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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