Thread by @ndwignall

Today I crossed 200,000 followers on Medium.

And I’m here to tell you:

Reports of Medium’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Here's why creators—especially writers—should consider publishing on Medium…

I publish in Medium’s Partner Program, so they pay me each month based on how many views I get.

Over the past year, I’ve averaged $3,500 per month.

Not gonna be a billionaire anytime soon, but it’s not chump change…

Also, as part of the partner program, Medium has a built in referral program, so you get paid if people become Medium subscribers via your content.

I make over $500 per month with this alone.

Zero effort on my part.

And speaking of effort….

Publishing on Medium can be VERY low effort if you’re already publishing elsewhere.

I write a new article, publish to my WordPress site, then literally copy and paste it onto Medium.

“Wait, won’t that cause SEO problems…?”

nope

On any Medium article, you can set the canonical link as your website’s version.

If anything, I’ve found that when an article on Medium blows up and gets a lot of traffic, organic traffic to the same article on my website tends to increase!

Of course the partner program earnings are nice

But the REAL benefit of (re)publishing on Medium—and where you can make a lot more money—is the audience-building potential…

I get 900-1,200 newsletter subs per month from readers who click on my CTA at the end of my Medium articles.

Even assuming a modest lifetime subscriber value like $10, that’s a lot of potential income if you have products/services you market to your newsletter.

Over the past 5-6 years, I’ve built my email list up to 35,000 subscribers.

About half of those subscribers have come from Medium over the years.

If you’re a writer who wants to build an audience, Medium can be a powerful way to do it.

While we’re on the topic of newsletters...

another benefit of using Medium to build an audience is that the subscribers I get from there are substantially more engaged than the ones I get from other social platforms.

People from Medium convert to my newsletter at 80%!

Of course, like any platform, it takes effort + patience to build up to big results….

I’ve published 1-2 articles on Medium every week for the past 5 years on the side of my full-time job.

But I was already writing those for my personal site so why not re-post to Medium?

Aside from the $ and audience-building, Medium has also been an incredible way to built relationships.

I’ve made good friends there, landed consulting gigs, and been offered book deals and jobs all because of writing on Medium.

Obviously Medium isn’t for everyone (just like any platform).

But for the right person, it's amazing.

Here are a few qualities of people who tend to have long-term success on Medium…

1) They love to write.

Medium is a *writers* platform.

If you enjoy the process of writing and do it all the time anyway, Medium is your place.

(It’s not great if you just want to post the occasional thing or use it for marketing)

2) They write fast.

Success on Medium (like most platforms) depends on volume.

And the only way to get enough volume is if you write fairly quickly.

At least an article per week, 2-3 is ideal, esp when starting out.

3) They write about topics that are popular on Medium

Every platform has different readers interested in different topics.

Topics that tend to do well on Medium are things like business/entrepreneurship, tech, and personal development

In short, if you genuinely enjoy writing, can write pretty quickly, and write about popular topics, you should strongly consider (re)publishing on Medium.

For the money, yes, but also the audience and relationship building.

One more thing:

I’ve been very encouraged about Medium since Tony Stubblebine took over as CEO.

My views and earnings improved, but it also feels like Medium has a more focused and energized direction overall.

What's that saying about zigging when everyone's zagging :)