When Your Post Goes Viral

It’s freaking awesome.

I had one goal when I jumped on Medium: get my writing out of my system. I have a day job, I’m not an aspiring writer.

Then after the first month, my goal was to make more money than the month before. In my first month, I made $60, by month three I made $400. Figured that’s some cash that I can put towards my pending separation. Cool.

And then…an article of mine went viral this week.

Or at least I would call it viral. I woke up and saw 20k views and climbing on the second day. Is that a number that counts as “viral”? I Googled it, but no one had a clear definition.

In less than a month, my current running total is over $1300. That’s crazy talk.

I’ve read dozens of articles by authors bemoaning how life became hard after something went viral. How pressured they felt to keep making viral content. How depressed they became the next month at making a fraction of their prior month. How obsessed they became with stats.

Really? That sounds like a lot of first world problems.

If this is your livelihood and you’re starting out, hopefully, you have a backup plan because relying on monthly viral stories is a crappy financial strategy. Folks who are well-known on Medium can churn out the same content and they’ll have thousands of viewers by default, they’re not finger-crossing for one viral article.

In reality, having an article go viral is freaking amazing. I have a decent chunk of the coin I didn’t expect to receive this month. My goal wasn’t to write anything that would become popular, so I’m stoked that one hit a nerve with readers.

I’m sure next month I’ll be a little disappointed when a few zeros drop off my Medium payout. I expect it. If I’m lucky to have another post rise in popularity, then it will be another unexpected but happy event.

It hasn’t been all sunshine and roses. My post brought out internet trolls. I’m accustomed to that on social media, but I naïvely thought people who paid for a Medium membership were more on the…rational side. I also thought most of them were also writers and thus would behave moderately professional.

Nope. The trolls came out. I defended myself on a few comments but eventually stopped reading them. I briefly scrolled through to find the positive comments; unfortunately, they’re jumbled together. Can’t there be a checkbox that says “is your comment positive or are you going to rant to a stranger whose life you don’t know?”. I need that filter.

The trolls don’t phase me because they contributed to the financial payout. If you want to give me money so that you can post a scathing comment that I can ignore, go for it. You’re just adding to my read count. No complaints on my end.

Dear Reader, do yourself a favor. Don’t keep reading about what happened after someone’s article went viral. They’ll make it sound like a bad thing. It’s not. You’ll receive some extra cash and you’ll feel great as a writer.

It’s a good thing.