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Why One Writer Earns a Sports Car on Medium While 96% Sweats for less than $100,- a Month

It’s difficult to take a break from a content pyramid — But sometimes you should

There is a vast ocean of stories on this platform advising you to write more and more. And when you’re done. Write some more.

These stories are often written by the medium top of the charts, aspiring writers that got one lucky shot, and an army of bloggers that discovered that writing about writing on this platform just makes more money.

Nothing wrong with this. I am doing kind of the same with this piece.

But what If you’ve been pushing yourself to write for as much as you can, and you’re simply losing the juice? What if you’re banging your head and laptop against steadily declining Medium Partner Program Earnings?

Do you sometimes have the feeling that it’s not fair when you write your guts out, some pieces are quite reasonable, you might even get curated, and you make $2.44? By the way, the whole process was one day of work…thank you very much.

You continue your hunt for more claps, more reads and probably the wet dream of going viral.

At what moment you get depressed? Hit a writer's block? Get the urgent need to take a break?

The combination of passion, wanting to learn, your stamina and the echo from all those articles pushing you not to give up might get you back at your desk with a pale face and blisters on your fingers. And maybe something else.

Fear

Fear of ‘What happens when I stop the wheel from turning?”, or ‘How will I cope with reads dropping to zero?’.

All very legitimate questions. But you know what? You might suffer from being caught in the content treadmill. Writing from fear will never get you anywhere.

This article is about what a content treadmill is. Medium is one. And why it’s OK to step out of it once in a while knowing what held you back in the past.

What is a content treadmill?

Imagine rats running and running in a round treadmill. They just don’t know how to stop. The only way seems to jump out completely.

Medium is a content treadmill. It’s simply how the internet of today has developed and is organized, how it really works with content platforms.

In the core of it, it’s a content pyramid.

When you think of it, just a tiny few top writers make 10,20, even 30k monthly. They completely deserve this. To get there, they boarded the Medium train 4–5 years ago. They hardly took any writing vacation.

That is probably not true, I am sure they are not superhuman. They had to spit out literally thousands of stories, went viral more than the fingers on your two hands, achieved at least 50K followers. And they are super talented.

Let’s assume you’re a blogger far under the top layer of the Medium Elite and you’re doing more than your utmost very best, daily, to climb up the pyramid. One day, you hope, you will be like the top writers.

Is this realistic?

No.

The chance is 0,00033%. I’ll show you the math later.

There is only that much room at the top of any pyramid. Maybe the king's chamber of Medium’s Pyramid hosts about 10 absolute top writers, and 20 sub toppers are one level lower. Start to feel where I’m going?

A content treadmill is a content creation pyramid.

What are the numbers saying?

Only a very few new writers will enter the king's room yearly.

This means the rest, the vast majority of 30.000+ writers here on Medium, will never get there. This doesn’t mean you should stop dreaming and writing right away. Please don’t.

Let’s break down the pyramid structure in numbers for a moment, so you get a clear and realistic picture.

Let’s start with the overall view. The stat below actually confirms what we know from pyramids. The small number of top writers make exponentially more each year. The top-earning for one top writer in May 2020 was $35.380,-, a record. The top-earning record for one writer in 2018 was $16.007- in July, that’s less than half of the top elite earning in 2020 so far.

At the same rate, the number of people at the base, that make less than a hundred bucks a month, increases. In January 2019 this was 91,9%. In May 2020 this number was 94,6%.

It’s just a matter of time when 99% of us out here makes less than $100,- a month, just like in the real world out there.

The info generated by Medium itself, for example, the Medium Partner Program in May 2020, shows these numbers:

• $6,844.29 — the highest amount earned for a single story
• $35,379.72 — the highest amount earned by a single author (the record in the chart above)
• 5.4% — the percentage of active writers who earned over $100

From this monthly payout stats, we can clearly discern how much is paid to the top writers. Just figure out where you fit in. When you make more than $100,- a month, you’re in the 5.4% sub-elite. Congratulations!

Notice the gap between the sub-elite (their income equals 5 cocktails in Ibiza) and the $35K record monthly earning from one elite writer (making a modest sports car in a month).

Quite the gap I would say.

When you’re under the 5.4% group, you are part of the broad base of the pyramid. The 29.000+ writers that are here for different reasons but many still dreams of the sports car.

Never forget that it is you that makes the pyramid exist.

How does the content treadmill work?

The most important takeaway till now is that only a very, very selected few will ever enter the Medium Kings Chamber.

You might say, well, the dream to one day open that door is enough for me to keep going. Or you might be happy with being somewhere in the middle, or even at the base.

Fair enough.

But now think again of all these $1,34 articles? There is actually a lot of curated great stuff floating around here. And that doesn’t feel fair to me.

That’s the disadvantage of a pyramidal system playing out in full daylight. Thousands of writers pushing themselves to the limit, only a few making great money. Guess what, I don’t have a solution for that right now.

It is impossible to know how much Medium actually makes with that ocean of quality pieces that make less than a few bucks. I’ve heard that Medium lives on some credit & venture capital, so forget about the image of a board of directors feasting on your sweat and daily words.

We’re all in it here for the passion of writing. Medium made it possible for anyone to blog and be seen.

As long as we are all OK with this model, it seems to work. And you can leave anytime.

Well, can you?

You can check-in anytime, but you can never leave

Why is it so difficult to leave Medium? To leave your daily or weekly routine to spit out pieces?

I discern 3 main reasons that are directly related to the dynamics of a content pyramid.

1. Medium only seems to work when you commit long enough. This is the cumulative upwards spiral effect. You need to grow your followers, make friends with popular publications, improve your writing. You’ll need to find your voice and value. This all takes time. When you decide to take a holiday or drop out altogether, your initial time investment evaporates with the same speed as the number of reads tumbles down on your stats while you’re sipping a margarita on a beach in Thailand.
2. The sliding down argument. As seen in point 1, you need to write a lot to even make it work. You have the feeling you’re climbing up the pyramid. When you let go you’ll fear you slide down all the way to the base. Ready to climb up again where you once started?. That nightmare will prevent you from stopping.
3. Argument 3 evolves around The Secret Power of the Pyramid. On any given article on writing on Medium, you’ll read that you need to show up as much as possible. There are ample blogs saying: “Yeah, take a few weeks break, get back to normal, discover that there’s more than writing in your life”. Sounds healthy no? An important reason to keep on writing is the attraction to make it to the top. The following is the secret power of any pyramid structure that ensures the structure to be carried by an army of workers:

Any pyramid needs an army of labors at the base, to feed the mouth of the elite, the top writers that are the shiny example for you to keep on working to hopefully one day shake the hand of these Pharaohs in the Kings Chamber. Few workers realize this chance is about 0,00033%. (10/30.000)

That’s how it is. That’s the deal folks. And it’s OK for me. I am very happy with Medium and writing for this platform gives me a lot apart from the $.

When more decentralized platforms will arise, I’ll have a second look, since I believe decentralization is the future.

Now you know how this circus works. You can make sane decisions because when you are writing here for 6 months, and you still make penny money, don’t get hijacked by the medium treadmill. It might be better for you to pick up another career.

Stop pushing yourself spitting out stories when you just don’t feel it.

Famous last words

Many writers urge you to keep up your blogging and posting pace here on this platform. Welcome to the treadmill of a content pyramid.

Here are the pros for keeping up speed

• Apparently the algo’s will notice you, and it seems Medium rewards you for your constant output, although never proven.
• The advantage of writing daily or at a regular pace is that you get in a writing flow. And you’ll learn how to blog faster.
• Also, your readers will get more trust in you. They can rely on a piece coming from your side, almost daily. This is a valid reason to publish a lot. When you lose this rhythm, your followers might jump to another busy bee, despite your valuable content.
• When you can keep up the pace, writing regularly has even more advantages. You have more chances to write a viral piece simply by doing the math and because being in flow will create a creative crest. This actually happened to me. Read more about how that works here:

• In showing up often you’ll rapidly build up your Internet presence, your online body of work. There is a lot of intrinsic value in there. Apart from your $2,77,- article in the StartUp, this value can’t be expressed in $. It might result in an unexpected job offer from somebody that gets caught in your web of blogs years from now.

The content pyramid treadmill effect also has cons.

• When you stop the pace, you simply disappear rather quickly here.
• The longer you write, the more difficult it will be to stop. When you do, you might fear burning so many hours. What if that investment would have paid out the next week after you stop with a viral piece? You’ll never know when you stop, so you keep going.

Medium works in Mysterious Ways. Don’t give in to fear, that never worked. Don’t get lost in the long dark corridors within the pyramid.

Be aware of when you start to feel worn out, miss the inspiration and you start pushing yourself. Be conscious of where your publishing addiction comes from. Know that there’s always an exit.

It is OK to jump out from the treadmill for a while. To refresh, to look at everything from a distance.

You are not a rat that needs to keep out spitting words to keep the wheel turning and the penny money rolling

Your writing is an art, a true craft.

Content pyramid or not, honour your work, don’t dry out, take a break to find new inspiration. And come back stronger than ever to reach your specific goals.

Lucien Lecarme

Join my tribe to thrive together

Lucien is writer, blogger and author of “The Wisdom Keeper”, a heroes journey about the need to fall in love with earth again and be humbled by the wisdom of our earth keepers.