All that while having the greatest lifestyle you can imagine

Medium is an amazing platform for aspiring writers.

When I started writing on Medium back in January, my only goal was to improve my writing skills. Little did I know that a few months from that point, it would be my main source of income. And that by writing only 1 hour per day!

In this article, I’ll show you all the aspects that relate to having success on Medium, and most importantly, without trying to cheat the system! Everything I’m telling you here is not only within their terms and conditions, but it also is good for Medium as well.

Below are 8 aspects to having success on Medium and make a living thanks to it. Be sure to read until the end since I left the most important for last!

1. Partner Program

If you’re reading this, you’re probably already familiar with Medium’s partner program. It’s like Netflix or Spotify for writers. A reader’s membership fee gets distributed to writers they engage with (reading time + claps). This only applies to “locked” stories.

Using their program, Some of my articles are making less than $10, and others making over $700.

Earnings from some of my articles in May-June 2018

The average I’m seeing on low-performing articles is about $1 per fan (a person who claps). The average I’m seeing on high-performing articles is about $0.75 per fan.

The number of claps is almost irrelevant. On Medium, there are tons of low clappers, and there are some high clappers, with hardly anyone in between.

Both are pretty consistent in their clapping numbers per article. If someone claps 1–4 times for an article they find great, it’s extremely unlikely that they’re going to clap 50 times for an article. On the other side, if someone claps 40–50 times for an article they find great, it’s unlikely that they’re ever going to clap once for an article.

This all means that a reader’s claps are not heavily skewed and getting more claps does NOT equal to more money. Getting more clappers does.

Asking for many claps then is irrelevant, and also against Medium’s terms and conditions.

The better strategy for making money on Medium is not to try to game the system, as Niklas Göke puts it, it’s to write great shit. I second that and have seen it in my stats. More on that later.

Medium curates articles it thinks are great. You’ll know by looking at the Details section of an article from the Stats section.

See that Details link on the far right? That’s the one.

I found that this is what makes the biggest difference in the success of an article. I also found that the more external references you get to your article, the more Medium seems to show it to other people. I can’t prove that theory though.

And how do you get a curator to distribute your article? There’s only one way: write great shit.

2. Connect with other writers

This one is a lot less direct when it comes to making money, but by connecting with other writers, you’ll learn from them and apply some that new knowledge to write better articles.

Plus, the more writers you know on Medium, the more likely it is that they will tag you in their post, leading to more people knowing about you.

But also, you never know when you’re going to partner up with some of them on some projects. Jordan “J” Gross and I are (slowly) working on a book together for example.

You may also end up selling other writer’s products.

3. Affiliate Links

Sometimes in your articles you want to list a product that changed your life and you genuinely think it can help others too. As writers, we frequently link to books or classes that inspired us.

Using Amazon Associates or Rakuten Marketing, you can make a small cut selling other people’s products. You’ll make most of your revenues on volume, so don’t expect to make too much unless you get tons of traffic.

But like the partner program, you have to make sure it’s great content you are linking!

4. Build a Mailing List

Everyone and their dogs tell you to do that and with reason. In today’s information overload, when someone gives you their email, it’s because they really care about what you have to say.

Here’s what open and click-through rates look like by industry:

What does that mean for you?

On average, if you have 100 subscribers, 4 people will click on a link in your email. The higher the price point of what they click, the lower your click-through rate.

Your list can be monetized by selling books, linking to Medium locked stories, affiliate links, selling your own classes, selling your own programs, etc.

Depending on the size of your list and the things you’re selling, this can be quite lucrative.

And best of all, it’s free marketing to a highly-engaged audience.

To build a mailing list, provide a great call to action at the bottom of your articles, craft yourself a great bio, and link to your website in-line with the article.

5. ManyStories.com & Social Media

ManyStories.com, by Smedian Network, is a great place to share your stories on a daily basis. This brings free extra views to your locked articles and takes no time at all to do every day. People looking at ManyStories.com are highly-engaged readers and writers.

Once a story is published, you have no good reason not to share on your social media, whatever your following. I have close to zero followers on social media, but sometimes someone bigger will notice my articles because of the hashtags and will retweet to their audience. This is great for locked posts.

I use Buffer to post on all social media at the same time.

6. Facebook Ads

When I have a story that performs well and I have an extra budget, I sometimes run Facebook ads to drive more traffic to my stories. As mentioned earlier, I found that when I drive my own traffic to my stories, Medium tends to show it more frequently to Medium readers.

More traffic = more engagement = more money.

7. Live Abroad

Until you get a bigger following, how about going to live in a country that’s cheaper to live in and more authentic for you?

You can live for less than $500 a month in India,Thailand or Colombia for example.

You’ll get great living conditions, new experiences, meet new people and taste incredible food, all the while working on developing new skill sets, writing daily, and enjoying life.

If you publish an article every day that makes you $10–$15, plus affiliate links and other products, you can make $500 a month within a very short timeframe.

From there, you can slowly upgrade to a more expensive lifestyle. The more you write, the better you get. The better you get, the more money you’ll make.

8. Content

I saved the most important for last. Here, I’ll address publications, what to write about, research, and formatting. Also, be sure to always use Grammarly!

Publications

You should always aim to write for publications. The basic idea is that you get access to their followers in addition to yours. Publications will also make an effort to publicize your content on their own channels, like email and social media.

Check out Smedian.com to start contributing to one (or multiple). You can also check your favourite publications to see if they have a process in place to submit your work. Most do.

What to Write About

First off, write about one or multiple of these tags (special mention to Stevie Adler for compiling the list):

Tags that attract Top Writer status-updated

If you want to make money, it greatly helps to write for topics reader are actively looking for. There’s a wide variety, so it’s likely you’re going to find something you’re knowledgeable about.

Once you know the topics you’ll write about, it’s time to create amazing, actionable content. Always answer this question to the reader:

“What’s in it for me?”

Leave the reader inspired. Toss in your own experience for authenticity, but don’t make it the subject of your article. To make money, you write for them, not for yourself.

Here’s how you can find an almost infinite source of inspiration for your articles:

21 Proven Ways To Find Inspiration For Your Stories

Research

Well-researched articles do better than opinion-based articles. Provide links to your sources, show graphics, screenshots, cite famous people, and more.

Unless you’ve got a reputation already, people will trust other people’s research more. Tell people how you applied the principles from your research. Show them how others have also applied them with success. Give them the steps to replicate that success.

Keep the conclusions results-based and be specific: lose 10 lbs in a month, 2x your productivity in a month, learn 3 new skills in 15 hours, etc. Make sure the result is believable. 10x your income in 7 days is hardly believable unless your income is ridiculously low.

Formatting

I’ve written a pretty extensive article on this topic here. Here’s a summary:

Put your photo above the title
Use a subtitle
Photos of people or cute puppies work best
Photos of women work even better
Make photo full-width if and only if it takes less than a full page height (favour wide photos)
Don’t describe your cover photo, just put the reference
Limit number of links to outside things (unless absolutely needed)
Insert “horizontal bar” between each Title
Put photos sparingly. A single photo at the top is good for stories of 1–5 minutes. 5+ minutes may require another photo to catch the attention again.
Titles and Subtitles in Caps
Questions on separate lines, in italic
Short 2–4 lines paragraphs
Put in bold things you want your audience to highlight
Put in super quote what you want your audience to remember (and highlight)
Be conversational as much as possible
Be positive
Negativity can be used for humour
Keep sections to between 2–5 paragraphs (text below a Title or Subtitle)
Reference your other stories at the bottom, you don’t want them to leave without reading the current one. Give them a chance to clap and comment.
Have a conclusion
Pump readers to action near the end, give actionable items they can do to apply tips from the story
Recall your story’s title in the conclusion
Have the same saying in each story at the very end of your conclusion (mine is: You can do this!)
Have a (subtle) call to action at the bottom. This mostly applies to non-locked stories. Be careful to stay within Medium’s terms and conditions.

Conclusion

I hope this inspires you to write amazing stories on Medium and make a living writing and travelling. It’s an amazing lifestyle and I’m very grateful to Ev Williams and his team for the product they built.

Write great well-researched articles, format them well, publicize in the right channels and you’re on your way to making money on Medium.

You can do this!