Why a Decreasing Percentage of Writers Make Over $100 on Medium?

Why this trend is going to stay and why it is best for you and medium

Medium works in mysterious ways. Even the best writers can never be sure which of their writings will impress the Medium gods. The only information Medium shares with us is through its very generic monthly payout reports.

And don’t we all (myself included) love to read Medium’s earning updates. I, like many of you, have been following them for a long time now (probably for as long as they have been publishing them!).

And as much as I am fascinated by the power of this platform to empower authors to get paid for their writings, the little information provided in earning updates makes it awfully difficult to understand how does medium work.

But, at times a trend emerges which helps us understand more about medium and gives a glimpse of its future. So what is this emerging trend and what is the reason behind this shift.

A decreasing percentage of writers are earning over $100

Historical earnings data shows that for most months more than 8% of active writers earn over $100.

But, since March 2020 this percentage has fallen from over 8% to less than 6% during April-June 2020. The average percentage of authors earning over $100 per month for the period from July 2018 to February 2020 is 8.46%. But over the next 4 months ( March 2020 — June 2020 ) it nosedived to a lowly 5.85%.

However, indicators like the highest-earning author and story have not seen any decline at all. In fact, last two months have been the best ever in terms of most earned by an author.

Where’s the data

It’s not your fault if you think:

There is something terribly wrong with Medium leading to this fall.

Or

Readers and writers are not loving Medium as much as they used to in the past.

But if you Get into the details of Medium stats, you will see that the reason is quite the opposite. It is not happening due to any problem but because of the increasing popularity of medium as a platform. Let’s get into the details:

• Past Payments: Lets look at the earning history of Medium writers. The percentage of writers earning something on Medium has been increasing from mid-40’s in 2018 to well over 60% this year. This indicates an increasing number of writers are joining Medium and writing member only content on the platform.
• The Shift: The chart at the top shows the decrease in percentage of writers earning more than $100 started in March 2020 and accelerated in the months of April-June.

The sole reason is by the middle of March 2020 the COVID–19 pandemic had engulfed most of the planet leading to countrywide shutdowns across the globe. 

Starting April till end of May a huge number of people either lost their jobs, were furloughed or forced to work for fewer hours and lesser pay. Simply put a large proportion of working population was earning nothing or far less then normal. And even those lucky enough to have secure jobs had no option but to work from home. 

And these were the exact months (Apr’20 — May’20) with the lowest ever percentage of writers earning over $100 in a month.

• Exploding Traffic: A look at Medium’s web traffic for the first 6 months of 2020 shows a jump of 42% in Medium’s visitors between February and March. And this spike in traffic has persisted from March till the month of June as per data from Similarweb.

What’s the reason?

The above facts clearly establish that the reason for this decrease in percentage is the large proportion of people who were at home turned to reading and writing on medium.

The result was a sudden and significant increase in number of active writers on medium. And it is clear that most new writers starting on Medium will earn only a small amount and most definitely less than $100. This skewed the graph between writers earning above and below the amount of $100. And it resulted in less writers earning over $100 percentage wise even though in absolute numbers they might have increased.

As all data sets clearly point to the fact that all change have happened from March onward, it lends credibility to this conclusion.

Why is this a great news for medium writers

It is now clear from above that all data points to very promising outcomes for medium as a platform.

A higher number of active writers will increase competition. This will push every writer to deliver better content resulting into best quality work getting published on Medium.

Networking effect — By publishing best content Medium will add more paying members. This will increase earnings for great authors which in turn will attract an even higher number of writers and in turn more readers and paying members. This cycle will propel Medium into a much higher growth orbit.

Even when economies open worldwide and jobs come back, a significant number of members and writers can be expected to stick with medium. This leads to permanent gains for the platform both from short and long term perspective.

In the end

This dip in percentage shows Medium is getting more competitive which bodes well for its future. Considering the uncertainty and sudden transformation the world is experiencing it makes great sense to diversify our income streams. And if you love writing there is no better time or platform to publish. Good luck and godspeed.