“Secrets” to Medium “Success”
The “advice” we can’t believe we believed
Before we begin, I want you to trust me when I say that I know what it’s like to overthink absolutely everything.
My overthinking powers have no end, often keeping me up at night and distracting me from my day job. The problem is only made worse when I actually care about what’s causing me to overthink so drastically.
Since summer of last year, that thing has been Medium (off and on). I experience moments of burning interest, followed by months of casual apathy.
Because of my relentless overthinking, I have wasted time and money reading all kinds of nonsensical guides and books on how to master Medium.
These professionals give hundreds of schemes and tricks that are guaranteed to turn you into a royalty kingpin overnight.
I’ve tried them all, and here is what I have discovered.
Post at 5pm every day!
For a while I prescribed to the belief that the time of day I posted my articles had any true baring on their royalty earnings.
I even had a world clock that made sure I was posting every day at 9am (Los Angeles time).
Why LA? God knows.
The reason I believed this craziness is because I thought so small at the time. I was under the misguided belief that earnings within the first day or few days meant anything at all.
I’ve heard there was once a time when the first few days of your article’s life meant something, but if that time existed, it has long since passed.
These days I say post away! Post at 6am, post at midnight, it doesn’t matter. The way Medium is structured, you’re not likely to see any traction for the next few weeks or even months.
Medium is a marathon, which means that sprinters aren’t going to like life here very much.
A thousand true followers means money for life
I’ve read literally hundreds of times that riches live in the number of followers you have. Just taking even the briefest of investigations proves that undeniably false.
Writers with enormous followings are struggling, and some writers with only a few hundred followers are thriving. Why?
I don’t know about you, but I follow someone because I loved one story they wrote one time. After I hit follow, I almost always forget them forever.
Medium is always recommending me curated articles within my interests, so I very rarely ever see those I follow ever again.
I’m sorry to say that if we haven’t developed some kind of friendship on the platform, I won’t remember your name in a day or so.
The problem is that while the internet has made writing for money far easier, it’s also made us all a lot more common. We’re too easily lost in the shuffle.
Being published in the right publication is your big break
Honestly, a lot of my highest earning articles are ones I published in my own little niche publications, each with under 100 followers a piece. (Including this one).
Once again, the articles I read are the curated ones that Medium pushes under my nose. It’s always the one with the amazing title that catches my eye, I never even check who the author is unless I write a comment. If I haven’t commented on an article, I may never even know who wrote the piece I enjoyed so much.
If you’ve read this far on my article, I assume you must have enjoyed it (thank you!) But I expect you probably don’t know who I am, and that’s ok!
I’m Jordan by the way, let’s be bezzie mates.
Just Write
Everyone out there with a sales pitch has another elusive secret to success. However there’s only one real secret, and it’s not a secret at all, it’s that we have to just keep writing.
If the stats are getting you down, ignore them. If notifications give you anxiety, disable them.
Just keep writing. Every story brings you closer to perfection.
