Caveat: The point is not to show my income. I am a huge fan of honesty, openness, and transparency when it comes to this kind of stuff. The main point is to inspire readers/writers or side hustlers to follow their journey.
Have fun do good and the money will come. — Richard Branson
In this story, I am breaking down all the strategists I applied to earn $138+ in my 2nd month on Medium.
Let’s dive into the learning part.
I joined Medium in November 2021 as a reader. I seriously started to publish in Dec 2021, and here is the earning proof of my first month on Medium.
Today I am going to reveal my 2nd month’s income. How much I made and what I did to accomplish my $50 January 2022 target.
I learned these strategies from the top writers; every writer has a different approach tho. Being an engineer, data is a part of my life. For me, it takes time to comprehend a document if it’s missing data charts.
Three Pillars of a successful story
Title
Ask any writer about the importance of a title. The title is the face of your story; try to make the title curious but avoid clickbait. Make sure you justify the title in your story. It’s the same thing to benchmark your research finding with another author.
Subtitle
The subtitle should provide a glimpse of the story while complementing the title. Always use the subtitle.
Image
Spend some time to find a suitable image. Do not pick the first image right away. Here are a couple of websites I use to get the free images.
Stats
A number says everything. When I was working as a product manager, one of the principal product managers said there is no gut feeling in launching a feature or new product. If you bring anything to the table, make sure you backup with strong data sets.
Earned $138.61
Views 14,612
Fans 494
Followers 600+
My goal was to get 5000 views in January, $50 earnings, and 100 fans. I am super happy with the results.
Here are my first month’s stats (December 2021).
Earned $27.44
Views 2300
Fans 163
Followers 308
Add value
Always write for the reader; make sure to see what a reader will get from your story. I always ask myself the following question.
Are you solving a pain point?
If you are solving a problem through your story, you are definitely adding value for the reader.
Recall: Spend as much time as you can to polish your titles, subtitles, and image.
Make sure you deliver what you are promising in the title. No clickbait, I repeat, absolutely no clickbait.
Engagement strategies
I primarily joined Medium in 2021 as a reader; I was looking for a clean platform without ads to get some quality reads. One day I shared my brief in the company’s Slack channel on building sustainable reading habits.
After that, I thought it would be a great idea to share my ideas with the world. Additionally, I joined Medium as a writer to improve my writing skills. I am a reader first, then a writer. As a reader, I do the following 4 things daily.
Claps
I always clap to give my utmost gratitude if I liked the story. Not many readers know, but if you keep pressing the mouse button, you can give max 50 claps on a single story.
Genuine comments
Please do not give artificial or generic comments. Always share something you genuinely learned.
Highlights
You can also highlight if something you loved or thought its more important than the rest of the story.
Consistency is the key
If you can pick one thing from the whole article, I recommend being consistent. The power of being consistent will change your life. It’s true in almost all aspects of life. Let’s take an example.
One of my favorite writers, Tim Denning publishes two articles every day since he joined the platform. If money motivates you, he is one of the 6+ figure writers to follow, don’t skim his stories but analyze what he is saying and why it’s working.
You can skim the story to just see the earning proof, but I recommend reading it thoroughly; therefore, you can implement the same strategies to maximize your results.
Let me know in the comments what’s your strategy as a writer. I will see you in March with another income report.
Thank you for reading; follow me and clap a couple of times.
