Seeking fame and fortune on Medium
Be careful what you wish for and how you go after it
Writing for rewards on the social platforms
When people write on platforms like Blogger, Wordpress, Medium (hi there y’all!), Substack etc., they do so for specific reasons. Some write mostly for the the intrinsic enjoyment of writing as its own reward. They tend to have higher and more enduring levels of satisfaction and productivity.
People who write for attention and money can be described as chasing rewards/incentives. When they hit the lottery and get the payoff they want, they feel good. When they don’t (zip, zero, nada, bupkis), they feel bad. So writing for extrinsic rewards is a bumpy ride full of ups and downs.
Writers don’t control the distribution of social or financial rewards on these web-based writing platforms, so they often feel helpless which can cause stress and even depression/burnout. Readers control the delivery of claps/likes, highlights, comments/praise and PayPal/Kofi tips. The Wizard of Oz behind the curtain at Medium controls the mysterious payment algorithm. On Substack, you charge your readers what you want and keep most of what they pay, but you need to bring in the audience all by yourself, which is a heavy lift.
Rx: How to have a “good” time on Medium
If you spend much time as a reader here, you will see a lot of writers complaining about what they don’t like about Medium. Most of their peeves center on not getting enough recognition (claps, comments/praise) or money for their writing.
You will also see a ton of articles about how to $ucceed on Medium (3 easy steps to your first thousand followers/dollars!). The implication of these advice columns is that you can control how much attention and money you get on the platform.
Hint: you CAN’T! 😖
But I’m too much of an advice giver to not throw in a few suggestions about how we can all have a better time here on Medium. Here we go.
TIP #1: Assemble/read your all-star writing team
If you want to have a good time as a reader here, don’t just passively let the Medium algorithm “feed” you. You can actively search for and build up a roster of favorite writers and read/recognize them loyally. Be a good fan. It’s a win/win strategy (see Tip #2).
TIP #2: Give attention to get attention
If you want more attention (reads, claps, highlights, comments) from readers, GIVE that attention to other writers. What goes around comes around. Attention is the product of a good relationship which is always built on a bank account of give and take. Invest your energy in giving more attention to other writers, and you will convert some portion of them to appreciative readers of your writing.
TIP #3: Calculate your odds of success
Smart investors do the hard prep work of analyzing the odds of a payout from various investment opportunities. Suckers go to Vegas with dreams of hitting it big and thrill at the “free” drinks and snacks as their cash reserves dwindle (Hint: the house ALWAYS wins because their algorithm is built that way).
If you pay $X for your favorite restaurant meal, you have pretty close to 100% certainty of a good return on your investment (yum!). If you invest 15 minutes/day on a good exercise program, you have pretty close to 100% certainty of a good return on your investment (lookin’/feelin’ good!). If you write an article a day on Medium, your odds of getting a big payday are … well …
Back in the old (pre-digital/internet) days, success as a writer was a sucker’s bet. Publishers were harsh gatekeepers because publishing was a costly and risky business. Thousands of writers had their great American (or Russian or Italian or Brazilian) novel gathering dust in their desk drawer.
Unlike print publishing, the digital revolution (0's and 1's) has made disseminating words (and images and music and …) easier, faster and less expensive (textbook definition of innovation). As the old barriers to publishing fell, and digital platforms (e-books, weblogs, e-zines etc.) came on-line, many writers thought it would be easier to succeed than ever before.
What gets missed here is that easier publishing means a larger SUPPLY of content chasing a somewhat fixed population of readers. You know how the supply/demand curve works. More content + fixed readership = lower demand (and money) per writer. So … don’t quit your day job.
But that doesn’t mean that writing can’t lead you to money. See Tip #4 for the details.
TIP #4: Think marketing, not sales
The Writing ➡️ Money model most people use is a one-step
I write. People pay me for the writing.
Easy, but wrong. How many writers do YOU pay for their writing? Very few, right? Well, multiply that times the total reading public, and it’s clear that the odds of any writer being paid directly for their content is very low.
The key word here is “directly”. The “I write/People pay me” is a SALES model. Writing is exchanged directly for money. For most of us, no matter how “good” we are (and we ARE good, yeah?), that is NOT gonna happen much (check the odds). Sorry about that!
A slightly more complicated model for generating money from writing is a MARKETING model. This has several extra steps than the sales model. It works like this:
I write. People read. They are interested in what I’m writing because it’s “relevant” to them. They are curious to know more and contact me. We talk and sometimes they decide they want to buy something (product, service) related to what I’m writing about.
In the marketing model, the purpose of your writing is to generate ATTENTION and INTEREST, not income (directly). So rather than thinking
Writing ➡️ Money
you can think about
Writing ➡️ Attention-Interest ➡️ Money
Of course now you need to decide what product or service you will offer in that (sales) conversation with the interested potential buyer your writing attracted. It’s more work than simply writing for dollars, but the odds of $ucce$$ are significantly higher.
TIP #5: Write about your INTERESTS
There are a lot of posts on Medium about people writing an article a day for 100 days and attracting 200 followers. Then they write a piece about burning out and disappear from the platform.
For most people, cranking out writing just to hit specific number targets is not a sustainable process. We are not machines. The rocket fuel that can launch a writing practice into orbit and keep it there is intrinsic INTEREST. When we do work we’re interested in, have the ability to do it well, and control how to do it, satisfaction and energy levels tend to be higher than when those elements are missing.
So to build a sustainable writing practice, think
Interest + Ability + Control ➡️ Satisfaction/Productivity
That will serve as a good foundation for writing for its own sake, which many writers on Medium do. If you want to use your writing as marketing material for your “business”, you can brainstorm about the aligned products or services you would also be interested in developing.
And so …
If you are seeking FAME (readers, claps, highlights, comments/praise) and/or FORTUNE (💲) from writing on Medium, here are a few strategy suggestions for you to experiment with:
- Assemble, read and recognize your all-star writing team
- Give attention to get attention
- Calculate your odds of success
- Think marketing, not sales
- Write about your interests
Let us know (in a comment) how your experiment works out for you!
Here is what I write about ⬇️
