You Can Do Everything Right and Still Have a Bad Month on Medium

But if you trust yourself, you shouldn’t give up

When I first started writing on Medium, I didn’t know what to expect. I had hopes, of course. I looked at people like Tim Denning, who wrote about making five figures with their writing, and then people like Shannon Ashley, who quit their job after six months of writing on this platform. But I had zero expectations. This helped me focus and keep on doing the only thing that matters on Medium, coming up with great content daily without being distracted and jealous of others.

All of this changed once I reached my first 1,000 followers.

Not only did I reach an important milestone, but I also made a good deal of money doing it. Earlier this year, an article about James Altucher, along with an article about Seth Godin, and two others about Medium went viral. Throughout the next three months, I enjoyed a good steady income. How much exactly is irrelevant. What matters is, I thought I nailed it. The quick success went to my head. “I figured this thing out,” I told myself proudly as if blogging was a video game.

But when I looked at my numbers this month, I saw my income get cut in half. “Shit.”

I know some articles say it’s easy to become a rich guy or gal on Medium. But it’s not all as simple as it looks.

Things I Did Right

I am against writing articles that teach other people how to become successful on Medium because most of them are crap.

Nobody, except you, can make you successful on Medium, or in any creative sphere, for that matter. Nobody can go through the struggle of writing daily for you, and not knowing whether anybody cares what you’ve written for many months. Nobody can be patient for you. These are the essential things you have to do for yourself. There’s no shortcut. So quit looking for it.

And yet, there are general principles that you can get right. Not on Medium per se, but blogging in general. I wrote about some of them in my last book and an article celebrating the anniversary of six months of daily blogging.

They are:

1. Write every day. You don’t have to publish daily, but having a habit in place makes everything easier. You learn faster, you’re productive, and, more importantly, consistent.
2. Promote your work. A Medium post, or any content for that matters, requires as much work on it after publication, as goes into creating it. Sometimes more. If you want your work to be seen, you have to promote it via social media, Reddit, ManyStories, etc.
3. Format for curation and readability. Treat your articles like a website that has UX/UI, and make it easier for readers to understand what you mean.
4. Bring as much value as possible. It’s all about the reader, not you. People read you and subscribe to you if you give them something valuable regularly. That’s all that matters.

So, over the past 30 days, I wrote 30–40 pieces (sometimes publishing more than once per day), I promoted my work, I spent time editing and formatting my work like a pro, including picking the best Unsplash photos I could find. I tried bringing as much value as possible to my readers.

In general, I was happy with my writing. From the content quality perspective, it felt like the best month I’ve ever had on Medium. What did I do wrong?

What I Did Wrong

Nothing.

And this is precisely why I wanted to write this piece, to warn the newbie writers, like yours truly, that you can do everything right and still have a bad month on Medium. But first, let me tell you about my luck.

How I Got Lucky

When I look at my stats, I see that for the past three months, of about a hundred published pieces, only three to four pieces contribute to 90% of my income. Let that sink in.

If I had written nothing but those three or four pieces, I would still make 90% the same amount of money as I did. What’s going on here? It’s simple: I got lucky.

My post about James Altucher has 6.4K claps, and it alone made me more than $2,000. Did I know that was going to happen when I wrote it? Not at all. Is it great? Not really.

When I look at the other posts I’ve written, including those I wrote this month, most of them are way better than the James Altucher post. The same happened with two or three other pieces, and they were the main reason for my fast climbing up the ranks of the Medium Earning Program. They were also the reason why I amassed a quick following. I thought I figured it out. But it was just luck.

Two Types of Writers

Someone would read about my luck and wonder, “Why didn’t you just keep on writing articles like these?” After all, it only makes sense that if something worked, you keep on doing that. Maybe. But not for me.

Some writers want to be noticed and make a quick buck. They chase the hype. They are thinking about what’s immediate and practical. They look at what worked and repeat it over and over again. I don’t judge them. It’s just not the game I want to play.

There is a second type of writer out there. They want to matter. They want to create art. They care more about what they think of their piece, not what the claps say. They care about their audience, treat them as friends, and show up each day to serve them. That’s the kind of content creator I want to be.

When You Did Nothing Wrong, Don’t Blame Others

Professional investors know this. The market is never wrong. You are.

Since I am pretty satisfied with my content quality, and with my writing in general over the past 30 days, I could fall into the trap of blaming others. I could say that “the rules are broken” or that “this platform sucks” or blame Medium’s new “mute” feature, which probably influenced the way most readers consume content and it affected the writers’ income. All of this is irrelevant.

Medium is not to blame. It’s great. The internet is not to blame. And contrary to what YouTube business gurus say, you’re not to blame as well. Not everything is your responsibility. Playing a blaming game never leads to anything productive. The truth is, shit happens.

Some things are outside of your control. And when things don’t go according to plan, it’s the perfect time to practice your stoicism, to “internalize your goals.”

How to Write and Not Worry About the Result

As a content creator, a blogger, an online writer, an entrepreneur, I know that life has ups and downs. I’ve seen it both in my family — all of my male family members are entrepreneurs — and in my businesses as well. That’s the price we pay for having our freedom and time to ourselves. You can’t expect to want to make “money with ideas” and not have some kind of price to pay for that freedom. And, when things don’t go as I hoped for, there are a few things I remind myself of.-

Lower your expectations

Satisfaction = Reality - Expectations.

By definition, a gift is something pleasant you don’t expect. If you set your expectations to zero, every day, everything you do will be a gift. When you’re creating content, your expectations should not be tied down to what you’ll get. Instead, focus on what you can do.

Internalize your goals

Writing is a great lifestyle and career for many people. Being a writer on Medium is amazing. This platform literally allows anyone to create a career out of nothing, and it’s all based on merit. The way to become invincible as a writer, is to forget about what everybody else wants, thinks, or how the market will react.

I do this through a combination of not checking stats (except once per month), not reading comments (except personal emails), and making my main KPI: what I think about the piece.

Think long-term

If you’re a content creator, a podcaster, writer, vlogger, book author, wannabe-Medium-blogger, or anybody who wants to make money with ideas, you should beware of the most common reason for creative failure. I’ve done this every time before I came to Medium in my other blogging attempts over the past five years. I’ve seen people do it on Medium over the time I am here. People quit.

Most people forget that it took Tim Denning, Megan Holstein, Ayodeji Awosika, Shannon Ashley, Michael Thompson, and Niklas Göke many months, in most cases years, to earn four figures consistently on Medium. Not weeks. Months. Years.

When you have a zoom large enough, it puts things into perspective. And then occasional ups and downs on your creative roller coaster don’t matter as much. You look at the general trend. Is your content improving? Are you saying more of what you want to say? Does your audience grow? Do you make more money on average over these six months, then you did over the previous six months?

There are a lot of things that can go wrong on Medium, in blogging, and the entrepreneur’s life in general. If you let everything go to your head, you won’t be able to keep doing your work: showing up for your audience with something meaningful each day.

If you’re a content creator who’s going through a hard time right now, remember this: don’t stop. Whatever you do, don’t stop writing. Reframe your focus on the internal, and be the ultimate judge of your content. Keep doing your job.

When I told my girlfriend about having a bad month on Medium, she looked at me and said, “There are writers who write for the hype and make money. And then there are writers who are committed to their craft, and they get book deals.” There’s a difference.