Happy Friday,
Let’s play a dumb game. Humor me... Pretend your boss called a staff meeting and said 94.6% of the staff will now get paid under $100 every month. The remaining 5.4% will earn over $100. Maybe 2% will earn a living wage.
You get to work as many or an few hours as you want, and the money will be doled out according to the quality of the work according to vote. You all get to vote for each other, but you aren’t permitted to vote for yourself.
How long would you keep that job?
How many hours would you work?
If you’re a writer on Medium, you’d work your tail off. You’d push yourself to outwork everyone. And you’d tell the people who are at the bottom of the pay scale that obviously they’re not “serious” enough, or not working hard enough.
And you’d never look to see what the top paid folks are doing different than you.
Just put your head down and work harder.
I wish I was kidding.
According to Medium’s own monthly writer review, only 5.4% of writers are earning over $100/month now. In February it was 8.3% of writers.
Some of them are churning out a post every day for a monthly payout that works out to less than minimum wage.
They post “help” articles telling other writers they “must” write daily to be in the top earners pool.
Which is, incidentally, not true. I’ve posted 4 times in the last month and I’m still in the top 5.4%. Easily. I earn a bit more if I post twice a week, but I’ve never posted daily.
Of course, the truth is that most top earners are writing for Medium publications.
But the advice givers don’t say that. Because now we’re talking quality over quantity. It’s easy to say hit publish every day. Not so easy to get into Medium’s publications.
It’s not just Medium.
I see this among my clients. When they come to me, they’re often running around trying to promote everywhere. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, blog posts, videos. And doing a shoddy job of all of them.
More content, more, moar!!
I tell them to stop trying to do it all. It’s not sustainable and it’s seldom even interesting. It becomes like a child yelling “look at me” until people tune it out.
Writers and authors do it, too. Trying so hard to get seen that they don’t stop and think about the message they’re putting out, much less the strategy behind the effort or the people they’re communicating with.
Far better to take the time to do something that kicks butt and is worthy of real attention than to spread yourself so thin that the results don’t justify the effort.
Quality and churn don’t go together particularly well.
Without strategy, effort is like a band-aid on a broken arm.
You might like…
Fewer writers than ever are earning over $100 and it might be our fault. (Newest)
10 Unconventional Writing Tips from Pulitzer Winning Writers
10 Ways to Avoid Bad Writing According To a New York Literary Agent
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this, click the little heart to let me know. I try to write more of what you show me you enjoy.
See you next week.
:)
Linda
Here's the deal, Linda. You're one of the best writers on Medium. That's why you're in the 5.4 %. You're postings are a must read for me, because they are all of importance, and interesting. Writing every day won't work unless your work is, like yours, worth reading. I follow a bunch of people, but I just don't have enough hours in the day to read poor writing, boring subjects, or personal angst.
So, no mystery here, you're worth the top writer salary.
By the way, I made $12.40 last month. That's my top.