The First Story I Ever Posted on Medium is Still Earning Money
It Made a Penny Yesterday
Here’s the first story I ever posted on Medium, which was published in February 2019 and has earned me $4.00 over its Medium lifetime:
That’s Medium in a nutshell.
This story hasn’t made much money.
But? Four dollars is better than nothing.
And once I posted it on the platform, it continued to earn, even only a few cents a week.
I’ve been posting my work steadily since I arrived here almost two years ago. Some essays earn a few dollars and then sink without a trace. Others earn a few dollars, then continue to pull in a tiny bit of coin each month.
And a (very) few get curated, take off like rockets, and actually make the kind of money that I used to make back when I wrote for the New York Times.
Somebody (I think it was Lon Shapiro) once wrote that if you can reach 10K Medium followers, you can make $1,000 a month, because if only a tenth of those followers actually read your work, it still adds up.
About two years in, I’m at 5K followers and I am making $500 a month. So I think he was right about that.
Why am I telling you this? I’m sharing my experience and giving you a reality check, which is what a lot of my writing on this platform is about.
Based on my experience, if you post regularly and that brings you new followers, you can eventually reach 5K followers and make $500/month. Or more.
Or less. Since nothing is entirely sure on Medium.
In any event, you can be cheered by the fact that the first thing you ever posted here might find a reader tomorrow. And earn you a penny.
( Writing Coach and Medium Sherpa Roz Warren writes for everyone from the Funny Times to the New York Times, has been in 13 Chicken Soup for the Soul collections, and is the author of Our Bodies, Our Shelves: Library Humor. Drop her a line at roSwarren@gmail.com.)
