Is Writing On Medium in 2021 Still Worth It?
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Views are down 50%. Blogging income reduced by half. A steady downwards trend I can’t seem to stop. I made a whole video complaining about it.
It’s no lie: Medium seems to be heading down a bad slope for bloggers, a fact that has caused a lot of bloggers to wonder if writing on Medium is still worth it in 2021. I include myself in that group.
My answer to that question is yes. Despite the decreasing views, income, and opportunities, there are still 3 fantastic reasons that writing on Medium is still worth it in 2021, no matter if you’re a beginner or expert. Let’s dive in.
Quick note: if you landed here and you’re wondering what Medium even is, all you need to know is that it’s a blogging platform where you can publish today and potentially reach an audience of thousands tomorrow. Medium pays you when a paying Medium member reads your story. In my opinion, it’s the best platform for beginners to blog on the internet.
Writing on Medium is the journey, not the destination.
Even before the sharp drop, Medium could be a very hard place for beginners to crack. Most people didn’t make over $100/month - only about 8-10% every month managed to earn that. Half of Medium writers didn’t earn a single cent.
It was possible for beginners to earn a lot through the Medium Partner Program, but it was hard. You have to write to meet the requirements of curation, publications, and Medium readers. And you have to keep doing that month on month to gain any kind of momentum.
That’s why I’m always surprised more people don’t talk about the true power of Medium - using it as a platform to achieve other opportunities. For example, I’ve used Medium to:
gain three freelance blogging clients
grow my YouTube channel
grow my newsletter
Why is Medium so good as a vehicle to further blogging success? Two reasons.
First, with very little SEO knowledge (basically, being able to pick a keyword and make sure it appears often in your post) you’re very likely to rank high in Google search results. For example, if you search “toxic friends,” “fiction on Medium,” “ethical alternative to amazon books,” or “YouTube monetization alternatives,” you’ll see I appear on the front page of Google search for each term.
You can access the audience of readers beyond Medium even if you’re not having luck with eEdium readers themselves.. If you’re ready to capitalize on this, you can capture that audience and use it to build your business, promote products, mention your videos, and so on.
Second, Medium’s readers are pre-segmented for you. When you write something, Medium recommends your story to other people through a few factors that you know and can control.
One such factor is “distribution,” when Medium looks at your post and decides whether it meets their curation criteria or not. This can be tough to achieve as it’s very subjective, and the curators don’t typically give feedback. However, if you manage this, you know that your story will be recommended to be read by people who are interested in the topics you write in.
Another audience factor you can control is publications. Unlike curation, publications are mostly owned by regular, non-Medium people like you or me. The editors of publications curate themed and topical stories, and these publications are followed by readers on Medium. If you get accepted to a publication about pets, then you know animal lovers will be reading your story.
(Want to know all my secrets and shortcuts to get accepted to the publication of your dreams, that can help you reach those targetted readers on Medium? Enroll in my Medium Publications 101 course! Use the code ZULIEBLOG for 10% off.)
The combination of these two factors means you can target your stories with calls-to-action that are custom to the audience you’re trying to reach, which can help you turn those views into opportunities for your business, blog, or course.
Even if you’re earning $1/month and getting 500 views from Medium member reads, you can capitalize on those views with inbuilt segmentation and a high likelihood of ranking on Google. Medium is not the end destination - it’s the tool that’s going to help you reach your audience. For just that reason alone, writing on Medium in 2021 is still worth it. But there are two more reasons.
Writing on Medium is still better than… pretty much anywhere else.
You know what a lot of other people don’t get? Medium is still the best platform to write on, no matter if you’re a beginner or not.
I’ve tried News Break. It’s not great, and it’s hard to be accepted as a creator.
I’ve tried Vocal Media. It’s impossible to get views - and I did my absolute best.
I’ve created numerous Wordpress/Weebly blogs over the years. This one is by far the most successful, with a handful of thousands of monthly views.
I compare them all in this video and this article, if you’re interested.
I get a lot of comments on my YouTube and Medium blog posts saying that people have 5,000 views and only earned $100 in their first month.
And yet they don’t stop to think what other blog would give you $100 for getting 5,000 views without any ad revenue, needing to pay for the domain, upkeep, or maintenance of their website. I think because there are so many success stories out there, it’s tempting for writers to feel cheated when they don’t get those lofty views that others have been able to manage.
Sinem Günel does an amazing job explaining the difference between what’s typical versus what’s possible to earn on Medium, as well as telling you how you can step up your game. But she - and I - are clear that even if you’re only earning a small amount of money, and only getting a small number of views, compared to what’s typical elsewhere on the internet, Medium is still the best place to blog. So even though I believe Medium is amazing on its own, you have to compare it with what else is available. And that makes answering the question easier. Is writing on Medium in 2021 still worth it? Absolutely, especially when you start to consider where else is available for writers and bloggers to earn money today.
Writing on Medium means you get paid to build your business.
This factor makes it more obvious than ever that it’s still worth it to write on Medium in 2021: you can use it to build your business, you can quickly and easily start getting a very respectable number of views, AND you’ll get paid to do so.
Consider this: if Medium never paid me a penny in 2021, it still would have been responsible for allowing me to grow my newsletter by a couple of thousand subscribers (you can sign up here to get your free 5-day Medium starter kit), start an exclusive writing advice newsletter with three other incredible writers, promote my YouTube channel, gain several consulting clients, and a couple of freelancing clients.
It allowed me to do all that because I know how to use publications, curation, and calls to action. But Medium also paid me to do all that! I’ve earned nearly $7.5k this year from writing on Medium alone, all the while building my business and tons of other revenue sources.
The real power of Medium is that it’s a landing pad to build your portfolio, your business, and your writing skills. And it’ll pay you to do that, all the while.
That factor kind of combines factors 1 and 2, really cementing my answer to the question of if writing on Medium in 2021 is still worth it. For me, it’s a very solid yes. If you’ve got this far and you’re not convinced, let me know!
Is writing on Medium in 2021 still worth it? Even though I’ve seen a huge reduction in views and Medium earnings, for me the answer is still a very easy yes. First, the power of being able to segment and understand your audience is vastly underused. Publications especially should be viewed as a tool to access a specific audience that you’d normally have to pay for. Here, you get paid to do it.
It’s also by far the best alternative. There’s no other blogging platform where’s it’s possible for beginners to pick up and start easily earning money by writing, whether $1 or $1,000.
And finally, it’s the only platform where you get paid to build your business. Every experimental post, every nerve-wracking story, every article you’re convinced will do awfully, it has a chance to earn money when a paying Medium member reads it.
All in all, I can safely say writing on Medium in 2021 is 100% worth it for bloggers and writers of any experience level.
