How I Earned Over $100 on My First Month on Medium

A (very) long in-depth analysis of my failures and successes over the past 30 days

Hi friends,

Throughout this month, I’ve had moments when I dreaded this day, while on others I couldn’t wait to get here to tell you my story. I’ve told you before how I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get to $100 in a month—and to make matters worse, I later found out only 9% of Medium writers made it past it.

Yet, despite a somewhat slow start, I started picking up speed and my earnings started increasing substantially. I set out to earn $3.33 per day, and my current daily average is $5.10—not bad.

I published an article today covering the main steps I took, and how each of them worked out for me. You can read it here.

5 Steps to Earn $100 in November

1. Create an Editorial Calendar: I abandoned my midway;

2. Write Every Day: Achieve and helped me accept this as a real job;

3. Aim For Curation: I did, and it paid off, for the most part;

4. Write for Publications: I published with Better Marketing and Live Your Life On Purpose, and all my articles with them were curated;

5. Apply Basic SEO: I still suck at it.

Those are the main steps, but also:

1. Promoting in Facebook Groups;

2. Promoting in Twitter, LinkedIn, and ManyStories;

3. Analyzing progress and identifying trends;

4. Started my publication;

5. Started a newsletter;

6. Started a Facebook Group;

7. Taking time to provide value, by answering questions, leaving thoughtful responses on articles, and replying to all the responses I receive.

But before we go into details, it’s time for the weekly stats check-in.

A Look Into Medium Stats

As per my last update, my daily views record was still at 230 views, and I was averaging 102 views per day. Today I’m proud to tell you I broke my record, and it now sits at 361 views!

My new goal is to get 200 views or more, as today will be the 9th day in a row I’ll achieve that—usually if I’m able to maintain it for 7 days straight, I raise my goals.

I had 1,678 new views over the past week, and 224 new fans; these are my highest numbers in a week, so I’m happy. I was also pleasantly surprised a few mornings ago when I woke up and saw I became a Top Writer in Writing and Productivity—that was the last Medium achievement I hadn’t gotten yet.

Truth be told, I have no clue how this happened; this is what Medium told me:

I’m not sure if it has to do with the number of views, fans, reads, or the phases of the moon. Like most Medium systems, this, too, is a mystery. For now, I’m just really happy I got it, and I’ll try to keep it for as long as I can while trying to achieve others: I’m aiming for Advice, Entrepreneurship, and Television next.

What Really Worked for Me in November

Several elements contributed to my success: some had to do with luck, others with skills. Mostly, and I cannot stress this enough, I succeeded because I was consistent, and I worked really hard to stay on track, no matter what.

When challenging yourself to reach for goals you never could before, it is your responsibility to take care of you—this means knowing when to rest, to work harder, to motivate, to entertain, to inspire, to be responsible.

A lot of people fail to become solopreneurs because they expect for mystical forces to motivate them to work, to inspire them to write, to bring them success when they want it. It just doesn’t work that way.

The moment you decide to be a solopreneur, you need to understand this is your job, and just like every job, you have to show up, you have to perform, and you have to do it well.

Some will say, but I decided to write online so I could have joy in my life; if this starts feeling like a job, then I won’t like it anymore. Well, friend, that probably means this isn’t for you, because the truth is, you can enjoy your job, and you can even love it.

That’s how this journey has felt to me: yes, it’s a job, and I’m fully aware of it, but it’s a job I love, and I’m enjoying it every single day, even when I’m doubting myself. This is a job I jump out of the bed for at 6 AM every day, and I do first thing in the morning because I just can’t wait to do it.

This works for me because I made it work. I know myself, I know what motivates me, what keeps me going when things get tough. I know when I should work harder, and I know when I need to stop and rest, without beating myself up over it.

I love reaching targets—if I don’t know what I’m working for, I quickly lose interest,—and since I spend most of the day alone, and figuring things out by myself, I needed a lot of targets:

• Daily posting

• Daily views

• Minutes read

• Daily earnings

• Weekly earnings

• Monthly earning

I haven’t dared the set goals for followers or group members, as this is something that I feel is out of my control; and if it isn’t, I’m not sure how to influence it, at the moment. Everything else, though, was in my hands.

Daily Posting

If any of you follow me closely, you’ll know I didn’t publish every single day, and I didn’t do it for two reasons: publications and my mood.

I’ve been dealing with some issues with my previous employer for most of the month, and this tension has definitely had an impact on my ability to write. Fortunately, it should come to an end on Monday, and then I’ll be free.

As for publications, there’s not much I can do. Usually, I’m only able to write on post per day, so if I decide to submit a story to a publication, it means I’ll go one or two days without anything new.

As I mostly worked with Better Marketing and Live Your Life On Purpose, I got used to their flow and I was able to accommodate sometimes. Other publications, like Mind Cafe and The Ascent, take crazy amounts of time to get back to you, so you mostly give up.

This month, I intend to start working more with The Writing Cooperative and The Startup, as I’ve been accepted as a writer. I spent a lot of time writing about marketing in November, and I think now I want to focus on writing about writing.

Here are the numbers:

• Published on 22 days;

• 24 stories published;

• 7 stories curated;

• 9 stories about Medium;

• 4 articles with Better Marketing;

• 1 story with Live You Life On Purpose;

• 1 with The Startup.

As successful as it is to write about Medium, I want to try to reduce my Medium posts to 1-2 per week, as these aren’t considered for curation. Not all my curated articles were super successful, either; headlines are very important, and I feel I’m only starting to grasp it now.

Daily Views

When I started, I didn’t have any targets, other than earning $100 in November—20 views in a day was quite an achievement, back then. As I started to publish frequently, I started seeing my views increase day by day.

At the end of October, I had a curated article that brought in 88 views in one day; that was my target to beat. I studied that one article, tried to replicate it, and I failed. And for a whole week, I couldn’t go above 68 views.

I didn’t know what to do, and I was starting to feel demotivated. I joined a bunch of Facebook Groups and tried to share my articles wherever I could. I started doubting myself, wondering if I could really make a living out of writing for Medium.

I started experimenting with SEO and trying to write for search engines, but that failed, too. It got to a point where I woke up, and I just didn’t want to write. As I’ve been trying to rewire my brain into accepting discipline over motivation, I forced myself to write about not wanting to write.

Much to my surprise, that article was curated; and so was my guide to promoting a self-published book, published by Better Marketing on the same day.

Feeling pumped, and having a better understanding of what was curated, based on my 3 articles, I wrote my next article with curation in mind. It was published by Better Marketing, it was curated in 3 topics, and it’s my second most profitable article for the whole month, earning me $21.80 to date.

After that, my views spiked to 230 and they haven’t gone below 106 ever since. Following that article, I set my daily target to 100 views per day, until I published my guide on How to Start a Newsletter on Substack, also with Better Marketing.

This is my only article ranking #1 in Google with various keywords, and since it’s published, my views didn’t go below 165, so I had a new target of 150 views per day. I achieved a new milestone when I published my article about Medium Curation, and now I’m aiming to reach 200 views every day. Hopefully, by the end of the year, I’ll be aiming for 500.

Minutes Read

This is a somewhat recent goal I set when I noticed I started having consistent results on my publication. For most of the month, I was able to reach, at least, 60 minutes read on my publication every day.

Recently, I noticed I started having higher read times so I decided to challenge myself to achieve, at least, 90 minutes. Unlike the view count, for this to work, I need to get people to read articles in my publication.

So far I found that the best way to achieve that is to feature a story from my publication on my Medium profile. Other than that, only by answering people’s questions and offering my articles as a solution.

By the end of the year, I hope to be reaching 120 minutes per day consistently.

Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Earnings

This is nothing but one goal split into smaller milestones—reaching $100 sounds like hard work, but $3.33 feels a lot more doable, right? I had read writers reporting they were earning 50 cents from each article so I figured I needed 7 articles to achieve my goals.

My first week didn’t go so well, as I mentioned before, and my earnings weren’t the most motivating either, as you can see below. The column on the left includes the total values for each week.

The common element between all my goals is that I aimed for minimum numbers, rather than trying to reach for the stars. While this approach has been working for me, I can’t help but wonder if I would’ve been able to achieve higher numbers if I had set my sights higher.

For the upcoming month, I plan on earning $300, which means I’ll be aiming to earn $9.68 per day and around $75 per week. Looking at the numbers above, these goals feel scary, but one month ago I wasn’t even earning above $0.30 per day, and somehow I managed.

Weekly Analysis and Knowledge Sharing

Today, I’ll advise you to do something I’ve only started pushing myself to do: reading other people’s articles and leaving responses. I don’t mean a response like, great tips, thanks!, or, I completely agree with you, keep up the great work. If that’s what you’re going to write, don’t bother, then.

I do not encourage you to leave fake responses, either. You should look for stories within your niche you truly care about and you have something to add. I’ve seen it this week: a well-thought-out response can lead to more views and more followers—one of my responses got over 200 views this week, and I got around 50 followers.

I have a hard time leaving responses because I mostly read about tv shows, anime, superheroes, and such, which are completely out of my niche. I browsed Medium and I couldn’t find anything that interests me.

As it usually goes in life, I changed my perspective and now it comes more easily. You see, I was focused on finding articles I could learn from. Now, I look for articles on topics I’m knowledgeable so I can present my point of view to the author, and their readers.

A few things can happen: the author will appreciate your input which will lead to a healthy discussion, or the author will feel the need to protect their work, and they will ignore you—I’ve had both reactions.

I sometimes feel we tend to judge others a bit too quickly, and we end up forgetting everyone is just trying to make it the best way they can. I’ve seen, and felt, Medium Influencers disregarding certain people either because they don’t pay for certain products and services, or because they achieve too much success too quickly.

I’ve seen in Facebook Groups, people shaming others because they’re not paying Medium members, and refusing to share friend links to their articles so that everyone can learn. Guess what: all you have to do is paste the link in private session in your browser, and you bypass all restrictions.

I did it for the entire month of October because I couldn’t afford the $5, regardless of how little you, Medium, and the rest of the world thought it was. Most of us got into writing because we wanted to help others, and help make the world be a better place—don’t forget your roots, and don’t lose sight of your mission over how much money you’re making today.

Now, since this is the last newsletter of the month, I’ll be sharing all my articles, including friend links, as well as their stats, as they are today. I hope you get something out of it.

1. I’m Going to Earn $100 in November and You Can, Too! Follow These 5 Steps
   Views: 194 / Read ratio: 43% / Earnings: $7.46

2. How to Setup a Dream Buddy System to Help You Succeed as a Solopreneur
   Views: 36 / Read ratio: 47% / Earnings: $0.97

3. A Comprehensive Guide to Medium Publications
   Views: 198 / Read ratio: 34% / Earnings: $10.57

4. How to Make Money on Medium
   Views: 100 / Read ratio: 54% / Earnings: $3.81

5. How to Promote a Self-Published Book Using Social Media and Online Communities
   Views: 218 / Read ratio: 36% / Earnings: $4.87

6. What to Write About When You Don’t Feel Like It
   Views: 191 / Read ratio: 43% / Earnings: $3.79

7. If You’re a Solopreneur, Here’s How to Start Your Email List Today
   Views: 719 / Read ratio: 45% / Earnings: $21.80

8. I Bought My First Facebook Ad. Here’s What Happened
   Views: 58 / Read ratio: 45% / Earnings: $1.53

9. Why I Always Give 50 Claps and You Should, Too
   Views: 33 / Read ratio: 55% / Earnings: $1.14

10. I Refused to Grow an Email List, Just Like You. Here’s What I Learned
    Views: 429 / Read ratio: 45% / Earnings: $22.60

11. How to Use Spreadsheets to Track Your Performance on Medium
    Views: 70 / Read ratio: 36% / Earnings: $2.67

12. How to Start a Newsletter on Substack
    Views: 367 / Read ratio: 44% / Earnings: $12.16

13. Road to $100: Did I Hit $50 Yet?
    Views: 103 / Read ratio: 40% / Earnings: $4.60

14. How to Use Facebook to Grow an Email List
    Views: 57 / Read ratio: 56% / Earnings: $2.05

15. How to Combine Two Headline Tools to Catch All Flaws in Your Titles
    Views: 156 / Read ratio: 35% / Earnings: $4.02

16. You’re Looking at the 10-Year Challenge the Wrong Way
    Views: 37 / Read ratio: 35% / Earnings: $0.22

17. Understanding Medium Curation
    Views: 196 / Read ratio: 44% / Earnings: $13.48

18. How to Seduce Your Audience to Join Your Email List
    Views: 100 / Read ratio: 51% / Earnings: $4.86

19. Forget About Failing and Succeeding, You Need to Focus on Progress
    Views: 28 / Read ratio: 43% / Earnings: $0.13

20. How to Build a Network of Content That Hooks Your Readers for Hours
    Views: 150 / Read ratio: 50% / Earnings: $4.93

21. 3 Simple Outreach Methods You Can Use Today to Boost Your Viewership
    Views: 38 / Read ratio: 50% / Earnings: $0.95

22. An Open Letter to Medium on Curation and Feedback
    Views: 222 / Read ratio: 57% / Earnings: $10.58

23. If You Want Quality Fans, You Need to Be Authentic in Your Engagement Strategies
    Views: 81 / Read ratio: 53% / Earnings: $1.78

24. I Earned $100 in November Following 5 Steps. Now I’m Going for $300 in December
    Views: 68 / Read ratio: 54% / Earnings: N/A

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If any of you would like additional details, help, support, or feedback, feel free to reach out to me, or join our community. You can also reply to this email with your feedback on this newsletter—what do you like, what do you hate, and so on.

Thank you for being a part of my journey for the past month; may December be a smashing success for all of us!

Have a great weekend, and I'll be back next week ✌️

— Mauro