Why I’m not earning any money on medium

I have read about seven billion articles on people telling me how to make money from Medium. Here’s why I’m not making any.

This is my third month on Medium and my progress has been pretty consistent. I joined in November and plugged away posting fairly consistently, but not every day.

GRAND TOTAL for an estimated 50 hours of work writing and editing:

Over Christmas I was on holiday and I’d saved up some good ideas so I posted almost every day. I followed advice and followed a tonne of people, read some superb articles and engaged with followers. Results?

GRAND TOTAL for an estimated 100 hours of work writing and editing:

So in January I’ve started by following more advice, writing more concise articles and I’ve split the longer pieces over two or three articles. Results?

GRAND total:

I am not making money from Medium.

Why?

Well I know that I write too much, too densely and too abstractly. I know that I should promote my blog on social media. I know that I need to insert ads and promote things to get money. However, the real reason I am not earning money from Medium is because I’m not trying to.

Being able to write, engage with interesting people, read from similar perspectives and to digest views that contradict my own, is a privilege. Writing, and having over 200 people (just) read my ideas is something I am hugely grateful to. The fact that the income covers the fees of the partner programme is a big win, the fact that I have been motivated to write almost every day for the past month has given me a sense of purpose. You don’t need to earn money to be happy.

Thank you for writing- keep going, keep engaged, don’t worry about the money.

Please subscribe and read more, here’s another article I enjoyed writing recently: