Ten Observations About Money and Medium

I’m not obsessed. Really.

MartinEdic
4 min readJun 7, 2021

Photo by Ryan Quintal on Unsplash

I just happen to be interested in data and what it tells me so far. But until I had published over three hundred articles, I didn’t have enough to draw any conclusions. But even these observations are just speculation and rumor.

One: writers think too much about money

This one is simple. I wrote a piece complaining about the constant stream of get rich quick articles and the responses were universally in agreement with me. Readers want something interesting, provocative, or educational. And most are not writers.

Two: sharing on social media does not generate dollars

Why? Because readers on Facebook, Twitter, and others are unlikely to be paying Medium subscribers and they are the ones who pay the bill. This site is royalty-based in that articles keep earning as long as Medium readers read them, not visitors. If building a presence on social media is your goal, by all means share. But understand that 10k views from Reddit won’t add up to big bucks most of the time. When it happened to me I made a grand total of $2.00.

Three: this is how much a 1000 views should be earning

Create an account to read the full story.

The author made this story available to Medium members only.
If you’re new to Medium, create a new account to read this story on us.

Or, continue in mobile web

Already have an account? Sign in

MartinEdic
MartinEdic

Written by MartinEdic

Mastodon: @martinedic@md.dm, Writer, nine non-fiction books, two novels, Buddhist, train lover. Amateur cook, lover of life most of the time!

Responses (27)

What are your thoughts?

I can only speak for myself, but the writers I follow have something in common: they have a unique voice, attitude, and personality that builds over time.

Yes, and that's why the Medium in-house pubs failed. They were not unique in any way. We could have read that stuff in any magazine.
I follow people who have personality and interesting takes. I don't follow publications at all, only authors.

Good points, Martin. One way I’ve grown my audience is by reading and engaging with other writers here. The writers, I suspect, read more than anyone. If your comment has value, they are more likely to return the favor. Developing these relationships also exposes you to other writers’ followers. It’s a win win.

I am both a reader and writer. I’ve noticed the writers I followed when I first started reading, no longer show up in my feed. I must go look for them which is frustrating and time consuming. It would be better if it rotated including those I…...