Is Writing On Medium “Worth It”?

Financially, no… mentally, yes.

Photo by Taha Samet Arslan: https://www.pexels.com/photo/court-scales-and-smoking-pipe-7781900/

I’ve just broken a key “rule” to succeeding on Medium. You’re supposed to leave an information gap in the headline or subtitle that teases readers into clicking and reading… preferably all the way to the end (since earnings are based on member read time).

You know the kind of thing:

“This one trick moved me from earning $10 a month on Medium to $1k plus!”

And you’re left thinking, “What’s the one trick?! I HAVE to know… I’m sure it’s probably clickbait nonsense, but what if it isn’t?”

Instead of leaving a gap, my subtitle resolves the question in the title. Is writing on Medium worth it? No, not in financial terms, but yes in terms of what it can offer your mental health.

So you could stop reading now, because that’s the answer.

The fact that I have stopped playing by “the rules” (and am generally publishing less often) may give you a clue that my relationship with this platform has evolved recently.

The rest of this article will explain this (as well as delivering more detail on the “Is it worth it?” answer I just gave)… so do read on if you like, but no pressure.

The Financial ‘No’

I worked very hard on Medium when I first began back in August 2020. I had found the platform as a reader and quickly moved to joining the partner programme and writing to earn.

A bit of background as to how I first found Medium as a reader…

I was struggling in a job I didn't enjoy, working for a company whose values were diametrically opposed to my own. I wanted advice, but the articles Google spat back at me were vague and unrealistic — just pieces that freelance journos had written to order.

They weren’t bad per se… they just clearly had no lived experience behind them. And then I found an article by Ayodeji Awosika that blew me away (because he is a very good writer).

His no-nonsense approach of “stop moaning, start acting” really resonated with me and I wanted to read more. Then I hit the 2 free article a month limit, got annoyed, took the plunge and became a Medium paying subscriber.