Do you want to grow a profitable content business? If so, join 25,000 readers. I share daily insights about personal brand building, writing online and growing a profitable business. It's for creators, coaches and business owners.
The Dirty Secret About Writing on Medium
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Hi Reader I've been writing on Medium for a few years now. I earn a few hundred dollars a month, most months. (5 figures if you count secondary sales of courses and products) Less so these days, at least from Medium… I'll explain why in a moment. Medium is best for personal development, life lessons, entrepreneurship, and coding. Story-first and click-worthy content STILL works great on it. You can build a list on Medium and link to your list. It’s easier to build a list on Substack though. Some SEO and AI nerds are hijacking Medium, these days. I'm unconvinced about the parasite SEO model as a long-term strategy. But I can see how this could work in the short term if you can get it to rank. I'd rather focus my time elsewhere. It's also easy to cross-post on Medium. You can import URLs and pull through your posts. There’s no point doing this if the content isn’t Medium-friendly though. Did I mention Medium hates AI content? They have a policy against using it. Reading between the lines... The algo on Medium doesn't like content about making money either. It's a fine line. I've had a few 4 figure months from Medium over the years. These days, I get low 3 figures from Medium. If you get boosted, you can earn 4 figures from a story. That's human-curated. I was boosted a few months ago. My article went viral on the platform. Lots of people read it. And one reader plagiarized! He copied and pasted the article onto his account. But Medium is not my primary platform. I wouldn't rely on Medium to pay the bills. If you're serious about it, try writing for the bigger publications rather than your own. They all have different guidelines, similar to guest blogging. Many creators I know have pivoted from Medium to Substack. But... I like Medium a lot. Easy to use. Built-in audience. No tech skills or SEO chops needed. And they don't mind if you cross-post. Nice to get a few hundred bucks when you're starting out, too. But you’re better off building an asset of your own, which I cover in the below video. Write on, Bryan Collins
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Letters From the Desk of Bryan Collins
Do you want to grow a profitable content business? If so, join 25,000 readers. I share daily insights about personal brand building, writing online and growing a profitable business. It's for creators, coaches and business owners.
I tested Google Gemini’s content creation capabilities. I wanted to see how it stacks up against ChatGPT and Claude for creating business copy. Google Gemini offers two interesting “gems” (think custom GPTs) for content creators: Copy Creator and Writing Editor. Copy Creator helps write taglines, mission statements, and social media posts. Writing Editor focuses on fixing grammar and improving content structure. I put both through their paces using content from my daily newsletter. When I fed...
Your existing content is like an untapped gold mine - most creators keep digging new holes instead of mining what they already have. I’ve spent years writing online, It can easily become a full-time, low-paying job if you keep digging. One method for getting around this problem is building a content library of your greatest hits. It’s easier to repurpose content if you have a library that you can draw from. Another method is tracking a few key weekly stats across each channel so you can see...
I spent years obsessing over niche selection. When I was a Forbes columnist, branding myself as “the productivity and leadership guy” seemed like a safe bet. I covered topics like time management, leadership, and getting sh*t done at work.I mapped dozens of hot niche-specific topics in a spreadsheet and published articles like: The Fastest Way To Accomplish More This Week How To Use The 4 Ds Of Time Management 4 Common Mistakes New Home Workers Make I wrote about these topics not because they...