Who In Their Right Mind Talks About How Much They Earn Publicly?
Other than Medium writers and bloggers of course
As much as I love to read about Medium stats and earnings, I can no longer be the one that writes articles about how much we earn on Medium.
Many of us are caught up in a Medium universe where we think that talking about your earnings is normal. It’s a known fact and one that many of us know from personal experience. Writing about Medium earnings is lucrative because we earn the most from articles that talk about how much we earn.
Our 1-month updates, one-year wrap-ups and “how much I earned on Medium” article are popular, well-read and earn more than our typical article. Everyone wants to know how to make $100 in a month or $1000 in 3 months. Write about Medium earnings and it will quickly become your best-read article.
Earn thousands a month and write about and that article will start earning serious money. You can even write about earning hundreds of dollars or even $10 bucks. There’s no minimum. Even an article about earning your first Medium buck will be well-read.
Imagine if this happened in real life
I know this to be true because I’ve written a couple of these articles. I wrote one about my take-aways from Medium and mentioned my earnings. Then I wrote a sarcastic one about how Medium writers humble-brag their way through their articles day and night. I casually mentioned AND humbly bragged that I broke the $100 mark in this article.
Although every “make money on Medium” post will do well, here’s why we need to stop doing it. We would never do any of this in real life so why would we do this on Medium? I’ve never in my professional life said something like, “hey, you want to know how I made $3000 last month?” or had a conversation with my friend and said, “I made more than $50,000 in the last 12 months at my job.”
Imagine if you had a friend that said things like…
Let me tell you how I made $10,000 working fewer hours than ever before …
Let me share the 6 ways I crushed my monthly earnings at work …
Ask me how I earned more than 30% more at work last month…
Would you also like to make 6-figures like I did last year from my day job?
Monkey see, monkey do
I’m writing this post for myself as much as for everyone else. We wouldn’t go around declaring our income streams from our day job so why would go around announcing our income from Medium earnings?
Not only do we announce it but we post it on social media. We write Medium posts about it. We write blog posts on other blogs outside of Medium about it. We make Youtube videos about it. We post actual screenshots of our earnings on blog posts — no, seriously! Writers are doing all these things and I think it’s just a practice we picked up because we saw the top writers and bloggers doing it. Usually, it’s the Medium writers and make-money-blogging bloggers who are out there selling courses and books on how to make money on Medium.
Should we stop? Well, here’s the thing. Each of these articles will generate a lot of money for you in the beginning so I think people should write these posts to help them earn some money but if you’re serious about Medium, trying to earn a livelihood from Medium and here for the long run, these articles are not going to be enough to earn a decent income.
People want more from us than what we are earning on Medium. They want to be entertained, educated or inspired and not just about making money on Medium but about all the other aspects of their life.
What’s good for the real world is good for the online world
Writing about your earnings is every person’s individual decision. I thought it can’t hurt because it will bring in a few bucks but in the world of internet marketing, sharing income statistics is just another way to increase your income.
The purpose of this post is to remind you that no one says their income out loud in real life. You’re not going to be saying it at a cocktail party or holiday party. You’re not going to tell people how much you earned in how little time. You’re not going to be offering tips for others to join your industry and earn the same amount.
If someone else did this, you would think they were a braggart and had something wrong with them. You would think they were a narcissist or someone without any social intelligence. You would go from the party and say, “did you hear so and so talking about how much they made? What a complete ********** Who just goes around bragging about how much they earn at a dinner party?”
What’s good for the real world is also good for the online world. If you won’t randomly throw out income stats in people’s faces and show them your paycheck as proof in real life, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it online.
What do you think? Are you for or against income-earning reports in the world of online writing?
