Ever seen those little Facebook groups with all the Medium writers in them? I love them. I think many of them are run well, but if you pay attention, you can see just how fickle some Medium writers can actually be.

Take the new Medium changes, for example.

After Medium’s announcement, everybody and their mother flocked to these groups to voice their concerns.

Sometimes people were spending more time on Facebook worrying about the changes than they were actually writing.

It’s fine to spend 15-30 minutes per day in these Facebook groups to get strategy from great people like Oren Cohen at Medium Dreamers, but when you spend more time than that per day, you need to refocus on writing.

That’s my first tip to beginners.

Don’t Get Too Distracted In The Facebook Groups

Spend all the time you want in them, so long as you write. :)

Spend 30 Minutes Every Week Strategizing

Don’t forget to strategize!

Games have game plans. What would you do if your basketball coach said, “Whatever, let’s just go play,” before your first game?

That person needs to be fired.

You also need a strategy on Medium. You need to update your strategy weekly.

• What worked last week?
• What was on the trending list of Medium stories?
• What story did someone share in the Facebook group that really popped?
• Can you write a similar story with your own spin?

What publications did you write for? Did they win you a lot of views? Why didn’t this article do well? Why did this other article get over 100 views?

Think, think, and think.

If you want more data, all you have to do is publish more.

To succeed, you need to have a strategy on Medium. My advice to an absolute beginner would be to study the Medium greats, publish a ton, and try to understand Medium itself.

To do this properly, you must dedicate about 30 minutes per day to the platform outside of writing to understand it.

Don’t Expect $1,000 After Your First Story

High expectations suck.

Nothing makes people quit faster. I would suggest you basically accept that you’re only going to make about $20-$30 in your first month on Medium.

If you publish daily, that number could go up significantly, but if you’re most beginners and only publish twice per week, then expect $20, not $1,000.

Just don’t even look at the earnings tab.

Better yet..

Don’t Write For The Money

Write because you love it.

If you write for yourself first, the money will never matter. If you write for yourself first, that’s when the money will actually start coming.

If I earned nothing from my posts on Medium, I’d still publish here. Why? Because I love writing. I can’t stop myself from doing it.

The value I get parsing through my own thoughts and becoming more self-aware is worth more to me than the money. Way more. And if you’re looking at Medium as ONLY one big marketing strategy, you need to get off the platform.

You also need to look at it as a fun place to write.

Give Yourself Three Months

If you publish five times per week and do thirty minutes of Medium strategy every other day, there’s no reason you shouldn’t start seeing a couple hundred dollars per month on Medium after 90 days.

The most crucial part of this is to tweak your strategy. If your strategy at week 10 is the same strategy you had during week 1, there’s a problem. A big problem.

Folks seem to underestimate the exponential effect that growth can have. If you make $30 more in month 3 than month 1, that’s cause for celebration, because you damn well might hit $200 in month 4. You’re making progress.

I’ve seen articles of mine from months ago all of a sudden pop for no reason.

You’re not going to see a linear progression on Medium, you’re probably going to see an exponential one. You may make $10 per month until month 5 where you make $2,000 because an old article blew up.

Give yourself time.

Don’t Give Up On Your Old Articles

Just because nobody’s reading doesn’t mean what you wrote isn’t valuable, or good.

I’ve republished articles this year that got me 6,000 views back in 2017. Guess how many they got this time? Like 500.

I didn’t change a thing. They got 500 views. You know why? Because Medium used to be different back in the day, that’s why. It all depends on how much Medium promotes your articles across the platform.

Don’t give up, though. Your article could pop in a few months for no reason. Don’t give up.

It’s Going To Suck At First, Get Used To It

There’s no getting around the fact that success on Medium is going to take a while. It just is. If you’re complaining after 6 months that you haven’t gotten a lot of money and you’ve published every day then guess what?

Get used to it.

It’s 6 months, dude.

After 6 months of wrestling training I could barely fend off someone half my age and half my weight. 6 months of training in anything isn’t enough time to make significant money from it.

What makes you think writing on Medium is any different? It’s hard. And guess what? It’s actually easier than it used to be. Way easier. There was no straightforward way to make money writing three years ago. The Medium Partner Program didn’t exist.

Many bloggers on Wordpress said you need to blog consistently for a year to make more than $1 blogging. Now you can make more than $1 blogging by tomorrow on Medium.

This is how spoiled we all are.

Oh, you only got 23 views on your article?

Shit. I used to rejoice when I got 10 on Wordpress. You’re one curation away from getting a hundred views on an article. This is madness. Absolute madness. And you’re all not satisfied.

It will never be enough for the person who writes only to make money. If we got hundreds of views in the snap of a finger it still wouldn’t be enough. If I get only 400 views on an article these days I’m upset about it.

If I got 400 views on an article 3 years ago I would’ve taken the rest of the day off and got pizza to celebrate.

Put everything in perspective. Put how awesome this platform is in perspective.

Good, now write. Write and wait. Strategize a bit, too. And in one year you may be making a few thousand per month on Medium.

Get a few free writing tips from me here.