WRITING
How Important is Consistency for New Medium Writers?
I present my experience of not publishing a single story for a month
I first came across Medium through this Shelby Church video. I remember thinking to myself — Wow! Did she make 11K USD by writing a few articles? Yes, she already has a million YouTube subscribers, and Medium might have promoted her articles for this reason, but still — that is a staggering hourly rate.
I ventured deeper into the Medium world, primarily watching videos from Zulie Rane and Ayodeji Awosika. The take-home message for me was — consistency is the key to success on Medium. The more one writes, the better chances for those articles to get distributed, resulting in a higher degree of exposure and an increase in earnings.
Having published 12 stories in January 2020, I was keen to understand what would happen if I did not publish a single story for a month. Indeed, none of my work was distributed, and in January, I made $16.47. In February, I earned $6.54. Interestingly, almost 50% of my February income was a result of 2 reads, individually making $1.8 and $1.6.
It appears that once the story is published, it garners an initial burst of attention from the regular publication readers. However, as these readers review many articles per month, the payment for each ‘read’ is minimal. With time, more non-regular Medium readers stumble across a story, and as they probably only read two or three stories a month, the writer gets a more significant payment.
So, is consistency the key to success on Medium? In the long term — yes! If someone keeps publishing stories consistently, then the compounding effect of a couple clicks every month would be telling, even without distribution. Hypothetically, if I have 120 stories on Medium — I could have made around $50 a month (considering linear effect instead of compounding, which is conservative) without writing a new story. Such earning is a lot of money for not doing anything. I hope this story gave an insight for new Medium writers who might be losing motivation. Let’s keep at it! Good Luck.
