Debunking two common Medium myths
Going deep into data about quality vs. quantity and writing about Medium
How do you succeed on Medium? What does that success ultimately look like? More importantly, what happens when myths about “how to succeed on Medium” get spread?
You might not know that many of our Medium staffers — including CEO Tony Stubblebine, who you may have seen in the comments — spend a lot of time trawling through the stories writers post about Medium, looking at good, bad, and neutral feedback.
Over the last few months I’ve worked at Medium (and even years that I’ve been writing here!) I’ve seen these two myths crop up time and again: the idea that you have to write about writing, or specifically even about Medium, if you want to do well on Medium; and the idea that you need to publish every day to get traction.
There are a lot of misconceptions about what kinds of stories do well on Medium, and we hope to clear them all up in time. I want to start with these two since I believe they are actively harmful to writers.
Let’s dive into debunking these myths: We’ll take a journey through company policy (don’t worry, I’ll keep it light), digging up stats, and sharing data.
Table of Contents
Myth 1: Stories about Medium are big earners
∘ Stories about making money on Medium are designated as Network Only.
∘ There are far, far more readers on Medium than writers.
∘ So what stories do earn the most money on Medium?
Myth 2: You should publish every day on Medium
∘ Data shows our incentives reward thoughtful, deeper posts
∘ So how often should you publish?
Why these myths are harmful
Myth 1: Stories about Medium are big earners
What we call “Medium meta,” that is, stories about Medium, actually earn very little money in our Partner Program.
It’s easy to understand why this myth persists — when a new writer comes onto Medium, it’s natural to click on a story explaining what Medium is about. Maybe you click on another. Before you know it, your whole feed is full of stories about Medium, how to earn money on Medium, and more. You might notice that the stories have a lot of claps and comments, signaling high engagement. You’ll see some folks writing a lot about Medium who seem to be doing pretty well. Naturally, you think Medium is full of stories about Medium, and it’s the only way to make some cash.
This happens because our recommendations system learns what you like based on what stories you read and how you interact with them. If you click on Medium meta, read Medium meta, and clap for Medium meta, our algorithm will think you want to see as much Medium meta as possible. Medium writers also tend to be very active readers, so a story targeting Medium writers will probably get more claps and comments than a story about AI, even if the story about AI reaches a much bigger audience.
If you love reading stories about Medium, that’s not a problem. But if you’d prefer to get a clean recommendations slate, head on over to your Reading History and press “clear history.”
Let’s set the record straight: stories about Medium don’t earn very much money, compared to stories about almost any other topic.
Allow me to share a few key stats and facts to further explain why.
Stories about making money on Medium are designated as Network Only.
When you publish a story on Medium, it will be sorted into one of three three distribution tiers:
- Boosted: high-quality stories that meet our Boost Guidelines, which get a higher priority in being matched to readers.
- General Distribution: stories that are also being matched to readers based on their interests and who/what they follow. This is the default category for stories on Medium.
- Network Only: stories that are matched only to readers who are following that specific writer (and/or the publication, if the story is in a pub).
That means that stories about making money on Medium only are seen by readers who either follow you or follow the publication you publish the story in, if you publish it in a pub.
Every month, we pay writers via the subscriptions of Medium members. Out of that whole pot of money that gets distributed, Network Only stories earn by far the smallest amount of money, compared to stories that are categorized as General Distribution and Boosted stories. This is because they are distributed to a far smaller group of readers.
Plus, Medium meta stories are only some of the stories that are categorized as Network Only stories on Medium — so they represent just a small fraction of that small fraction. Other Network Only-category stories include clickbait text or images, call-out posts, spon-con, and 100% AI-generated stories.
More reading: Explaining the three different tiers of distribution, and our reasoning on why money-making on Medium stories are Network Only.
In short, Network Only stories earn a tiny fraction of the available amount of money we pay writers every month, and stories about making money on Medium make an even smaller fraction of that.
There are far, far more readers on Medium than writers.
There’s another reason stories about Medium don’t tend to do that well — we have around 50x more active readers than we do active writers, which means that when you publish a story about making money on Medium, your audience of potential readers is very limited.
In general, our non-writing readers aren’t interested in Medium meta as it’s not relevant to their interests or needs. As we say in our quality guidelines, “[r]eaders have repeatedly told us they don’t want this content appearing in their feed or digests when they don’t follow the writer or publication.”
So what stories do earn the most money on Medium?
When I did Medium consulting back in the day, clients would often want me to say something like, “Yes, the magic button to succeed on Medium is to publish on Mondays, write about data science, and ensure your story is exactly 6 minutes long.” That is, alas, not true.
The top earners don’t have any one topic in common, and the highest-earning topics fluctuate from month to month. For example, in June 2024, some of the top earners were in education, startups, equality, history, and product management. But in previous months, we’ve seen top-earning stories in poetry, politics, and productivity.
So topics are not a good way to predict how much a story can earn. However, top-earning stories do typically share a few features:
- They’re written by doers. Think: an HR manager writing about the best way to get a raise, or a professional cat trainer explaining how to introduce a new kitten into your household.
- They offer a perspective you don’t get anywhere else. Readers come to Medium to read deeper, human stories. You can read great journalism coverage in any number of newspapers and publications, and you can get surface-level hot takes on pretty much any social media platform. On Medium, our members want the boots-on-the-ground, opinionated, first-person perspective.
- They’re well-written. High-earning stories have few typos, flow clearly, are well structured, and are not overly promotional.
- They often are (but don’t have to be) about current events. The world is a wild, confusing, stressful place. Stories that demystify just one small angle of what’s happening right now are some of the highest earners — because that’s what our readers want.
That’s a boring answer! But we’ve worked hard to make it so there’s no plug-and-play formula for success here. You tell a good story, one you’re qualified to tell, tell it well, and readers reward you.
Myth 2: You should publish every day on Medium
Another persistent myth is the suggestion that you need to publish every day to succeed. So many writers burn themselves out trying to keep up with this manic publishing schedule .
It is not only difficult to publish every day, but it’s also not a good strategy for most writers.
Many writers experience the opposite — the more you publish, the more views you get — at least in the short term. But that will only be true on a very small scale — you might see a bump from 100 to 200 views, for example.
But if you get caught up in that, two things will happen: you will miss out on a much larger potential impact, and you will probably get burned out and exhausted.
Look, I get it, I’ve been in the content grind trenches. I remember trying to post sometimes more than one story a day to try to get more views! I couldn’t keep it up, I burned out, and I stopped writing for months because I was so knackered. I was spending hours a day chasing pennies, and I was not enjoying myself.
When I came back to writing, I aimed for fewer, better stories. And I found that my views increased beyond even the heights of my twice-a-day posting era. More importantly, I had a much better time. I focused on my writing craft, developing my ideas properly, and spending thoughtful time on my stories.
Our team loved this quote from Tracy Collins in her story about how her earnings went up when her posting frequency went down because she focused on quality stories, working with editors, and developing her ideas: “For months, I had a goal to publish twice a week which is eight stories. I didn’t always have great story ideas, so sometimes I forced a story to hit my target,” she writes (emphasis mine). But then she explains how June was different: “If you focus on writing with the potential for a boost, you’ll need to spend more time per piece. This means that you’re still writing consistently, but you might write fewer articles. That’s how writing less can result in more impact.” (Emphasis mine.)
Data shows our incentives reward thoughtful, deeper posts
That’s not just my and Tracy’s experience: the data backs this up, too. When we compared the average number of stories published by the top 200 earning authors in June 2023 vs. June 2024, we found it decreased by 33%. That means that the most successful writers are publishing less.
This hasn’t always been the case on Medium. There was definitely a time when quantity typically meant higher earnings. However, Medium made a specific shift away from quantity and towards quality in early 2023. Thanks to the Boost and the algorithmic shifts, it literally pays better for writers to focus on writing a few fantastic stories every month, rather than trying to crank out five new stories per week.
So how often should you publish?
I’ve got another boring-but-true answer for you: Publish as often as you have something interesting and useful to say.
Why these myths are harmful
When writers get caught up in the mechanics of success on Medium, especially ones that aren’t true, instead of focusing on telling the fascinating, deep, insightful stories that only they can share, it’s a loss to Medium and our readers.
The writer who is struggling to publish a post every day has a fantastic story to write about the time she hitchhiked in Canada, but she doesn’t have the bandwidth to sit down and do it justice. Maybe she’ll leave Medium before she ever gets a chance to write it because she’s exhausted from the publishing grind.
The writer who has read every book on mindfulness and has applied those insights to his life in fascinating ways is only writing “I wrote every day on Medium for a month — here’s how much I earned,” because he thinks that’s what Medium readers want from him.
The relationship coach who’s helped dozens of couples work through their struggles has just discovered that if they post twice a day, they get 50 extra daily views — but they’re missing out on the much wider reach and impact they’d get if they spent a week working on a single, well-crafted, well-researched article instead.
If you love publishing every day, or you get a lot of satisfaction from writing about Medium, don’t let this info hold you back. But if you are doing those things, not because you want to, but because you feel like you have to, hopefully this sets your mind at ease.
Medium has changed a lot in the past few years, so it’s fair to say that some of the more pervasive “myths” aren’t myths at all, just outdated advice. But I want to be clear: Today, on Medium, we’ve worked hard to align all our incentives to reward high-quality, deep, thoughtful, insightful stories written by people who have a reason to tell those stories.
We reward stories that we can proudly recommend to paying members, and feel confident that they’ll be happy to have paid to read. For the most part, that tends to exclude high-volume publishing and Medium meta.
Any other myths or theories you’d like us to look into? Write a comment sharing what the myth is, as well as how it would change your writing style or behavior to learn about it.
