Actually, I want to help my friends. I’m just tired of the complaints.

I think it’s prudent to give this effort one more shot.

“I joined Medium like you advised and I haven’t earned a damn penny,” I’ve heard more than once. Or, “So I’m doing that Medium thing. I write an article a day and I’ve earned 30 cents over three months.” Or, “Where is all this freelance potential you’re talking about?”

Read On.

The 100% Fool-Proof Formula

Without further ado …

Do what you must to earn a minimum of $1.00 per written article per month. $1.00 per month. Is this not a reasonable goal? Then, match your writing output to the amount of money you want to earn.

That’s it. That’s the formula.

I can hear my friends now. “Clickbait! You shared nothing!”

I’ve shared everything.

Consider this: What will it take for you to earn $1.00 per month, per article?

That’s the rub. If you truly want to earn the money and set your goal to $1.00 per month per article — which is not only a completely realistic result but insulting to Medium regulars who earn considerably more — you will need to do only two things: 1) You need to write, and 2) You need to maximize your social media to most effectively exploit your output.

Translated: You need to do the work. No one will do it for you.

“But I Have No Time”

That is nothing less than the oldest excuse in the book. Pardon the cliche.

I have a question for you. What do Bill Gates, J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, Taylor Swift and Stephen Spielberg have in common? “They’re all rich” is not the answer I’m going for.

This is: They have the same 24 hours in a day as you do.

You need to plan your writing time around those 24 hours. There is no other way. Write Medium articles on your phone, if need be. Wake up an hour earlier. Go to sleep an hour later.

Whatever it takes.

Period.

The Writing Component

Let’s say you want to earn $30 per month. Write 30 articles. You want $90 per month? Write three articles daily, each month. Adjust in the shorter month of February, and take a day off in any 31-day month. Personally, I would suggest taking Day 31 off, as opposed to earlier, so you don’t fall behind. But that’s your call.

Your monthly writing is complete. Check your Medium Partner Program numbers daily, and at the end of the month go and buy a new stock, pay a bill, or treat yourself to a night on the town. You deserve it.

Organic Growth

Here’s what happens when you write for bulk: The law of averages will tilt in your favor and one or more of your articles may either go viral, or become an unexpected hit. In either event, you will earn considerably more than $1.00 for those articles. As your work becomes curated, you will be exposed to a larger audience. If you submit your work to publications and you are accepted, ditto.

The goal you set for yourself is a minimum threshold only. Watch your hits and earnings grow in direct proportion to your discipline.

Social Maximization

The method to exponentially increase your numbers is simple. We’ll call it, for the purpose of this article, “Social Maximization”:

Build up your social media daily. Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, news.ycombinator.com, Medium. Join groups. Share your Medium posts for attention and followers. Consider posting the occasional new story first on a content aggregator outside of the Medium platform, such as vocal.media. Earn money on the Vocal platform for the article, and then share it to Medium. You will earn on both platforms. (Vocal.media is a site that can also earn you a nice passive income monthly. In effect, by sharing Vocal articles on the Medium platform — you cannot do it the other way as Vocal only accepts originals — you are double-dipping. As both sites pay, your income only increases.) Share your Medium story with all of your social media accounts. Find any other outlets that accept articles, and share there too. Make sure, in all cases, you are linking back to the original article source. “Re-fashion” and/or expand old Facebook posts as new articles. Do all of the above, watch your numbers, and continue to write still more articles. Refresh old Medium articles after a month or two by re-posting them on your social media. What may not have hit more than $1.00 in a month the first time, may well be “discovered” and go viral the second time around.

The Bottom Line

If you stay consistent, and you write to match your $1.00 per article, per month goal, it is inevitable — assuming the quality of your writing — that you will earn far more than anticipated.

This past weekend, I added up the money I’ve earned on Medium over the past year, and it is not insubstantial. I am presently practicing what I am preaching, and couldn’t be happier.

Best of luck. Feel free to share this article, and always share your knowledge to help others who need it.

Including among your jealous friends.

P.S. No writer worth this or her salt wants to write 500+ word articles for $1.00 per month. There are many writers here who are earning thousands monthly. That’s the real goal. This is how it all starts.

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