Why High View Counts Don’t Translate to Big Earnings

My most-viewed article on Medium isn’t raking in the money like I imagined

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

I joined Medium back in May of this year with no real expectation other than to continue honing my writing craft now that I’d taken a break after finishing my manuscript. I’d heard about Medium from a few YouTubers (who, of course, end up making thousands on here — yes, I’m jealous) and thought it might be fun to join. Any income I made would be purely a bonus.

I treat Medium as a hobby — I have a full-time job I love and I don’t plan on making Medium my focus. I don’t even know how I’d go about that even if I wanted to. Honestly, after reading countless articles from other writers on Medium that share the stress and pressure that making Medium your full-time job is enough to ward me off the thought forever. Forcing yourself to monetize a hobby puts you on a fast-track to resentment.

Still — I’ve made a couple of bucks in the last three months, but not how I expected.

Runner’s Life distributed the fourth article I ever wrote, which ended up becoming my most-viewed piece. Naturally, I’d assumed that it would also become my main moneymaker. More views equal more money, no? Well, no. Not really.