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What Motivates You To Stay On Medium When You Are Not Making Profit

This is my honest rambling after over a month of low viewership for my stories on Medium.

I’ve been reading posts by other writers who have managed to gain their first USD100 in their first or second month on medium, and also read feedback from others who noticed a drop in their daily views down to an average of around a hundred views a day, and it made me think about my own progress here. You see, I am nowhere near this level of daily viewership nor close to this amount of monthly monetary income gains.

It is hard not to compare my own performance versus theirs upon reading these, as I have not earned more than USD15 a month on Medium, and despite posting semi-regularly, my current daily view count is only averaging only about 20-30 views.

The fact is after 3 months on Medium and publishing 34 stories to date on different publications, my progress has been slow, and my highest earning month in September only amounted to USD15.08 in total. None of my stories have been curated or selected for further distribution. I am not sure if this is what some termed as being in curation jail. It’s possible, and if so, what can I do to get out?

One of my initial goals for Medium was to earn a small side income, but I quickly found out that being a working mum, I had a limitation of time to write the amount of content that’s usually needed to grow fast on Medium, and the stories that I submitted didn’t get that many views, with the exception of this one which to date has 199 views and though it doesn’t sound like much, this sole article has earned me 70% of my Medium income so far.

All this can be demotivating personally, and I try not to overthink it or let my impulsive and impatient nature crowd out my feelings to still try to persevere to push on and ‘make it’ here on this platform.

So what do I gain instead since the goal of monetary compensation was not met?

I can list a few below, have read through and maybe some of you may agree with them.

1. Growth Of Writing Ability and Exposure To Different Styles Of Writing
Medium has many good writers and a diverse amount of topics. This platform has exposed me to different writing styles and taught me that there are many different ways to write a good story, be it in story length, topics, title wording, and what audiences like to read. It has also inspired new ideas for writing, and I am still exploring what works and what doesn’t. I have, after all, produced quite a few stories that can be considered as duds. All in all, writing here is better than writing only on a personal blog and staying in the personal blogger bubble and echo chamber.

2. Having A Community Of Writers
There is engagement and feedback from the other writers here, most of them encouraging and supportive. I sometimes click on the profiles of different writers here to read their profile descriptions of who they are, especially those who engaged with my writing or those who have written a piece that I truly enjoy. I hope all of you do well on Medium, even if I am lagging behind.

I also admire the editors and owners of smaller publications and startups here for the initiative and bravery to create your own publications and do all the work from the ground up. I believe it is no easy task and requires a lot of work, and it gives newer writers like me a publication to submit to. Thank you to both of you for creating the space and taking writers like me in, and I’m glad to see your publication growing well and continue to do so.

3. Believing In One’s Own Capability
The better way to word this is to choose to believe in one’s potential growth and capability. I am a person who had to build up my self-esteem while growing up and even into my adulthood, it is very easy for me to feel not good enough and maybe that’s why I tend to compare my own performances with others, to judge my own. I had to convince myself that I have the ability to write and to grow as a writer. If I choose to stay on Medium, it means I still believe that my best writing is yet to come and personal growth is almost certainly guaranteed and projected.

I may have written this to give myself the reasons to keep writing and publish new stories here even with the low view counts for my recent stories, and less than impressive monthly earnings. I would add that I appreciate that there is an avenue for amateur writers like myself to write and earn a small monetary compensation for producing content. Maybe one day, hopefully not too far off, I can say I grew as a writer and have reached the goal of making USD100 a month on Medium.

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