Member-only story
How to Promote Your Work
In a word, don’t.
It does not translate into income, followers, or satisfaction. My most popular article by far did not make me much money for a good reason: views from social media don’t count as reads. The piece went viral on Reddit and other places, generating a lot of traffic from non-paying Medium readers who likely used it as one of their freebies.
I try to avoid writing about my own experience with the Payment Program as I think most of the ‘I Made $XXX in Three Hours’ articles are complete baloney. I could once say I made ten grand for eight hours of work writing my first book proposal. It would be true on the surface, but the reality is that I then had to write 80,000 words on a topic I really didn’t care about that much.
But it was a book deal so…
It’s important to understand that I am a former marketing person. I know how to promote. I know all the tools and media and see all the gimmicks. They make me want to puke. If I had to do that stuff to sell myself my soul would wither.
You know what makes me follow a writer? The writing. The perspective. The human behind the words.
I understand that many consider this a business
I do too. It is my profession. But, like that viral story I mentioned, simple metrics like Views can be misleading. If you write here you need to dig deeper into what resonates. My favorite metric is Reading Time. Are people reading my articles through to the end? It is hard to tell, but if those minutes add up, they comfort my writer soul and add to my bank account.
Here is something interesting. I average around $25 bucks for a thousand views by paying Medium members. That viral article made less than $2 per thousand. I looked at one competitor site that bragged that they guaranteed $6/1000, like that was real money.
But these comparisons and numbers cannot be the reason you write. Don’t write to sell ‘Get Rich Writing’ courses. Or life coaching. You want to know how to get rich writing?
First, be a really great writer, one whose stories draw readers in, right until the end. You know, Stephen King. Then marry someone wealthy.
