$100: Over A Year in the Making
What I have learned from making my first $100 by writing.
Last month, I hit a personal milestone: I made $100 off of my writing. Sure, I have been at this for over a year, but I finally hit this little benchmark. How did I do it? Right here on Medium. With the Medium Partner Program and with a lot of articles.
I have shared in the past how I am not an overnight Medium Success. In fact, I mostly plug along, working hard at doing the right things to get my writing out to those who would want to read it.
However, I have been feverishly trying to turn my writing into a few dollars to help me keep writing. Jeff Goins shares in his book Real Artists Don’t Starve the idea that “we make money to make more art.” And this has been something I have been working at doing.
The Truth About My First $100
Do you want to know how I did it? I will give you the secret sauce right here, right now:
I wrote a lot of Partner Program stories.
In fact, I wrote 13 (14, if you count the one that got pulled for breaking the rules), partner posts before I hit the $100 mark. And yes, that is an average of less than $10 a post.
This is because my best post to date:
…has captured me $20.14. And my worst post to date:
…brought in a mere $4.53.
As you can see, I’m not getting the $100 bonuses or making a huge amount per story. But I am making something. Which is more than I can say for myself over the last few years. And to be honest with you, I am pretty happy with getting to this amount.
But, this is only the beginning.
A Few Notes About The Medium Partner Program
It has been over a year since I started writing on Medium and about nine months since I started writing on the Partner Program. I have definitely seen changes in the Partner Program and Medium shifting to a higher focus on the Partner Program. Which, I think, all of us are pretty happy about.
While it is shifting to push a lot more Partner Posts, these posts won’t get views if they suck. Well, they might get viewed if you have a good headline, but if the information is bad they won’t get claps. And then you end up with a couple of dollars.
Like Tom Kuegler points out in this post:
We need to focus on QUALITY, especially in the partner program. If you are writing on Medium and your blog, you blog probably needs your best posts, and your Partner Program Posts should be right behind it.
All that said, the Partner Program is a good place to start when it comes to making a little money on your writing.
What I Have Learned from My First $100
In nine months I have only made $100. There are plenty of people who have made much more in much shorter amount of time. However, there are a lot of us who are grinding through the circumstances of life and we don’t have hours or energy to stay up all night working on money making schemes.
We want to get our writing out to people and start making a few dollars in the process.
While some might say this mindset is bad, I think its a good place to start. And after all, I have learned some valuable lessons in my first $100.
1. People Will Pay for My Writing
As writers, I think we are all a little concerned no one will want to read our writing, let alone pay for it. In my slow march toward $100, I found people do want to pay for our writing.
However, we need to put our best stuff out there for them to want to pay for it. We cannot throw a post together in an hour, wildly edit it, and publish it hoping it makes a bunch of money. We need to put the work in and make sure its the best it can be before we hit publish.
2. Quality is the Game Changer
I am torn when I say this, but here we go:
While we want good writing to draw people in, we need great writing to add value in hopes someone will pay for it.
If you disagree, share why — I am open to seeing other points of view. However, I am seeing a trend on Medium, and when I read self-published books on Amazon.
The self-published ebooks on Amazon which do really well are really good, great, in terms of the storytelling and walking you through topics. And when I read blog posts and Medium stories, they are intriguing to draw me in, but are not the meat of a writer’s writing.
There are books on Amazon which seem to not move at all, but the author’s blog posts are terrific. It is almost as if they spent so much time drawing people in, they forgot to create something which will keep them buying a book.
Again, if you disagree, share why. Potentially, I have not seen the full picture.
3. I Need to Diversify
We will never make a living off of the Medium Partner Program. Or ad campaigns on our blogs. And not likely on book sales on Amazon. I realize after $100, I need to re-invest this money into creating more products to bring in different types of income.
This is probably a no brainer, but it is shifting how much I write on Medium and my blog in order to help me put more work into creating a product. And as I have done this in the last few weeks, I have not lost any momentum in either arena of writing.
Conclusion
Ultimately, like Jeff Goins says, “we make money to create more art.” And this is really what it is all about. I’m not in the writing game to just make a ton of money for the sake of the money. I am a writer because I have a message to say and I cannot help but share it.
This is important for all of us who write. And it can be an easy thing to forget when we are writing and trying to earn a few dollars for our writing. We must, I repeat, must remember we are trying to share a message. Not add to the bank account.
And I share all this, because I want to encourage others and help wherever I can help. So, I want to leave you with this question, which I hope you will share in the responses below to help and encourage others.
What lessons have you learned while earning money off of your writing?
