You Can Do Everything Right and Still Have a Bad Month on Medium

But if you trust yourself, you shouldn’t give up

When I first started writing on Medium, I didn’t know what to expect. I had hopes, of course. I looked at people like Tim Denning, who wrote about making five figures with their writing, and then people like Shannon Ashley, who quit their job after six months of writing on this platform. But I had zero expectations. This helped me focus and keep on doing the only thing that matters on Medium, coming up with great content daily without being distracted and jealous of others.

All of this changed once I reached my first 1,000 followers.

Not only did I reach an important milestone, but I also made a good deal of money doing it. Earlier this year, an article about James Altucher, along with an article about Seth Godin, and two others about Medium went viral. Throughout the next three months, I enjoyed a good steady income. How much exactly is irrelevant. What matters is, I thought I nailed it. The quick success went to my head. “I figured this thing out,” I told myself proudly as if blogging was a video game.

But when I looked at my numbers this month, I saw my income get cut in half. “Shit.”

I know some articles say it’s easy to become a rich guy or gal on Medium. But it’s not all as simple as it looks.