Photo by Carlos Muza on Unsplash

I have been waiting for it to happen, the day when the first full month on Medium showed up on its own, and the second month was completely full as well. I published my first Medium piece on April 4, 2019, Affirmations of My Shadow Self. My first-month statistics look like this

first-month Medium Stats- a bit of a sputtering start, my first payment was about a buck and a half.

The 2nd month

last payment put me in the black with Medium, at just over $20 for the month

How I Moved Up

So far, I am pretty satisfied with the progress I have made on Medium, but it did take some work outside of writing. Here’s what I did.

I Started Writing With More Focus

My first goal with joining Medium was to have a place where I could share my writing that was in my own name and that I cared about. I am a freelance content writer, which means I write webpage and blog content for other businesses mostly via online content mills. While getting paid a specific amount for a specific article is nice in many ways, it has become less fulfilling as my commitment to my personal writing fell by the wayside. I needed a way to rejuvenate that commitment and bring my creative skill level back up to where it once was. I am getting there, with the help of Medium.

My earliest posts have a more “thinking out loud” quality to them, but they have led me to seek out answers to the puzzle that is myself. I was diagnosed with ADHD several years ago, but still as a middle-aged person. My research led me to information that there are many facets of the condition that I never explored, and by exploring them, I can discover more about myself, and hopefully publish work that can impact other people’s lives who either have similar experiences or know people that do. I try to keep a balance between ADHD related content with other mental health content, as well as poetry, fiction, and other personal experience work. I have 8 active pieces written in April. In May there was 28. Writing more makes for more exposure, and more practice.

I Expanded Social Media Marketing

When I started, my promotion was to Tweet and share on Facebook with my existing accounts, but not in any groups. I joined a few specific Facebook groups, including Medium Partner Program Friends, Medium Poets, Medium New Writers, and Medium Bloggers and Writers. I also activated my old LinkedIn and Reddit Accounts, as well as my Twitter. Medium Facebook groups have helped the most, especially Medium Partner Program Friends — although they all help. Different discussion threads focus on different areas, such as exploring a specific topic, or reboosting older posts that may have failed to gain traction for one reason or another. Social media is not something that comes naturally to me. I tend to be a fly on the wall, and I have had to learn to buzz without being swatted. I’m a work in progress.

Exploring Medium Publications and Building a Following

I also was not part of any publications at first, so submitting meant submitting to “no publication,” which hampered distribution. Right now, I technically am a writer or editor for 12 different publications on Medium. Publications lend an extra focus to your work, and allow for greater visibility, even when your work is not curated. It is possible to be featured in a publication, even if you are not curated.

Non-curated work goes to your followers and to an extent the others who are included in the same publications. Getting curated is a mystery to many on Medium, including myself. When and if it happens, I will welcome it, but more than anything I am here to write my way and find the people who can benefit from and enjoy my work. I’m not ready to try and purposely slant anything to impress the curators. Whether a piece is curated or not it is distributed to followers, so those are the people I aim to impress.

Currently, I have 286 followers. Like everyone else, I started with one. Some followers I gain from following someone else. I look specifically at publications I write for or would like to write for and follow people whose work I have read and enjoyed. I have highlighted and commented on other people’s work, and of course, clapped for pieces I enjoy. This will often lead to follows, and I frequently follow back.

Reviewing the Main Stats

Having stats available is a helpful tool for trying to improve on Medium. The primary ones shown are views, reads, and fans. In a month’s time my views have gone up by a little more than four times, from 356 to 1496; my reads are up just under that, from 299 to 1133, and my fans — people who have clapped for my work, is up from 39 times in my first month to 238 people in the second — more than six times more. In June, I would like my stats, and earnings to at least double, and I have a goal to publish at least 50 pieces.

There is room for improvement. I can engage more in social media platforms. Eventually, I would like to develop an outside Medium blog where I have traffic moving both ways. Email lists are also common with some of the more successful writers, but I’m not sure if I am ready to keep up with that just yet. Actual success on Medium does take work. There’s a lot of fun involved and a lot of self-reflection, which can be a very good thing, regardless of profit.