I just made $500 on Medium with a single post

Alright. Alright. I just lied to you. I didn’t make $500 with a single post.

I made $500 with two posts. But they were exactly the same. The only thing I did is that I changed the headline. The content was still the same.

And it’s probably not what you’re thinking right now. Oh, he has probably been using Medium’s new ad system. If there’s even something like that. I don’t know. But even if there was, I would probably not have access to it.

Because only the top 0.1% of anything will get access to the good stuff.

Only the best of the best will be able to make those things work out.

But what about the rest of us?

Maybe we also deserve a piece of the piece. Maybe we don’t. I don’t know.

What’s clear to me though is that I’m not part of the 0.1%. Especially not when it comes to the top writers here on Medium. I’m just an average writer compared to other great storytellers here.

And you know what? It doesn’t really matter that much. And that shouldn’t stop you either.

What matters though is that you should acknowledge that you’re not among the best of the best. You need to accept it. And then keep going nonetheless.

Here’s the thing...

Once you acknowledge this, once you realize the truth, you will stop complaining. You will stop complaining about people not paying you for what you do. About the system being rigged. About what not.

When you complain all the time, when you wait for people to hand you some cash all the time, you’ll never hustle. You’ll never find ways to keep doing what you’re doing. You’ll never be able to do what you love.

I actually don’t like the word hustle that much. Because it’s used by so many folks out there who don’t even know what it means. I probably also don’t really know what it means.

But I do know that if you keep waiting for things to happen, if you wait for people to find out about you, if you wait for people to hand you some cash at the end of each month, you might as well go and work for someone else.

Look. I’m not saying any of this to depress you. I’m saying this to show you that you have to hustle if you’re average. If you’re just like me. If you’re not super smart. You have to find other ways. Ways that work for you.

Again. I’m not one of the top writers here. And I’ll probably never be able to make a single cent cent on Medium. I’m also not good enough of a writer so that someone might hire me to write stuff for them.

But I love writing. And I have published 1 article here on Medium for the past 9 months.

So at one point I decided to stop complaining and instead tried to find ways to make this writing thing work for me. Look. I love writing. But I also love being able to pay my bills. Like everybody else.

And I found a lot of ways to grow my audience on Medium without being a really good writer. And yes, I also found a way to make money here on Medium. And I just made $500 with a single post.

And I didn’t wait for anyone to tell me “do this, or do that.” Or listened to people saying, “oh this is not allowed.” Or stuff like “we don’t do this kind of stuff here.”

I just went ahead and did it…

So here’s what I did:

• Instead of waiting for people to follow me, I followed them. I knew no one would magically find out about me. I now have more than 25,000 followers.
• Instead of trying to get into the big publications I started my own publication with my own posts, only. It now has more than 14,000 followers.

And then I wrote a guidebook about how I grew my Medium account to more than 25,000 people. How I built a publication with more than 14,000 followers. And how I went from 1,000 monthly views to more than 30,000 monthly views in just 4 short months.

And then I used a feature almost no one here on Medium knows. Because no one talks about it. And everybody only does the stuff everybody else is doing.

I used a feature publications offer their owners. It’s a feature called “Letters”. And it basically allows you to send an email to your publication’s followers. You can see the stats below…

Medium Stats for the 2 letters I sent. The content was the same. The only thing I changed was the headline.

And that’s how I made $500 with a single post on Medium. In the above letters that were sent out to more than 13,000 people there was a link to my Medium Master Class. And quite a few people decided to get a copy of it. And I made more than $500…

People who clicked on the link in these letters could buy my Medium Master Class

So if you’re not one of the best of the best in your category, niche or industry, then stop complaining and start finding other ways to get noticed. Start experimenting. Start finding ways that work for you. And not for other people.

Look. Everything I said right here worked for me. It will probably not work for you. Or maybe it will. I don’t know. The one thing that will always work though is to start putting in the work. Real work…

P.S. If you’re willing to put in real work, I guess my Medium Master Class with all of the strategies and techniques I used to grow my audience here on Medium is a good start. A really good start.

You can get access and learn more about my Medium Master Class here…