As a monetized YouTuber, in August I decided to give writing a try. I was interested to see how the earnings might compare and share my knowledge across multiple platforms. I also saw it as a way to grow an additional audience. And the results were pretty interesting…
Now I am used to YouTube studio with a plethora of analytics options but Medium is quite different. There are limited options for filtering and checking analytics which makes it simpler to learn but also less powerful. And as a software engineer, I do love my analytics! Overall I ended with about 600 views. Not bad for the first month!
How to become a Medium writer…
To become a Medium writer, all you have to do is have a paid subscription (about $50 USD per year) and apply to be a writer. That’s it! You’re in and any article you choose can be monetized. This is a much lower barrier to entry than YouTube which allowed me to start creating for free, but took me a year to actually get monetized on. On YouTube you’re required to have 4000 watch hours in the past year and 1000 subs, there are some different requirements if you’re a shorts creator.
So the benefit of Medium is you can start earning from the start, although it may not be enough to cover your account fee initially. The account fee also gives you unlimited access to other Medium articles, so if you’re already a Medium user it’s not a cost you’d be concerned about.
How I wrote…
There are a couple of ways you can write blog posts for Medium. You can choose to write directly on Medium by simply creating a blog within the Medium website by selecting the Write button:
Alternatively, if you have an existing website like me you can import a blog. This mostly ends up formatted alright but you may need to make some changes so that the blog isn’t missing embedded videos or images at times. The reason you would import a blog is that it helps ensure your website ranks better as part of SEO as the duplicate content doesn’t interfere with the algorithm. You can import a blogs, by selecting your profile dropdown on the far right of the image above and going to “Stories”. There will be an import button there:
It’s worth noting you can import old blogs but the date that is used will be based on the initial publish date, and may not get given as much attention by the Medium algorithm.
How much I got paid…
Even though I had just started writing, I still managed to amass a small payment on Medium. A whole $0.17 USD to be exact, which is much more than I saw for the first year of YouTube! Another benefit I like, is that it is so quick to be paid out. The payment was with me in days with no minimum payout threshold!
This was a huge benefit of Medium to me, that near instant gratification of not having such a long wait between content creation and payment. And if one of your articles takes off, you get compensated appropriately. The same is not true for YouTube where you have to first meet the monetization criteria and then be approved for monetization. So if you’re someone who has trouble sticking with something, Medium may be a better starting platform for you. Once you have an audience you could look to expand to YouTube and grow your audience there more quickly.
It is worth noting on YouTube once you’re monetized, your first month you would typically make much more than I currently make on Medium but that’s after a lot of upfront effort. Initially, I made approximately $150/month on YouTube.
Conclusion
If you’re looking to start a side hustle where you share your knowledge, Medium is a great place to start! You have a large community of users that will have access to your articles, the cost to entry is low and you can start earning straight away. I look forward to see how my income trends in the coming month on Medium!
If you’ve enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy my other business blogs or my blog post checklist! Additionally, if you have enjoyed my content please support my continued content creation by donating via Stripe.
