It's Wednesday, which means the Medium Partner Program earnings are supposed to post today. It also happens to be payday, since Medium posts earnings weekly and then pays out about once a month. (Technically, it's 12 times a year.)
Over the past few months, my earnings have skyrocketed, and I'll soon offer an earnings report over my first 13 months. For now, while I wait for those numbers to post, I wanted to go through some of the habits that helped me earn my first $20K.
It took 9 months.
I treat Medium like my job.
For many months, I wrote on Medium as if it was my second part-time job. As winter rolled around, it became increasingly obvious that I couldn’t keep up with both gigs. Medium won out, and I quit my job much sooner than I ever expected.
Nearly 6 months later, I still haven’t missed it. (Aside from chatting often with my friend and former editor from that old job, who’s also doing bigger and better things.)
I write regularly, of course.
As a nobody trying to make a name for herself, I focused on publishing a lot of quality stories. I know there are competing schools of thought about that, and some people might do better by writing fewer pieces and focusing on quality alone. Personally, I strive for a healthy balance.
I often publish stories that scare me.
Some of my top performing stories are those which I consider my most cringe-worthy. The stories I’m pretty much terrified for my mother to see. But for whatever reason, my style of writing lends well to the more vulnerable stuff, and my core audience relates to those tough tales.
That said, I think taking routine risks can definitely serve a writer well. Some of my awkward Medium writing has been published (in German!) on Krautreporter, and I have also been mentioned in a MEL article.
I try to work with the system, rather than against it.
Everybody is clueless about the Medium algorithms. As in whose work gets more widely distributed and how much we we all get paid.
No, I don’t know why one of my random rants was curated while something I researched and spent hours perfecting can’t seem to gain ground. I wish I understood it, but I don’t.
Even so, I’m not going to rail against the system and demand that it work my way. Instead, I keep writing and work with the system that’s currently in place. I also recognize that it changes.
I typically write through the slumps.
Sometimes, we’re all our own worst enemy. We make excuses and drown ourselves in “stinkin thinkin,” and then we wonder why nothing is ever going our way. It’s easy to forget that if we want to be open to success, we’ve got to have an open attitude.
Back in January, the first two weeks on Medium earned me much less than expected. Luckily, the third week was my best week ever at that point. That's not something I can control. Anytime my stats take a tumble, I know not to let it get me down. Things can always improve, and I try to give myself a fighting chance by injecting positivity into my life wherever I can.
Overall, (nearly) daily writing has changed my life and done great things for my mental health. It’s made me a much more positive person. But of course, I still have my bad days. That's when I just try to write through them and work on my attitude.
I'm still working on my boundaries.
Now that I have achieved a certain amount of success on Medium, I get requests from other aspiring writers every single day. There are people who want me to read or edit their work, writers who want extra tips, and those who want specific one-on-one advice about earning money through the Partner Program.
Boundaries are vital. I can’t instantly get back to everybody. And if somebody asks me an in-depth question, I try to write a story for my answer. It might not make everyone happy, but for this working single mama with a 5-year-old at home, it’s essential.
One thing many people don’t realize is that I put full-time hours into my writing, and since I quit freelancing, my daughter spends less and less time at her dad's. She used to go to his house four days a month, but now it's not uncommon to go a couple months without a visit.
If I say yes to every request my work, daughter or self will suffer.
I keep jotting down every idea that appeals to me.
What makes me extra jazzed about my writing? Anytime I've got a ton of ideas which excite me and are just waiting for me to tackle them.
Yet, as a person with mental illness and chronic depression, I sometimes hit a slump where I start to feel down and treat myself as if I’m on a downward spiral. It happens. That's when I write even more slowly.
At least I don’t worry about losing ideas because I write every single one down and am confident that I’ll get to each one. Eventually. When I’m feeling it.
I take my time.
Perhaps one of the most disappointing things about me is that I write so slowly. Sorry. I didnt earn $20K in my first 9 months (and even more than that in these past few months) on Medium by working only an hour a day.
I know that’s what everybody wants to hear. Nope. Especially since quitting my job, I am putting in full-time hours. The good news, of course, is that my earnings have grown and (most days) I anticipate that they will keep going up overall — even if some months (or days are) less great.
I believe in my own voice.
Months ago, I wrote this cheesy little piece about how it’s so important to believe in yourself before anybody else believes in you. These days, I believe it more than ever. I wrote that story back when I still didn’t know if Medium would pan out for me. But I believed it might because I believed in my voice.
Plenty of people will come along and make you doubt yourself. You’ve got to overcome that doubt each time. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got one fan or thirty thousand. You’ve got you. So go ahead and protect your voice by actually believing in it.
I usually write even when I don’t feel like it.
Writing has turned out to be some of the greatest therapy for my mental health, but as I’ve said, I still have some really bad days. Truth be told, I don’t always feel like writing, but I do it anyway, and I try to use my words to speak openly about a variety of tough topics. Including mental health.
I've done my own research.
Rest assured, I don’t want anyone to be afraid to ask me for help. But there’s definitely a problem among aspiring writers where some folks want somebody else to tell them what to do for success before they are willing to expend any effort themselves.
Nobody can make you successful except you. Nobody can make me successful but me. I haven’t yet “arrived,” but I’m making my living by writing on Medium. At this point, I'm making a good living too.
It seems like a luxury, but it’s taken so much work to get here. But I’m still working hard, and I owe much of that success to doing my own research first whenever I had questions.
I stay open to possibilities.
I’ve got dreams, but I also have no problem with my dreams changing along the way. I want to keep my options open.
It’s important for every writer to understand that there’s no single path to success. I can’t follow the same trajectory as the bigger, slicker dogs who write occasionally and secure thousands of claps in one day. That’s not my path. I am not an overnight success story.
That said, things have turned out better than I dreamed, and I'm not done dreaming yet!
My hope in writing these types of stories is that you’ll gain a little more insight as to what it takes to succeed on Medium through the Partner Program.
It is by far the easiest place to write and get paid, but it takes a lot of determination to write and get paid well. It's not a place to get rich quick, and you don't “game the system.”
You just write.
The MPP isn’t that much different from pitching your stories to an editor or magazine — except your audience determines your compensation. There’s still a deep sense of rejection if a story goes nowhere, and you still have to work on your writing constantly. You can’t make your writing an afterthought and still expect to do well.
That said, if you’re willing to do the work, you can do very well after all.