What I Discovered from Writing, Publishing & Selling on the Platform

Questioning easy methods to use Medium and easy methods to make cash on Medium? You’ve landed on the proper place.

I began writing on Medium in 2016 when running a blog was my pastime. Just a few months later, I spotted the financial potential of this running a blog platform, and it’s confirmed to be a terrific begin for my writing profession.

Though I ditched Medium years in the past to solely deal with my weblog, it’s nonetheless among the finest running a blog platforms to make cash in 2024 — particularly for the budding writers.

On this information, I’ll present you the most effective methods to make cash on Medium, easy methods to successfully use Medium, and what I’ve discovered within the years utilizing the platform.

Right here’s what this information covers:

Widespread subjects on Medium vary from psychological well being to social media, from world affairs and trending information to productiveness hacks. This makes it a strong selection for anybody who needs to start out running a blog.

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As Medium founder (and Blogger creator/Twitter co-founder) Ev Williams wrote when he launched the platform in 2012: “Medium is not about who you are or whom you know, but about what you have to say.”

How does Medium work?

The very first thing you may discover on the Medium web site is its web site design.

As former HubSpot Senior Content material Strategist Erik Devaney says, “It’s minimalistic, featuring lots of white space and limited formatting options. Want to change the header typeface to Comic Sans? You can’t. Medium won’t allow for such atrocities of design.”

This determination makes nice writing the main focus. However that is simply considered one of many nuances of Medium.

Medium is for 2 varieties of folks — writers and readers — who’re targeted on on-line content material publishing. Once I began my profession in content material writing and technique, I wasn‘t positive what that meant.

I found Medium as a result of I used to be making an attempt to determine the place to construct my writing portfolio. I’d heard Medium was a good selection, however the first time I signed up, I wasn’t positive easy methods to use it.

When you‘re just getting started on the platform, there’s a good quantity to study earlier than you hit publish. Let’s get into it.

High quality Results in Discovery

Many writers go years with out sharing their writing publicly. However when you resolve to turn into a author, whether or not you are ending a primary novel or writing content material for manufacturers, it is advisable to discover a approach to share your expertise.

Medium is nice for writers who make investments time and power of their work. It rewards in-depth, well-researched, and helpful articles, not simply reputation or model consciousness.

Platform-Enabled Reader Engagement

Feedback and likes are fashionable in on-line media. However whenever you‘re new to writing, it’s useful to know precisely what individuals are responding to and why.

To satisfy this want, Medium offers readers an opportunity to focus on and remark instantly inside the textual content of every article. This course of is like the best way skilled editors have interaction with writers.

Curation and Publications

Medium has curators who evaluate articles for high quality. If a curator chooses your article for wider distribution, it offers you an opportunity to introduce your content material to extra readers.

This may embrace highlighting your article on the platform, displaying your put up to readers they assume will need to learn it, or including it to subscriber emails.

Most curators are publication editors. A number of the hottest publications on Medium in 2023 embrace:

• The Startup.
• In direction of Knowledge Science.
• Private Progress.
• UX Collective.
• The Writing Cooperative.

Medium’s curation and publication fashions aren’t simply nice for writers. In addition they give avid readers and followers an opportunity to assist their favourite writers.

Paid Alternatives

Medium additionally offers writers the possibility to earn cash with their tales. As a member of the Accomplice Program, you may put tales behind a paywall to earn revenue.

On this program, you may enhance earnings with repeat readers, engagement alerts, and extra.

Writing for Medium

Anybody who has a Medium account can write for Medium — there isn’t any different vetting course of concerned.

To get began, merely join a free Medium account (or improve to a $5/month membership for limitless entry), and also you’re prepared to start out writing from there.

It’s vital to know that articles should adhere to Medium‘s content guidelines and rules. For instance, as a writer I can’t promote controversial or excessive content material on my Medium account. I can‘t do third-party advertising. And there’s a separate set of insurance policies if I need to write about cryptocurrencies.

Internet affiliate marketing hyperlinks are allowed, however writers should inform their viewers that they are together with these hyperlinks. For the complete listing of guidelines for content material, check out this put up on Medium Guidelines.

As a marketer, Medium presents a possibility so that you can attain a brand new viewers together with your content material. The platform is open, so some subjects lean towards sharing longer-form, extra well-thought-out content material, whereas others are brief and topic-focused.

On this manner, Medium is like advertising and marketing on many different channels, as a result of success in writing for Medium is not nearly nice writing. It takes some analysis into audiences and publications in a selected space of curiosity. So, what makes Medium a terrific channel for writers?

Within the subsequent part, I’m going to get into the subject above, and discuss how I selected between Medium and WordPress.

Medium vs. WordPress

This put up affords an distinctive breakdown of WordPress vs. Medium for pricing, running a blog, and search engine optimisation from a enterprise perspective. So, I need to use this area to share my private expertise with the 2 platforms.

How I’ve Used WordPress as a Content material Author

I labored with a designer to construct my private web site on WordPress and constructed a separate aspect mission by myself with Elementor.

I‘ve also used WordPress professionally as a content manager and freelance writer. Altogether, I’ve been utilizing the platform for six+ years to create and promote content material.

WordPress is a wonderful platform for sharing content material on-line inexpensively. It additionally makes it simple so as to add plugins, options, and instruments to attach my websites to different related channels, like social media feeds or fee gateways.

I like WordPress as a content material author as a result of it lets me run impartial websites on-line that I can use to check concepts earlier than broadly broadcasting them.

That stated, it took years of studying about SEO (search engine optimisation) to start producing site visitors on my private websites.

With the speedy latest adjustments in search engine optimisation, I have been investing extra time in researching social channels for advertising and marketing and promotion.

How I’ve Used Medium as a Content material Author

As you may see above, I selected to go along with WordPress for my portfolio. However, I began utilizing Medium once I was managing content material for a small ecommerce startup.

I used to be on the lookout for efficient methods to advertise content material for our weblog. I needed a channel that would assist broaden the affect of the superb writers on my workforce. So, we began with Medium.

I requested writers on my three-person workforce to write down an authentic piece for Medium as soon as a month along with their scheduled weblog assignments.

Whereas some posts sat on our model’s Medium web page with out a lot traction, just a few grabbed invaluable consideration. Particularly, we had essentially the most success with posts that we submitted to fashionable publications on the location.

For instance, I submitted this put up about Ecommerce Easter Eggs to the Advertising and marketing and Entrepreneurship publication curated by Larry Kim, and Bryce Patterson submitted this piece on the content material writing course of to the publication The Writing Cooperative.

These publications have devoted audiences, which helped us present our writing to extra folks and construct followers for our branded Medium account.

WordPress vs. Medium — which is best for you?

Whereas these are each glorious platforms to showcase writing, they’re fairly completely different. I exploit each platforms, however I spend extra time on WordPress due to my targets as a creator.

However many writers will discover that Medium is the most effective platform for them due to its deal with author discovery, monetization, and community-building.

At this level, it’s possible you’ll be able to strive utilizing Medium. Let’s take step one.

Getting Began With Medium

1. Create an account.

Anybody can view free Medium content material. However to publish and work together with people on the platform, it is advisable to have an account and log in.

So, step one is creating an account. Signing up was tremendous simple for me.

I headed to Medium.com and clicked the “Get started” button on the prime of the web page. From there I had three completely different sign-up choices to select from: Google, Fb, or electronic mail.

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I used my Gmail account to create an account first, which was tremendous quick and easy. They even made including my identify to my profile simple, as a result of it auto-filled based mostly on my electronic mail.

I additionally arrange a separate account, this time signing up with electronic mail. All I wanted to do was click on a hyperlink in my electronic mail to finish setup, and the method was in any other case the identical.

Throughout sign-up, it helped to keep in mind that Medium is a component social media. It‘s not just a platform to write blogs, it’s an area to share, remark, and curate content material inside a group.

So, I felt like some elements of the sign-up, like selecting subjects, felt extra like signing up for Twitter (X) or Pinterest than creating an account on a running a blog platform.

I like holding my running a blog and social media accounts separate, however Erik Devaney recommends signing up for Medium utilizing Fb.

He says, “That way all of your existing connections from Facebook who are on Medium will automatically be following your account once it’s created. This saves you the trouble of having to build up a new audience entirely from scratch.”

No matter what you go along with to start out, you may all the time hyperlink your Twitter (X), Mastodon, or Fb to your Medium account later within the “Security and apps” tab within the Settings menu.

The Settings menu can also be the place you may replace your username, profile web page URL, profile design, and extra. You too can management what electronic mail notifications you obtain from Medium on this menu.

To finish my profile, I added a photograph and wrote up a brief (160-character max) bio for my Medium profile web page.

I exploit the identical bio throughout my social media accounts, so I simply copied and pasted this from my Instagram account, emojis and all.

2. Observe folks, publications, and subjects.

In a Medium feed, the content material that‘s surfaced comes not solely from the accounts of the folks and organizations you comply with but additionally from publications and tags.

What’s extra, when trying to find content material on Medium, folks, publications, and subjects all present up within the outcomes.

Individuals

First, determine who you need to comply with. Whose writing do you need to learn? Who’s making content material you may study from as you start your new writing journey?

There‘s a wide variety of writers on the platform, and I’m desirous about slightly little bit of all the pieces, so this step was fast to finish.

Whether or not you are desirous about politics or people-watching, laptop science or world journey, you are prone to discover some writers you need to comply with too.

Publications

Medium publications are collections of tales based mostly round a typical theme. Anybody can create them — your self included — and the best way they work is pretty easy.

Because the creator of a publication, you are an editor by default. This implies you have got the flexibility to:

• Add writers to your publication.
• Edit and publish the tales submitted by your writers.
• Evaluation the metrics for all of the tales which might be a part of your publication.

Because the publication‘s creator, you’ll even have the flexibility to nominate new editors (to allow them to do all that stuff I simply talked about).

Making a publication is simple to do. First, I wanted to submit fee to turn into a Medium member.

Then, I clicked on my profile picture within the prime proper, and scrolled right down to “Manage publications.” A pop-up appeared, and I clicked “Create a new publication.”

This led to a brand new web page the place I wanted to enter data on the identify, description, social accounts, and subject for my publication. I additionally wanted pictures prepared so as to add an avatar and brand.

The avatar picture seems on featured pages round Medium, whereas the emblem picture seems on the homepage of the publication. You possibly can study picture sizes for these necessities and extra on this Medium put up.

As soon as I completed coming into this data, I had an opportunity to create a customized design for the house web page of my new publication.

This publication will give me an opportunity to not solely share my very own writing, but additionally join with different writers on the subjects I care about.

Subjects

As soon as referred to as “Tags,” Subjects are the hashtags of the Medium ecosystem. Once you publish a narrative on Medium, you get the choice so as to add as much as 5 subjects, which seem on the backside of your story.

So, once I click on a subject it brings me to a web page the place I can see extra tales with the identical subject. It additionally offers me recommendations for different subjects I is likely to be desirous about.

As an alternative of surfacing content material based mostly solely on the social graph (for instance, the folks/publications you comply with), Medium makes use of subjects to floor content material that is based mostly on particular pursuits.

For instance, this text from Beth Dunn, a latest Advertising and marketing Fellow at HubSpot, contains 5 subjects:

• Person expertise.
• UX writing.
• UX design.
• Inclusive design.
• Content material technique.

Following subjects like these may help personalize my Medium expertise and make it simpler for my readers to seek out extra of my content material.

Now that I‘ve set up an account, started following some accounts, built a publication, and followed some topics, let’s begin partaking with content material.

Tips on how to Work together With Medium Content material

1. Advocate, share, and bookmark content material.

Clapping arms are the “Like” of the Medium world. It is a approach to present that you just assist and admire the content material that somebody has shared.

When studying a narrative on Medium, you may assist it at each the highest and the underside of the particular story, the place you see the clapping hand image.

In both case, I simply click on on the clapping hand icon to assist a narrative. As soon as clicked, the arms will change from a top level view to strong black.

The primary time I supported a narrative, I by chance clicked the quantity beside the clapping arms icon. This was a cheerful accident as a result of it let me see the complete listing of people that really useful that story.

Notice: You possibly can clap as much as 50 occasions per put up, and you’ll clap for as many posts as you need.

Once you suggest a narrative, the author, by default, will obtain an electronic mail notification. (However that‘s one thing you may management in Settings). The extra assist a narrative receives, the extra possible it’s to be shared across the Medium community.

Tales that obtain essentially the most likes inside a given time interval get featured on Medium’s house web page.

In the identical two places the place you may suggest a narrative, you may also save, hearken to, or share that story.

To avoid wasting a narrative I needed to spend extra time studying, I clicked the bookmark icon, and it saved the story to my studying listing. I can even create particular studying lists on this a part of the platform.

To pay attention, I simply clicked the play icon, however if you wish to use this characteristic, it‘s good to know that it’s for members solely. Lastly, I shared the story by copying the hyperlink or sharing it on LinkedIn, Twitter (X), or Fb.

Once you bookmark a narrative, it should seem in your studying listing, which you’ll be able to entry out of your Medium profile web page or from the Medium homepage on the backside of the right-hand sidebar.

2. Spotlight particular phrases.

Now that I understand how to assist, share, and bookmark Medium tales, it is time to unlock a second degree of interplay. I do that by choosing sections of textual content with my cursor.

As soon as I spotlight some textual content, a pop-up menu will seem that offers me 4 choices:

Spotlight

Clicking the highlighter icon (highlighter image) places a inexperienced spotlight across the textual content I chosen. That is seen to my Medium followers. By default, a narrative’s author will get a notification when anybody highlights a piece of their tales.

Response

Clicking the speech bubble icon lets me write a response to the story I‘m reading. The section of text I’ve highlighted seems on the prime of my response. (Extra on responses in a second.)

Textual content Shot

Clicking the Twitter icon generates a “Text Shot,” which is a tweet that robotically pulls within the textual content I highlighted as a screenshot.

Personal Notice

Some tales may even present a lock icon in a speech bubble. Clicking this icon lets me ship the author a non-public observe. When you don‘t see this icon, it’s as a result of the creator has turned off non-public notes.

You possibly can select this on or off in your settings, however I selected to depart it on as a result of I learn that editors generally use non-public notes to supply suggestions to writers earlier than publishing.

3. Write responses

In contrast to conventional weblog feedback, Medium responses are handled as particular person tales. Moreover showing on the backside of the tales I reply to, I can even publish my responses to my profile web page.

That is useful for me as a result of it lets me have interaction with folks on the platform with out having to decide to writing a full-blown story. It additionally helps me provide you with weblog concepts or tales.

Medium’s method to responses offers feedback the potential to take off and get circulated similar to conventional tales.

A fast observe: Responses are engagement alerts on the Medium platform. And, responding is a tip that reveals up in lots of articles about easy methods to promote your writing on Medium.

For me, this makes it vital to reply genuinely. Whereas responses are a approach to enhance my visibility on the platform, I work to be considerate within the methods I assist and have interaction with the writers I reply to.

Tips on how to Write and Publish on Medium

1. Format textual content in your posts

Prepared to start out writing my first Medium put up, I click on “Write” on the prime right-hand nook of the Medium house web page. I can even get there by clicking on my profile icon on the top-right of the Medium web page after which scrolling to “Stories.”

I can create a brand new story by clicking the inexperienced “Write a story” button. That motion pulls up a display that is prepared for my content material that appears like this:

As Erik Devaney says, “Writing in Medium’s editor is highly intuitive and — from a stylistic perspective — nearly impossible to screw up.”

As common, it’s the writing that’s powerful, however a instrument may help with the main points. Once I write, I typically use a template, like considered one of these free weblog templates.

Then, I copy and paste my writing into my chosen publishing platform. Medium makes this step simple. It retains hyperlinks and different formatting from pasted textual content.

If I need to make a change to the textual content, All I’ve to do is spotlight a piece to disclose a number of primary format selections similar to daring, italics, or hyperlinking. It additionally lets me designate textual content as an H1 or as an H2 utilizing the large T or little t:

And I can select between two completely different kinds of block quotes —

Choice A:

Or Choice B:

If I actually need to get fancy, I exploit Medium’s drop caps perform.

Know these enlarged, stylized letters you generally see at the start of sentences? These are drop caps. In accordance with the Medium workforce, they’re helpful for “pacing, starting a new chapter, or just a little typographical delight.”

An alternative choice for creating some separation between completely different sections of a narrative in Medium is to make use of a separator. To insert one, I click on the little plus icon that seems on an empty line of a narrative:

Clicking that plus icon will open up a menu with six choices. The one on the far proper — the icon with the 2 little traces — is the separator.

This is what it appears to be like like on the web page:

Take a look at this story for extra formatting how-tos, similar to including inline code, mentions, or emojis.

2. Add pictures and media.

Including pictures, movies, and embeds to a Medium story might be so simple as copying and pasting URLs into Medium‘s editor. The editor, in most cases, can automatically recognize the media’s format and render it accordingly.

For instance, I need to add a pair movies to my in-progress put up. For the primary video, I simply copied and pasted the YouTube URL, after which clicked “Enter.”

Then I added a TikTok video by clicking the video icon that reveals up after clicking the plus icon. The ultimate consequence was the identical regardless of which steps I adopted.

You possibly can add a variety of media to your Medium story together with:

• Importing a picture out of your laptop.
• Including inventory photographs with Unsplash.
• Inserting a video with a URL.
• Inserting an embed code for authorized media.

There are additionally completely different measurement and orientation choices for displaying media.

For instance, the choices beneath appeared in a pop-up menu after I inserted my YouTube video. There are three selections for sizing a YouTube video on Medium:

3. Share drafts and publish posts.

Once I completed my story and was pleased with how all the pieces regarded, I headed as much as the highest navigation to decide on between two choices: “Publish” and an icon with three dots. The three dots spotlight a variety of selections for writers.

These embrace sending a draft hyperlink, checking the looks of the put up, unlisted publishing, and extra.

For instance, “Share draft link” generates a hyperlink to the draft of my story, which I can share with anybody — even when they do not have a Medium account. And the folks I share the draft with can even depart me notes.

Clicking the “Publish” button, in the meantime, opens a menu the place I can select as much as 5 subjects for my story.

It is a form of pre-publishing dashboard, with reminders so as to add a featured picture and a hyperlink to study extra about what occurs after publishing. I like that it additionally affords an opportunity to schedule my put up if I need to share it later.

It is also the place I hit the “Publish” button to share my story with the world.

4. Measure your outcomes.

I printed my first Medium story and I’m set to earn cash on the platform, however the impression I could make with Medium will depend upon how my tales carry out.

To see metrics for my Medium content material, I clicked my profile icon within the prime right-hand nook of the Medium homepage and scrolled right down to “Stats.”

Once I arrived on the “Stats” web page, I didn‘t see much (yet). But soon, I’ll see the mixture variety of views and claps my tales and responses have acquired over the previous 30 days.

There’s additionally a graph that gives day-by-day granularity, with particulars on follower counts and highlights.

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As I scrolled down the web page, I had the choice to click on on particular tales to view particular person stats. The Medium workforce can also be making adjustments to the Stats pages.

It appears to be like like most of those adjustments are for monitoring fee metrics or serving to writers tie fee to efficiency.

This is a fast rundown on what metrics Medium at the moment tracks:

• Claps — the variety of claps a narrative receives.
• Responses — the variety of responses a narrative receives.
• Lifetime earnings — the overall quantity a narrative has earned.
• Views — the quantity of people that visited a narrative’s web page.
• Reads — tracks when somebody views a narrative for 30 seconds or extra. Scrolling to the underside of the story was required however is not anymore. Views and reads for particular person tales reside on story element pages.
• Member learn ratio — tracks member reads divided by member views.

Fast observe: Member-only and non-member exercise is tracked individually in Stats.

Tips on how to Get Paid on Medium

Now that I‘ve gone through how to use Medium, I’m fascinated by easy methods to benefit from it. I’ve carried out some analysis and located just a few methods writers monetize with this platform.

Medium Accomplice Program

First off, there’s the Accomplice Program. If you wish to earn cash together with your tales, that is an thrilling approach to receives a commission on Medium.

The Medium Accomplice Program pays writers instantly every month. To receives a commission on Medium, you’ll first must turn into a paid Medium member. Then, it’s time to use for the Accomplice Program. The necessities for this are easy. That you must:

• Be a Paid Medium member ($4/month or $40/yr).
• Have printed at the very least one Medium story within the final six months.
• Be 18 years or older.
• Dwell in an eligible nation (right here’s the listing).

When you’re a part of the Accomplice Program, you may put new and already-published tales behind a paywall for premium members. Nevertheless, you’ll must earn just a few badges earlier than fully getting your articles behind a paywall.

Now, there are two methods to get your tales behind the paywall for premium readers:

• Complete learn time of the Medium article.
• Bonus earned when a non-member indicators up inside 30 days of studying your piece.

It makes use of engagement metrics to resolve how a lot you’ll receives a commission for every story, connecting what readers like to what you make from the platform as a author.

Nevertheless, the cash made by the Accomplice Program received’t suffice your wants. A overwhelming majority of writers earn as much as $100/month by the Accomplice program. Just a few attain the $1,000/month mark.

I’ve discovered this good information that can assist you calculate your earnings on Medium.

Crowdfunding

Whereas I‘ll be trying the Partner Program to earn on Medium, I’m additionally interested in different choices.

This can be a good approach to make cash on Medium you probably have a lot of followers on the platform and also you don’t want to turn into a paid member.

Even in the event you’re a paid member, you may ask your subscriber for a tip to your invaluable writing.

For instance, I arrange tipping by going to “Settings,” then “Publishing” and updating the settings underneath “Manage tipping on your stories.”

I can add a fee hyperlink, and I am going to be capable of obtain suggestions from readers. There are alternatives to make use of Patreon, PayPal, and different fashionable platforms.

Promotions

The hidden gem to earn cash by Medium is Internet affiliate marketing. When you’ve a big following or are adequate with search engine optimisation, affiliate internet marketing can become a profitable possibility.

Right here’s the way it works: You write a weblog mentioning the services or products. Subsequent, you’ll place the affiliate hyperlink inside the piece. When the readers study concerning the product by your weblog, they’ll be enticed to purchase it utilizing the hyperlink.

For each buy, the affiliate vendor pays you a fee. So, you probably have round 20,000 reads in a month and say, 2% of the readers have bought the product that pays you $70 in fee.

The whole seems to be $28,000 a month.

Properly, that’s an enormous sum of money to make!

Promoting Your Merchandise and Providers

I’ve seen a variety of companies, particularly educators promoting their programs on Medium. All of it begins with displaying that you’re educated concerning the topic and profitable your reader’s belief.

When you’ve a big engagement in your posts, it’s time to advertise your services or products on Medium. For instance, Jay Baer, the founding father of digital media Persuade & Convert has 55k followers on the platform.

Whereas his posts acquire large attraction from the readers, what I appreciated right here is his technique to include his service inside.

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Within the put up about optimizing for voice search, Jay contextually promotes his digital advertising and marketing service, providing providers to create your content material technique.

As soon as your artistic concepts are flowing, strive our weblog subject generator to assist construct out a pipeline of standout content material concepts to your viewers.

The Medium App

I journey steadily, so consuming and interacting with content material on the go is finest for me. For this, I am utilizing the Medium app. The app contains the identical tales and content material I can discover on my laptop computer, with the added bonus of a mobile-first interface.

On the app, I can floor content material associated to my pursuits. These curated lists depend upon the tags, publications, or authors I comply with.

I additionally use the app‘s Explore feature to find new, interesting content and to engage with fellow readers, joining conversations as they’re occurring.

I hoped I might begin drafts within the app, however no. That stated, I can verify story stats wherever I’m, which is useful.

Use Medium for Writing and Sharing Your Greatest Tales

Medium is a robust platform for writers and content material creators to share concepts, have interaction with readers, and even earn cash.

By following the steps I shared on this article, you may unlock the complete potential of Medium. So, begin writing and exploring the probabilities.

Your viewers is ready.

Editor’s observe: This put up was initially printed in August 2021 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.