What The NewsBreak Change Did To Earnings

They were greatly reduced for most

The changes made dollars turn into pennies or other coins

There have been people writing on Medium about leaving NewsBreak because it is no longer a viable source of income for them. These are mostly people who were in when there were guaranteed hundreds or thousands of dollars being deposited into their accounts. They have found that NewsBreak made changes to their payment plan which took away their earnings.

Anyone reading on Medium and interested in NewsBreak likely knows that some people are still earning money on NewsBreak. One of those who appears to be highly successful is Matt Lillywhite. He has been an entertaining writer on Medium, but he may be concentrating on NewsBreak as he seems to make large amounts of money from NewsBreak.

Matt wrote a lot of articles for Medium in which he talked about financial advice and having millions of dollars. Then he would have a disclaimer at the end of the humorous article saying that all of it was not exactly true.

Now Matt writes many weather-related articles for NewsBreak. He writes about weather all around the United States. It is not just about his local area where he lives. He seems to have found a good formula that has made him very successful. He has also published articles on Medium about NewsBreak.

Right before NewsBreak changed their payment structure a few months ago, people were earning set fees of $25 or $60 per published article. It was an income of over $1,000 a month for those who were writing on NewsBreak. [Disclaimer: I was not one of them.]

After they stopped with the per article rates of payment, NewsBreak based earnings on views (which translate into what reads are on Medium). The views are multiplied by a number which they assign called RPM. Google says RPM stands for “Revenue per thousand impressions.” RPM could mean “rate per minute” because that seems to be how the earnings come out.

Some examples of recent earnings are:

1 view x 10.0 RPM = Earnings of $.01

13 views x 8.46 RPM = Earnings of $.11

27 views x 8.15 RPM = Earnings of $.22

31 views x 8.0 RPM = Earnings of $.25

319 views x 8.21 RPM = Earnings of $2.62

614 views x 4.1 RPM = Earnings of $2.52

812 views x 4.1 RPM = Earnings of $3.33

1197 views x 4.0 = Earnings of $4.79

My articles are generally rated between 4 and 10 RPM with most around 8 RPM. One article had an RPM of 20.0, but it only had one view. Another article had a .08 RPM. With 132 views, that article earned $.01. Some, but not all, of the articles from previous months say N/A for the RPM so the earnings for views are zero.

Those amounts earned for most stories are a far cry from the payments which had been in place of $25 or $60 per article. It is hard to make any substantial money from pennies or even a few dollars per article.

It is also difficult to find enough subjects about which you are allowed to write for NewsBreak since most news stories are covered by media sources.

The impressions for articles on NewsBreak can go from less than 100 up to over 100,000. It is confusing how those impressions come about, but it seems that they are when an article is put into someone’s newsfeed. NewsBreak must do that, but how that happens is not known to me.

Chrissie Marie Massel wrote on Medium in Writers’ Blokke about NewsBreak. The article was titled: “NewsBreak Doesn’t Care About Writers — It Will Lead To Their Demise.”

Some other Medium writers who have written stories about NewsBreak are: Tom Kuegler, Tim Denning, Roz Warren, Sean Kernan, Burk, Yana Bostongirl, Kiran Yasmin, and Jordan Mendiola. There are many others. Check out their stories if you are interested in more information about NewsBreak.

What will come of NewsBreak is not known, of course. They did reduce the chance for their writers to earn money. They would not want to fail, but perhaps they need to make some more changes which are more favorable to the writers.

Matt Lillywhite, Chrissie Marie Massey, Tom Kuegler, Tim Denning, Roz Warren, Sean Kernan, Burk, Yana Bostongirl, Jordan Mendiola, Kiran Yasmin