The Tacky Side of Writers Talking About Money
It’s the craft we’re interested in. Bragging about your bank account isn’t writing.
The issue of bragging about incomes from writing on Medium keeps coming up, and I’m going to weigh in. I apologize in advance if feelings are hurt, and I do understand that there are two sides to this, but I’ve been sitting on this for a long time and I see no signs of it slowing down. So here goes:
Medium isn’t like other publications, where writers have a general idea of pay rates before submitting. Medium writing income is a crap-shoot. While someone can make thousands of dollars in a single month, others, no matter how hard they try, may never exceed that magical hundred-dollar mark.
We don’t get accepted to write here, we’re allowed to write here. The door opens whenever we want it to. There are no contracts, no promises, no obligations. It’s simply a space to publish our writing. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to get paid for it.
Stories of personal income are not relevant here, no matter how much someone would like to think they’re inspiring other writers. There is no formula to follow. One person’s story about how much money they’ve made has no bearing on anyone else’s income.
