I don't know what to do with that
Oh, the irony
Happy Friday,
Yesterday, I ran across another of those Medium courses. How to make $100/month on Medium. There’s tons of them, from $69 to $197. I get why people buy those. Making $100/month on Medium is hard. Less than 10% of writers there do.
I usually pass that in the first 48 hours. I’ve blown it out of the water in 24 hours. I’ve had days where I double that elusive monthly goal in just one day. I just don’t talk about it. Honestly, I think it’s a bit gauche.
Here’s the thing.
When you write about money and success, of course you get a lot of reads. People are struggling and broke. But then what? What do you teach? Do they honestly tell their followers and course buyers to write about money because it gets the clicks?
No. Of course not.
So they write about publications and frequency and all sorts of things that don’t really matter. One of my readers knows that. She had a $1600 month on Medium and only wrote 9 stories that entire month. Most of them weren’t even in publications.
Sometimes, those “teachers” even sell editing. For only $49, you, too, can have your story edited by a Medium pro with 35K readers. *sigh*
It’s a little like internet marketing
Selling a “how to make money” programs isn’t remotely like selling $50 coffee, $200 handmade handbags or a delightful book. It’s easy to sell a “how to money” program to broke people. Much harder to sell real world stuff.
I know that because selling real world stuff is my day job. My top client makes 5 million a year. They came to me broke. Facing bankruptcy. No one wants to listen to people like me. They want the glitz. They want the “you, too, can be rich like me.”
Give people showmanship or results and they’ll take the show almost every time.
Is that cynical? Maybe. Most of those “secrets” programs work because people want the secrets. Problem is, those courses don’t really have any. They’re just pushing pain buttons. Then when people fail, they must not have followed the instructions.
I beat a guru at his game once
Some seo guru was selling a $997 seo course. Part of his schtick was that he was at the top of page one on Google for some difficult keyword. So he had a challenge. He said if anyone could knock him off spot one, they’d get $1000 bucks and free membership to his course. So I did. I took the cash and didn’t enroll.
I don’t think he really wanted me in the class anyway. lol. When he paid me, he sent a two word note with the PayPal. There. Paid.
Honestly, I felt kind of dirty afterwards.
I don’t understand people who get their jollies from taking people down a peg or two. I did it it once. It didn’t feel good. And honestly, I only did it because I am so tired of people thinking men are better than women at tech stuff.
It was right there in the comments, too. Ha ha. Taken down by a woman.
Stuff like that makes me so mad. Competence is not a gender.
But that’s why I never comment on those “how to succeed on Medium” courses and posts. It’s a lose, lose. There’s no way to come out feeling good.
Oh, the irony…
When I got on Medium, I intended to use the platform to write about how design can make or break a business. It can, and does. It’s what I do all day, every day. I was hoping to build a list of readers for the book I’ve been working on forever. lol.
Instead, I found some small measure of success as — go figure — a writer.
And I don’t know what to do with that.
Guess I’ll figure it out as I go. It’s what I’ve always done.
It’s what we all do. You, included.
:)
Thank you for making this go a bit crazy…
The image is linked to the piece if you haven’t read it yet…
Thought for the day
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
~Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock
What I wrote this week…
Top story this week…
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Thanks for reading and have a great weekend…
xo,
Linda
The Toffler quote is priceless. For me, it captures the essence of how “intelligence” is defined in virtually every PSY 101 textbook: the ability to adapt with changing life circumstances.