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One of my absolute favorite things about covering Medium as a platform are the emails from writers. More specifically, I love to hear about a writer’s success.
So I was delighted to receive the following email:
I have posted main excerpt from the email below, edited for clarity and privacy:
Hi Casey,
I have been an avid reader of your BG publication for months. I have followed every tip and tried to optimize each article, both in terms of design and content.
While I have been having success…I had never managed to pass the $1000 dollar mark.
Until last month, when I made nearly $1200 on Medium!
The best thing is while I did have articles featured in a few major publications…my earnings came from a wide variety of articles!
I am trying not to jynx (sic) it, but I am having an insane month
I wanted to thank you for all your help and also offer a few tips on what really worked for me.
My main takeaway is that it is important to build your following in multiple niches. You first mentioned this when I was just writing…
I was worried if I wrote about multiple topics, my audience would stop growing or my followers would be confused.
But after reading your post on your Medium goals for 2020, I decided to try to go all in writing for three topics/themes…
At first my follower count did plateau, but I was still getting views because I set up an email marketing system which is something you had recommended to me months ago.
After the plateau, though, my work started consistently getting featured in these three categories and curated. Even when I found myself in "curation jail" I was still able to keep the momentum going and build all three niches.
It was overwhelming at times and required me to more than triple my posts output but now I have three topics in which I write, consistently, as opposed to my less structured attempts at writing frequently but in many topics.
Now these other articles outside my three niches go into my own publication. I appear to still be in curation jail but my publication followers have grown from… few months alone!
As you suggested too, I am utilizing letters in addition to the email marketing system.
I just wanted to say thank you so much for the advice! It changed my whole life and writing strategy on Medium!
Although I don't want to post this post publicly (because I am worried of people directly ripping off my content and I am trying to get out of curator jail) I thought you might be interesting adding some of these screenshots to your articles on earnings.
I know those screenshots helped me start writing on Medium so I think it's the least I could do.
This writer’s results are not typical (and far exceed even my own success on Medium!) but their strategy is something worth elaborating on.
The core of this Medium writing strategy is:
Find and aggressively pursue 3-4 niches on Medium.
Publish regularly in those niches.
Forgo short term follower growth, and build a back catalogue of content in each area.
Automate your article promotion using an Email Marketing System (I had previously suggested Mailchimp to this writer, but that was mostly due to the fact that it was one of the few I had personally used—there are many more options).
Identify your target audiences, and make sure you differentiate content, CTAs, email sign ups, etc. to best meet the needs of each group.
While you most likely will not earn $3K+ per month, you can replicate this strategy.
A few key points the author omitted (either unintentionally or due to privacy):
Although they did not provide a breakdown of their article earnings, they did seem to have had two “viral articles” which, based on my knowledge of Medium claps, followers, and views, I would guess account for 40% of this writer’s monthly earnings. Still, even if you exclude these two articles, $1,500 is fantastic for a diverse range of articles.
The writer does a great job subtly but effectively promoting their articles on Twitter (they use Signal or other similar tools to automate article promotion).
The writer completely revised their writer profile on Medium (which I’m assuming was holding them back before, as it was terrible relative to the quality of their writing).
I am always happy to hear about writers succeeding. But the real takeaway (in my mind) from this person’s success story is to develop a Medium writing strategy that is manageable and stick to it every day without fail. It can be easy to stop pursuing a strategy when you see your followers plateau (or even drop) due to a change in course.
This does not mean your strategy isn’t necessarily working—it may just be the beginning of a new upward trend that you will only realize if you push through the first few months. Very few writers have this resilience.
I hope you found this article and writer account useful! I know I did, and it was a reminder to myself that I need to stick to my own strategies every single day (practice what you preach!).
Until next time!
Casey
For more Medium writing tips, tricks, and the latest platform updates, sign up for the Medium Blogging Guide Newsletter. Get exclusive Medium writer content sent straight to your inbox!
