How I Made My First 13 Cents on Medium
and how you can too!
There are few things in life more important than money. Kid scored her first goal in soccer? Small potatoes. Getting married next week? Whateves. You’ve been informed that you will be receiving the Pulitzer Prize in the creative nonfiction category? Well, that’s cool, you know why? Because there’s a cash prize. Money talks. This is why I, Lindsay Brown, am here to tell you how I’ve climbed the tumultuous ladder of Medium and earned 13 whole cents in my first week of writing on this platform.
Please. Please, hold your applause and awe until the end of the story.
Following is my seven-step program outlining how you, too, can earn 13 cents in your first week of writing on Medium. Anyone can earn 13 cents on Medium if they follow my easy, seven-step guide.
This guide will include:
1) How to get started.
2) Why making friends is extremely important.
3) Where are my readers?
4) What’s a niche?
5) How old am I anyway?
6) Stats, stats, and more stats
7) Confidence
How to get started:
Getting started is easy. Sign up for a Medium account, and write a witty but not too obnoxious tag line under your profile pic. Before having written a single story, follow as many large Medium publications as you can with hopes that they will be curious about your amazing profile pic and your funny tag line. Daydream about these publications approaching you to write exclusively for them. When they don’t, start writing your own stuff and stew quietly about being overlooked.
Also, expect rejection because that’s part of the writing game, and rejection only makes you a better writer. You’ll learn from editor’s feedback and keep in mind that it’s always darkest before the dawn, and so forth, and so on (insert other popular clichés here).
Why making friends is extremely important:
Seriously, make friends like right now. Suppress your natural inclinations to be withdrawn and shy, and comment really charming tidbits on any story you come across. Really force that make-believe personality of yours to shine, and you’ll be friending it up in no time. This, in turn, will gain you followers, because you have duped fellow writers into thinking you are fresh and exciting. And if we know one thing about writers, it is that writers are readers. So once you have tricked them into following your account, they will probably (maybe) read your stories, which will allow you to start making tens of cents on Medium in no time.
Where are my readers:
You’ve noticed that despite accumulating a whopping 17 followers with that charming personality, you are not receiving as many reads as you had hoped (your hope was that 100% of your followers would read, clap and woo your literary genius). Do not be discouraged. You must build your story portfolio to infinite heights before anybody gives a hoot about who you are and what you have to say.
What’s a Niche:
Wait, you don’t even know what a niche is? I don’t know if this writing thing is for you.
How old am I anyway?
After researching niches, you realize that you have absolutely no expertise on any topic whatsoever. So you’ve fallen back on the trusty role of humor writing. This is fine, except that the only funny things you can think of are fart jokes and potty humor. Is this acceptable? Well, if you want to go on to make 13 cents in your first week of writing on Medium, it most definitely is my friends.
Stats, stats, and more stats
This might be the most valuable piece of advice in this entire article, so listen up people. You must monitor your stats page with a vigilance that borders on superstition. By continually checking your stats page to see how many views your various farting stories are getting, your obsessive compulsiveness will invariably raise your readership. Don’t ask me how it works, because I don’t know. Let’s just call it the power of intention.
*It is optimal to check your stats roughly every time you look at your phone.
Confidence:
Finally, confidence. Go out into this big blogging platform with a sort of confidence that only a confident writer like yourself can possess. How might I do such a thing, Lindsay? Well, first of all, using the word confidence a lot helps. When people see you write out the physical word, they believe you definitely know what you’re talking about.
Also, visualize receiving that first 13 cent deposit into your account. Imagine it being added onto your 500 dollar overdraft limit and revel in your new balance of -499.87 (and no, I did not have to use a calculator to determine that math equation).
And there you have it. If you follow my seven-step guide, I am confident that you, too, can earn 13 cents in your first week of writing on Medium.
Happy writing, folks!
