The Grasshopper Sunday Money Edition, 1/29/23

Writer Revenue Platforms: A Medium Primer

“Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.” ~Hunter S. Thompson

I do a lot of publishing on Medium.com. How much? At the time of this writing, 888 articles. By the time you see this newsletter issue I’ll probably have hit 900. That’s a lot of writing and it generated a bit of money, relative to my time investment.

It took several years to reach those numbers and I have evolved in my understanding of what works for me on Medium. For those who are less familiar with the platform, I’m providing a primer covering what Medium is, the basics of using it as a writer, and some revenue optimization tips.

Medium is a platform for writers, all kinds of writers

Medium.com is a site where readers can find thousands of articles, opinions, personal stories, motivational stuff, even fiction, though that is not its strongest area. The articles can range in length from short 200 word pieces to longform writing adding up to thousands of words. The sweet spot seems to be between 600-1000 words.

By the way, Medium doesn’t measure by word count, they estimate how many minutes an article would take an average reader to complete a story. By that measurement, that sweet spot would be 3-5 minutes of read time. For writers, the concept of read time becomes very important when you monetize your writing. More on that to come.