ve got to create value for the reader. Do that, and your content will spread.

Rent Platforms

When I first started writing on Medium, like most people, I had a dilemma: should I blog on Medium or my website? Short answer: do both. But start with Medium.

Longer answer: the platforms, Amazon, Medium, YouTube, allow anybody to come and build an audience from scratch. Use that opportunity. But remember that the most significant advantage of these platforms is also their biggest disadvantage. You’ve got to own your audience And you do that by building a newsletter using ConvertKit or Substack or transitioning to your website on Wordpress or Ghost in time.

Think about this way. When you’re young and don’t have money, you rent an apartment. It’s not yours. But once you have more income, you usually switch to your own pace. But you don’t need to. There are examples of bloggers now who don’t diversify and exist entirely on platforms, i.e. “rent,” all of their lives. This comes with risk, though: remember not to put all of your eggs into one basket.

Don’t Rush to Make Money From Your Writing

The more you delay making money, the more leverage you’ll have. The more freedom you’ll be able to buy for yourself later on. Once you start making money from blogging, it will be almost impossible to stop. If you’re building a blog on WordPress, this means focusing on generating high-quality content for the first few months before monetizing traffic through AdSense.

If you’re writing on Medium, this used to mean not to publish via Medium Partner Program (MPP), but now it doesn’t make a difference. So just avoid checking stats every second. You might get addicted. For the first 6 to 12 months, focus on building an audience and, most importantly, the trust of that audience.

Go Niche

This is closely related to why you shouldn’t obsess over your follower count. Medium has recently introduced the “mute” feature, which allows readers to mute authors they don’t want to hear from. Hence, the best thing you can do as a writer is to focus on dominating a few topics and becoming the best there.

Most platforms are investing heavily in curation algorithms. This means that the days of amassing huge followings are over. The days of being the best in your narrow niche are here. There are numerous examples of bloggers, like Shane Parrish from Farnam St., who’ve built a living from a niche blog.

Again, it’s all about the relationship you have with the audience. Invest in that, and it will pay out dividends your whole life. Choose to be a meaningful specific rather than a wandering generality. That’s the new “map” to success in blogging and online business in general.

Be Yourself

Most journalists realize this early in their careers. They figure out, that with all the pressure and workload, they have no option but to let go, and just be themselves. Larry King learned this when he was paralyzed during his first time on-air. He was live for thirty seconds and couldn’t say a word. His boss walked up to him and said, “Larry, there’s no secret to this business, just be yourself.” Contrary to common wisdom, if you’re just starting, I recommend that you don’t read other bloggers. That way, you’ll avoid feeling jealous or copying other people’s styles. You need to find your voice.

The Most Important Thing

I’ve said this so many times because it’s essential. It’s also the reason why I stopped writing articles about “Medium success.” There’s nothing much to say, but that you have to write. Tim Denning says, “Whatever you do, don’t stop writing.” I agree with that.

There’s no hack to becoming a successful blogger. There’s no recipe to success on Medium or any other platform. The most important thing is that you show up, create content, experiment, and ship; because that’s what real artists do: they ship what they produce.

And then you come back tomorrow and create some more content. And you try to make your next piece of content better than yesterday. The reason, the only reason, why I started using the “six-month-rule,” why I write every single day, and why I challenged myself to write 12 books this year, is because I believe in being prolific.

I listened to Neil Gaiman when he said: “Imagine you have one million words inside of you that are all rubbish. Get them all out.”

If I sum up everything I learned over the past six months in one lesson, it would be this: everything is possible, but it will take time. I eventually managed to solve my money problems and find a job as Head of Content at a Silicon Valley startup. I started a few podcasts and a publication on Medium. I even persuaded my girlfriend to start writing on Medium too. It’s amazing how much your life can change in just six months. Success, at blogging, art, business, and life, is the result of daily struggles that compound over a long time. Be patient. You’ll be able to achieve everything. Just not all at once.