Can I still Make Money From Medium?
3 ways to monetize your writing on medium
There are so many speculations around making money from Medium; many believe it is one of the best platforms to monetize what you love doing the most (writing). A few others feel Medium is no longer habitable for younger writers. What have you been told about writing on medium.com? I don’t know. But if you are in to make money from your craft, and wouldn’t want to write for fun. I am here to share some things I know about Medium which would make you some good money.
Before I share the 3 ways that you can monetize your writing on Medium, I would also need to share with you the things you should consider before pushing to get paid for your writing.
First, you would need to write on a particular niche. And the good thing with writing on a platform like Medium is that you do not have to know too much about the niche you are writing on. Your little experience and more research can make you an authority and a voice in a particular niche. It may not be with the first few stories but definitely with time.
Anyway, you can explore different niches while writing on Medium until you find the one your audience resonates with. And my advice would be to stick to it and build something from there. There would always be some topics that would bring more readers to you than the other ones. I am experiencing it with my account too. That is where your voice is.
The second is to build an audience, understand what your readers (audience) resonate with, and build on it (write more concerning it). Remember, you are not writing for everybody but for certain kinds of people, that is why you need to give them what they would love to read. Imagine someone following you because they resonated with a tech post you made, only for you to keep writing about healthy living. What would happen is that this person would either stop following you or would stop opening your posts when it comes before them. Even though you are not only writing for the followership. Maybe as a new writer on Medium, that followership may mean a lot (especially the first 100).
The third and the most important of my suggestion would be to become very good at your writing. Learn to tell stories that people would likely resonate with. Write well and captivate your readers. Let them see your writing like a whisper. Because this is how you can keep them to stay on your posts and also make them loyal followers and loyal followers can pay with time. And I will explain better and well further as you read on.
Now that I have shared those 3 tips you need to work on before you can earn decently from Medium, here are how Medium can pay you for writing.
Partner Program
If you meet the eligibility criteria of 100 or more followers, and most have published at least 1 story as a new account. The next thing you can do is to apply for the partner program, once you are accepted into the partner program which is usually reviewed within 3 working days, you meter your posts. The longer time people spend on your posts. The more money you can earn through your partner program. Aside from the reading time, you can also refer members and once they become subscribers, you earn half of their subscription fee.
However, if you are a resident in some countries, you may not be eligible to apply for the Medium Partner Program. Check out countries that are eligible for the partner program here.
Note that you must be 18 and above before you will qualify to be accepted into the partner program. And for you to keep being on the partner program, you will need to publish at least once every 6 months.
Subscriber base
Getting an e-mail subscriber from your readers means your story has thrilled them so much, and they wouldn’t want to lose the thread of your story as you post them. And this can only happen when you give an exceptional value.
E-mail subscribers tell you that you have loyal followers, who you have become an authority in a particular niche. You can harness this followership and make them a friend through e-mail campaigns. You can build an e-mail list through your subscribers that you exported from your Medium subscribers.
You can redirect them to your personal website(s) that are in the same niche as what you write about on Medium or sell a digital product(s) within the same niche.
The psychology of this type of sales is that your audience would have the notion that if they had got value from you for free, then the paid one would be the peak.
Medium by default at the bottom of your posts recommends your readers to subscribe to your e-mail list.
Give a tip
This month, Medium introduced a beta button known as, “Give a tip.” This feature simply allows readers to pay you directly through a third-party platform such as Paypal, Ko-Fi, or Patreon.
To turn on your Give a tip button, click on your image icon and go to the ‘Settings,’ from your settings click on ‘Audience Management’ once you’ve clicked on Audience Management, you would see ‘Tipping’ as the first option. From there you can click on ‘Manage Tipping’.
You can set up your preference on how you wish to be rewarded.
Personally, I think this is a brilliant idea to pay you directly for your work.
Conclusion
I don’t think after reading this story, you should still feel like nobody will appreciate what you would offer. Or you won’t be heard anymore because Medium is all grown now and only works for established writers.
It is a platform that calls the attention of people who are interested in something, and one thing I know for sure is that where the crowd always tilts, there is something that makes them always want to go that way. The best you can do is to position yourself to be found and rewarded.
