5 Invaluable Lessons I Learned About Monetizing Writing
In this article, I break down what I learned the hard way so that you can avoid some of my mistakes. Here is how the story begins, a few weeks ago, I wrote an article called 9 Tips for Thriving in a Recession which I published on Medium.com. That article (a modification of this article) got 1,200 views in 10 days. As a newer writer, most of my articles garner between 30 and 150 views. But the 9 Tips article found itself on the first page of Google and therefore was racking in hundreds of views per day.
Learning from the Best
I thought that the number of views would translate to dollars. I was excited to open my Medium partner program portal to see what kind of money would be associated with such a popular article. I was deeply disappointed to find that my most successful article was only earning me a little over a quarter. Initially, the disappointment led me to reconsider if writing for Medium was worth my efforts, the low payout was both discouraging.
However, after some time to reflect, I decided to use the low earnings as motivation. I began researching how top writers were earning money with Medium and found that several writers (including Zulie Rane, Abena Talks, Ayodeji Awosika, and Tim Denning) are leveraging their Medium presence into other revenue-generating sources. Below are the five lessons I learned and am now implementing into my own writing practice.
5 Invaluable Lessons Learned
- Write to Develop Skill: To become a good writer, one must write. Writing is a skill that builds upon itself and the more one writes (and reads) the more skillful one becomes. The top producers on Medium are strong writers, who developed their skills by reading, writing, and publishing frequently. They all read other people’s work, study a topic before writing about it, and/or have taken classes to develop their knowledge. They have all published bad articles and learned from them. They have all become better writers over time. Their success is directly connected with their ability to improve their skill as writers and in the subject matter in which they write.
- Build the Muscle of Consistency: Every writer talks about the critical importance of consistency. No matter how skilled a writer is, they won’t be successful if they aren’t regularly producing work. Consistency is a hard muscle to build, it takes endurance, structure, and determination. Writing one or two good articles is a small accomplishment in comparison to a year of consistently producing average work. Writing consistently is like running a marathon as opposed to a sprint. Most people can run fast for a few seconds, but very few can run slow for an hour. Consistency is part of what distinguishes the most successful from the crowd who will quickly fizzle out. Additionally, consistent production allows a writer to build an audience. Readers want regular output, therefore the top Medium writers publish articles between 1–4 times per week. You can’t get paid if people aren’t reading your stuff. To have people read your stuff you must produce high-quality work on a consistent basis.
- Write to Build Credibility: Consistent writing not only helps you to build skills and an audience, but it also helps you to build credibility. Strong writers add value to their audience, by producing content that is helpful to consumers. Readers get value out of the material that Tim Denning, Zulie Rane, and Ayodeji Awosika publish. People follow them because their content is edifying, helpful, instructional, and/or uplifting. The more high-value content that a writer produces, the more their audience trusts them. In turn, that writer can leverage that trust into profitable opportunities.
- Use Medium as a LaunchPad: As Zulie Rane was developing her Medium following, she also began building her website and youtube channel. Medium is where she started building her serious online presence. Although it may not pay very well, Medium is an excellent context to build skill, audience, consistency, and credibility, all of which are invaluable tools to have in any writer’s toolbox. The barrier to entry for Medium is low and the opportunity to grow is tremendous. Medium is a safe and supportive space for beginning content creators and allows them to develop the skills necessary to graduate to more lucrative platforms.
- Use Medium to Drive Traffic to More Profitable Platforms: Every single successful author on Medium utilizes this platform to drive traffic to more profitable platforms, such as personal websites, YouTube channels, classes, books, and other digital products. For example, you can check out one of Ayodeji Awosika’s bestselling books here. Once a writer is established on Medium they typically have the competence, audience, and credibility to apply what they’ve learned on Medium to earn more money on other platforms. Not only are the skills developed here transferable, but the content is also repurposable. A written article can easily translate into a youtube video. A series of articles can easily be published in the form of a book or guide. A strong following can be leveraged into a profitable newsletter. Medium is not the final destination for most top writers, it often serves as a starting or early point on the journey towards a profitable writing career.
Once a writer is established on Medium they typically have the competence, audience, and credibility to apply what they’ve learned on Medium to earn more money on other platforms.
I hope you find these 5 lessons as valuable as I have. If you enjoy reading content like this, consider subscribing to my feed. If you are not a Medium member and would like to gain unlimited access to member and would like to gain unlimited access to the Medium.com platform, consider using my referral link right here to sign up. It’s $5 a month, and you get unlimited access to my articles and many others like mine. Thanks.
*Note: I’m not a financial advisor; I only write for educational/entertainment purposes. Nothing in this or any of my other articles constitutes financial or legal advice.
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