Summary

The article emphasizes the importance of building an email list for writers on Medium to maximize their income and control their reader relationships beyond the platform's limitations.

Abstract

The author of the article acknowledges Medium as a valuable platform for writers, offering a partnership program that provides additional income through article writing. However, the author suggests that there is a cap on potential earnings due to the nature of curation and the unpredictability of post performance. To transcend these limitations, the author advocates for a dual strategy: leveraging Medium's partnership program while simultaneously building an independent email list. This approach allows writers to own their audience, ensuring a sustainable and potentially more lucrative income stream. The article highlights the benefits of email lists, such as direct reader engagement, control over the reader's experience, and the ability to promote work without relying on social media algorithms or platform-specific promotions. The author also offers a solution, the "Tribe 1K Indie Author Email Masterclass," to guide writers in growing their subscriber base and capitalizing on their content.

Opinions

Medium's partnership program is a good source of side income but has its limitations in terms of earning potential.
Curation on Medium is essential for maintaining high-quality content but can be a source of frustration for writers seeking consistent earnings.
Writers should not rely solely on Medium's partnership program and should instead adopt a long-term strategy that includes building an email list.
Owning an email list is crucial for writers to control their financial future and develop a more personal relationship with their readers.
Social media and paid ads are insufficient for building a loyal following; direct and consistent engagement through email is more effective.
The value of an email subscriber significantly exceeds the immediate revenue from a single Medium article.
The author believes that with the right approach, writers can achieve a six-figure income by selling their content to a relatively small but engaged email list.
The "Tribe 1K Indie Author Email Masterclass" is presented as a valuable resource for writers looking to grow their email subscriber list and monetize their work more effectively.

Make More Money off Medium than You Ever Thought Possible

Hint: this has nothing to do with locked posts and the partnership program

Make More Income From Medium than You Ever Thought Possible

Medium has been a fantastic platform thus far. They pay well for work readers enjoy. This is the only platform I know that shares a portion of the subscription fee with its article-writers. We’ve got no ads to contend with. It’s the ‘Netflix’ binge-all-you-want model of reading.

The partner program is a great source of additional income.

There is, however, a pseudo-cap on the amount of money a writer can earn each month. Not all posts will be curated. Not all posts will be well-received. You may spend hours writing a story that earns little. You may think you’ve got the best post since the mousetrap, but your work didn’t get picked-up.

This is the way curation should work.

It’s in Medium’s best-interest to curate only the best posts to the top. There are thousands of posts that flood the keywords every day and the majority of them are train-of-thought, rather than well-executed stories for community members.

It’s not Medium’s job to make you wealthy.

I make a great side-income from my articles here. For that, I’m grateful. There is no place I’d rather park my content, because I love the ad-free concept, the high-profile partners, like the New York Times, famous journalists, and large magazines.

(Join my Indie-Author’s Email Masterclass here)

I see many complaints about the ‘fairness’ of the payment model, but there’s no way a starting writer could get anywhere near this much exposure to a new blog. I’m new to Medium — started writing August, 2018. But last month I got 30k+ views and 40K+ minutes people spent reading my content.

There’s no way I could get that much exposure had I started blogging cold.

Medium’s got a baked-in audience and it’s just getting started.

A ‘huge’ influencer on Medium may have a few hundred-thousand followers. Yes, this is a lot, but maybe 10% of the following a huge influencer would have on Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook.

These numbers are really good news for you.

Medium has only been around since 2012. There’s so much more to the story. As writers, we’re just at the beginning. The partnership program isn’t two years old yet.

I believe it’s important writers have a dual-strategy on Medium.

Where the partnership program is a great side-income, we writers can do much better for ourselves with a longer-term strategy. Article writing can turn into a hamster wheel real quick if you’re not careful.

We chase claps, followers, and reads.

When one story doesn’t get curated we try harder. We hit refresh on our stats — both desktop and phone — repeatedly. Maybe dozens of times a day. I can’t be the only one who does this.

While exciting, the writing hamster wheel isn’t sustainable, nor healthy.

As writers and freelancers we need a long-term plan as well. And we accomplish this through our email lists — platforms we own and control. This is no knock against Medium. We’d have nothing if the platform didn’t exist. The employees, readers, and writers are some of the most-supportive, valuable people out there.

…but if we want to make a successful life for ourselves as writers, we’ve got to own our reader’s list.

No one’s coming to save you

Amazon won’t push your books unless you push them first — a lot of pushing. Most people won’t buy books without reviews, so we need a consistent place to earn them.

If we want to make a steady living as freelance, or indie writers, we’ve got to get more than the hamster wheel in our bank accounts. And an email list will accomplish all that and more.

When you own your list you control the reader’s experience.

(Join my Indie-Author’s Email Masterclass here)

We build our list, because we could lose all our social followers tomorrow.

We build our list, because the reader is attacked for attention by media on all sides.

We build our list, because no one cares about promoting our work as much as we do.

We build our list, because email is a one-on-one conversation with our readers. Everyone on your list will get your email. They may not open it, but they all get it. On social, maybe ten-percent of your followers will see your message (unless you pay for the privilege).

No one’s coming to promote our work for us.

Not only can we sell our books, but when we build our subscriber’s list correctly, we build a lasting, close relationship with our readers. It’s personal. And. Like any good story. Email is a controlled thread of information.

With email, we don’t have to e-scream at our readers for their attention (as we do on social).

Social posts are gone in seconds. With email, we write it once and use an automated welcome sequence forever. Social posts fight against a one-second attention span and itchy scroll-finger. With email, if opened, there’s no other competition but to read the email before us.

List-building is not easy.

The good news is most authors do it wrong. There’s so much room for us to do it right. I can’t tell you how often I get emails from writers who only contact me when they’ve got something to sell.

Our readers want valuable content that benefits their self-interest, not just our book promotions. When we contact our readers one a month, or (ouch) once a quarter, or NEVER — they forget why they subscribed. They won’t remember who you are. And they sure as hell won’t buy your book.

Email is the long-game.

When we own our reader’s list we own the message and the timing. With social, who knows…

Social media is an important part of any indie author’s marketing plan, but most people use it the wrong way. They build a following on the platform, instead of use the social platform to build an email list they own.

Email is not dead

In fact, email is getting a resurgence, because business owners are fed-up with social algorithms. Yes, we should promote our books through paid ads, but you don’t build a loyal following through a two dollar per click Facebook ad.

We build a loyal following one interaction at a time.

We release the thread. Provide value our readers appreciate. And continue to deliver with every email we send. It’s a tall order, but it works. You don’t need a huge list to make a good living.

This is why I built the Tribe 1K Indie Author Email Masterclass.

Over the next seven days I’ll show you how to get your first 1,000 subscribers, whether you write fiction or non. If you have $100 worth of books and content (over the course of an entire year), and sell that material to each of your readers, you’ve got a $100,000 income.

While you’ll have to write more unlocked posts and forgo the instant reward of partnership income, a targeted email subscriber is worth much more than an article that might bring you $20 once.

It’s time to own your platform.

It’s time to control your financial future and make a great living from your writing.

We’re waiting for you.

(Tap here. Join the Tribe 1K, 7-day masterclass today. It’s FREE)