I’m Making Money on Medium From My Writing:What the Hell Is Going On?!

 

Money and Writing Overview of the Last 2 Weeks

Have you woken up to this?

You’re laying in bed. You wake up, roll over, grab your phone, and low and behold . . .

What’s this?!

You have dollars racking up in your Partner Program account, not pennies either.

I’m used to pennies. I have been writing on Medium for about a year as a hobby. I am an artist, musician, and writer. I used to pay the bills with my typing skills as a data entry specialist.

Now, I am an ex-christian stay at home mom of 6 kids with a part time remote job. Times have changed. I still work my ass off. It’s hard to find time. The last series I watched all the way through was Better Things on Hulu a year ago. I fight to get through my reading which, in years past, was a snug, familiar, comfort space.

I’m over 40 and everything is rush, rush, rush. The world is ending. We’re in a recession. War is iminent. My second daughter is about to start her period. Winter feels like it will never end. I need to clean my mother’s house.

But, my Medium writing is bringing in money today.

It started at the end of February. I assume it’s a fluke to keep my ego in check. After all, I do my own writing, formating, & editing.

This is my 60th article. I haven’t written near as much as I wanted to & often wonder if I should quit. I’ve considered it, not because I wasn’t earning money, but because writing on Medium turned into reading too many articles. I missed my books.

As a result, I stopped reading and wrote. I cleared my reading history to make my feed on Medium less tantalizing when I checked my notifications in the morning. I have been getting constant notifications the past nine days. I am finding the discipline to wake, research, and write before I design some cutting boards for my boss. I help customers personalize cutting boards with Lightburn Laser software for an Etsy shop. It’s super fun. I get paid less than I did 20 years ago but I don’t have to leave my house. The hours are flexible so I can school my spongy kids.

On an average month, I get about 800 views. In a week and a half, my views have doubled. Now, to bigger accounts, this is miniscule. I get it. For a busy introverted human that hates social media, doesn’t enjoy marketing, or feel like I have enough time to be artistic, this is kinda neat.

I could do this more. It takes about an hour and a half to write a 1,500 word piece. Not too shabby for return on time. Yes, yes, I know. Some people would say that my hourly wage is pathetic. Well, yeah, but that’s not what I am going for. I wasn’t shooting for anything.

The article that seems to have kicked this whole thing off is in the screenshot below.

Please excuse my 90s retro jargon as I sit here in my flip flops and hoodie, but this is pretty cool, man!

Below are my top ten for the past nine days.

I’m afraid of getting too excited and screwing this up. I came to a turning point at the end of February. I have been editing my old work. While it has helped improve my writing (and I still have about 30 pieces to revise, careful if you read them), I decided to enjoy this more and created a tight system. The system failed as most stifling things do & what happened after was a natural propensity to work on my titles in my spare time or mind map ideas if I couldn’t get to a computer. It’s weird.

I am just a wife, a mom, an employee, an octopus servant of everyone in my house’s hopes and dreams. But, some people like my writing. I find myself hoping for flute or piano practice time and the feeling of creamy oil pastels on my fingers, pencil stains on my fingers like a lover’s smooch mark on a starch white lapel.

See you Saturday with another article. ;) Find me here.

Thanks for reading and indulging my guilty alone time pleasure of writing.