I Really Don’t Give a Crap About How Much Money I Make on Medium

But I still wonder how some people make money and some don’t

Image by emilie767 from Pixabay

This isn’t another article bitching about how much money I didn’t make writing on Medium or begging for help to improve my earnings. It’s more about me. I’m retired and I write because I want to and I write about what I want to and when I want to. I don’t need the money, but like anyone else, I can always use the extra buck or two. So basically I don’t give a shit how much money I make. As long as I make $5 to pay for my monthly membership fee I’m satisfied. Because I really don’t care I also don’t bust my balls writing article after article. So why am I writing this?

I earn about the same amount of money every month and as far as I can tell so far I will probably earn about the same under the new Medium Partner Program setup, with the same amount of effort. I’m not going to share that amount because I not competing with anyone and I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business. I’ve been brought up not to brag about what I have or how much money I make. That’s just me.

Like others, I sometimes feel dejected when I write what I think is a fabulous article and hardly anyone reads it and I end up earning $.01. I feel like giving up and I search for a reason to continue. I know it’s not the money driving me. So what is it? I started thinking about this after reading “It’s Official: I’m an A-Hole” by@Sherry McGuinn, one of my favorite writers. One sentence in particular sounds familiar, but I’m not sure why I of all people should say it. That sentence is “fuck it, what’s the point?” I can understand why people who are busting their collective asses to write good quality work and are only getting pennies for their endeavors may say this. But not someone like me.

I admit that I do not write as much and don’t read nearly as much as I did a year ago. When I write an article I don’t like waiting for what seems to me to be an eternity for it to be published. I also don’t like to fart around trying to find a publication that is the “perfect fit” for my awkward piece. So I publish most of my work on either The Partnered Pen, Rogues Gallery or my own Publication, Your Voice Counts. I don’t even give the big Medium publications a second thought. You can call me unprofessional, impatient or lazy, but that’s the way I am and I’m okay with that. I know I’m not going to get rich here. And that’s also okay with me.

As I said, I also don’t read as much as I used to. The reason I don’t read as much is that I can’t find anything worth reading. I don’t care much for poetry, with the exception of a few authors, such as Matthew Donnellon, Greg Prince, Jenny Justice, Jim Woods, and a few others. But there seems to be an influx of Haikus, which I pay little or no attention to. I have noticed that some people spit out Haikus like a machine gun spits out bullets. I guess I just don’t get the purpose of these, except for an attempt to make more money, penny by penny.

I receive a notification every time someone submits a draft for publication on one of the publications I write for and follow and lately I have observed that some people submit numerous articles a day. How do they do it? They must have to eat, sleep and use the bathroom. I’ve given up on reading a majority of these because they appear to me to be just verbal vomit, oft times merely regurgitating something that has already been published, either by them or another writer. I surmise that they have figured out the way to make more money under the new MPP is to publish more, more often.

There are a great many writers here whose work I do read and follow as their articles show that a great deal of thought and effort has been put into them. There are too many to mention all of them here, but I will name a few. James Finn is one whose writing I try to read as much as I can because his writings hit home to me, as a gay person. I also enjoy reading the works of my friend and first follower, Kitty Hannah Eden, as well as Natalie Frank, Ph.D. (Clinical Psychology)and Marley K. who writes some of the most meaningful and thought-provoking articles on Medium. There are many more writers I like to read, but I haven’t the room to add them all here. Sorry. Your absence here doesn’t mean I value you or your works and less.

I guess I will always not give a shit about how much money I make on Medium unless by some miracle my words go viral and I become a much sought after writer commanding thousands of dollars. But I guess I also will still check my stats and earnings and still be puzzled by how so many really good writers, with so much to say, who work so hard can make so little money, while others earn greater amounts of money by publishing a steady stream of diarrhetic nonsense. It just doesn’t seem fair but is there a better way?