How You Can Make $1,000 With One Medium Article

I finally cracked the code.

I was scrolling through my Medium feed and I randomly decided to see how my most popular article was doing.

I haven’t seen the stats on it in a while.

• Over 12k claps

• 22k views

• Over 1k in earnings

Not too shabby if you ask me. Especially considering that it was my first article on Medium to generate over $1k (hurrah!).

But this isn’t about me.

I’m sure you want to do the same. You’re probably new to Medium and you need someone to show you the ropes.

So let’s not waste time. Here’s how I made over 1k with that article.

Step 1: Know Which Articles Do Well on Medium

After a couple of years of writing on this platform every single day, I know the articles that do well there.

Articles about these subjects get the most engagement on Medium:

• Medium (ironic, right?)

• Personal development

• Entrepreneurship

• Life Lessons

• Sex/Relationships

• Writing

I’m not saying articles on different subjects from the list above get NO engagement. They just don’t have the largest potential to get a bunch of reads.

Who knows? Maybe you’ll get lucky.

But if you stick to writing about those same subjects above, you’ll get a good amount of reads (assuming your article has good quality, of course).

My most popular article was about Medium.

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Step 2: Pack a BOATLOAD of Passion Into Your Articles.

I’ve noticed that EVERY article I wrote with passion has gotten the most views and earnings.

My $1k article was no exception.

I know it’s a little corny to write about Medium on Medium. I usually avoid it since those articles age like bananas. My focus is more on writing in general — not just on Medium.

But I decided to write that article because it’s been in the making for a WHOLE year. There’s a story behind it.

I had no idea how to break into the writing industry. I was a failed writer and I wanted to realize my dream of being a paid writer. A successful writer I follow on this platform said in one of his YouTube videos to write on Medium every single day for a year to see success.

So I did it…and boy, I got results.

That article was about my one-year Medium journey and everything it took for me to get the little bit of writing success I have now. That had to be THE MOST passionate article I’ve ever written — and it shows.

The stats on that thing are nuts.

Moral of the story: Your best articles come from passion. No passion, no virality. That 1,000-word article that took you twenty minutes to write is more than likely a passionate one.

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Step 3: My Article Helped The Reader While Giving Them My Personal Story

I still get comments on that article from people saying that I’ve inspired them to go on their one-year Medium journey.

That alone is worth all the money in the world. Telling my personal story in that article helped readers in more ways than I thought. It’s true — it’s easier for people to remember your advice if a personal story is attached.

Another crucial thing to note about my article is its tone.

I wasn’t talking down on the reader, wagging my finger at them saying, “Hey, you should do this.” Heck, I didn’t even think the article was going to get curated, but it was (which is surprising since most articles about Medium don’t get curated).

I have a theory on why it got curated:

It wasn’t your typical article about Medium.

Most articles about Medium have these kinds of titles:

• “How I Made $10k on Medium”

• “Here’s Why Medium is Going Downhill”

• “3 Reasons Why Medium is Stealing Your Views”

These articles either come from a cocky standpoint or they attack the platform. I’m not saying ALL articles like these are bashful. Some of them do hold constructive criticism of the platform, but the tone could be a little better. The title of my article was “I Wrote on Medium Every Single Day For a Year and Here’s Everything I’ve Learned.” Simple.

I didn’t talk about money in the title because it seemed less genuine (there are a million articles about that).

I wanted to make a title that was more humble and saying “Here’s everything I’ve learned” is so much more fresh and unique.

Bottom line: Tell your personal story from a humbling standpoint. Give the reader value. Make sure the article is genuine.

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Final Thought

This may not be much, but these are just a few theories of why I think my most popular article has done so well on Medium.

This isn’t to brag about the $1k it made me. It’s just me analyzing and seeing what I could improve later on. Hopefully, this helped you too.

Write on!

And never stop!

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