I’m going to piss a lot of people off by saying this, but that don’t make it necessarily untrue.

I’ve been on this platform since the early days and I’ve noticed a few things about writers. I’ve noticed a lot of posts on how to be successful on Medium mostly done by people not making over $10,000 a month writing.

Because let’s face it, it’s often more profitable to show people how to make money writing than actually being a master writer yourself!

In truth, it’s not helpful to listen to a so-called expert when you can learn from a real one.

When I started my Medium journey, I wrote for nearly two years straight every damn morning at 5 AM. I shut the hell up, worked on my craft, and published stuff much later when it had substance.

We’ll define master and expert in a moment, but let’s answer this:

How good of a writer do you have to be to succeed on Medium, especially if you’re not an expert?

First, let’s talk about writing levels. You only have to have a 10th grade level of English language mastery to write good stuff on Medium.

How do I know? I taught 10th grade English, I know teens who do well on Medium, and I’ve made thousands here with very few articles.

Okay, so there’s a lot of data that says less than 10% of writers on Medium don’t even make $100 a month. But are we now saying money equals success?

Step back for a moment on this one.

Sure, bad writing won’t rank, but you’re also saying that if you don’t write the way the editors and target audience like, you won’t be “successful” here. That’s just B.S.

Redefining Success

I’ve read countless awesome poems here. However, they don’t do well in terms of claps, comments, and Medium Partner income. That don’t make them unsuccessful.

Also, fiction usually doesn’t do well here but some of the best pieces to come out are posted here. In addition, my favorite series is probably not super successful, but it’s one of the reasons why I stick around Medium. The editors decided that series posts or collections are not favored, so they don’t do so well. So be it. I still love them and they’re a success in my book. No worries, you can always self-publish those masterpieces in your own publication.

But the common thread with “successful” pieces has nothing to do with the low-bar curation guidelines. (Which are basically, have a 10th grade level grammar, don’t plagiarize, don’t sell, and make it actionable.) These pieces say something original, correct, and impactful.

This is where people in general mess up.

Freelancers write stuff that people don’t want to hear and think that everyone should pay attention to it. (Like this article.)

It would help to have more life experiences since that’s half of the success on Medium.

And when you have them, definitely write about them! But the “Do what you know and make up the rest” attitude is terrible. What if doctors said that? Writers are professionals with standards too.

It’s kind of a millennial thing, but what does well on Medium is when people go on about every waking thought they have with the insatiable need to share it. Ouch! But am I lying?

Okay, people from every generation commit this sin, even myself, though intentionally.

Now that’s not a bad thing, but it certainly clogs the Internet with half-truths and boring content. For example, I remember talking to someone about a topic for just a couple days, and then all of a sudden they’re experts. They did the typical millennial thing: they studied it for a few moments, did some sophomoric research, and then wrote about it on Medium. Now they’re pros at this topic because some internet guru said when you speak and write, “Always position yourself as the expert.”

This is the classic Dunning-Kruger Effect.

I know I’m on a rant, but I’m writing this post for all the real experts on Medium who have been unrecognized for some reason or another

Listen up personal branding mafia: Realistically it takes at least a decade to become an expert!

There is faking it until you make it and then there is flat-out faking it — and telling people otherwise.

Maybe it’s more honest to actually be practicing what you preach for at least a few years or several projects before you take the tone of “expert”. And yet this is what I always see, often with millennials. Tom Nichols wrote a whole book on this called The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge And Why It Matters. He’s not wrong, and he does mention the millennial phenomenon himself.

I know that’s a bad generalization about a cohort. In truth, my favorite people in the world are millennials! But I’ve taught thousands of millennials in college for nearly a decade, and from all over the country. That’s what I see. Gen X and boomers are so different.

When I started my Medium journey, I wrote for nearly two years straight every damn morning at 5 AM. I shut the hell up, worked on my craft, and published stuff much later when it had substance.

Isn’t that weird?

It shouldn’t be, but it also explains why some pieces get rejected by editors and why even curated stuff is still extremely light weight.

It’s a privilege to publish, and that should be taken seriously.

People think that’s not what writer success looks like, but when I did start publishing I did well. I charged my first client $1,000 because that’s what I thought it was worth. Anybody still writing for content mills is insane. I never wrote for any because I thought they demeaned the craft.

On Medium, I made over $7,000 from less than 20 articles. None of my stuff is brilliant, but it’s not the crazy-popular fluff either. Organically, my best piece only has 5,000 claps and my ethically promoted stuff only has 11,000 claps. I have one article that made $1,253 its first month and I wrote it in two hours! (See image below). Honestly, compared to other writings this would fall more on the side of light-weight than something really respectable and substantial.

Not one of my articles on Medium has ever gone viral — an overused and nebulous term — and yet many of them make me money. That’s success to me.

The Art Of Fluff

What does succeed is often fluff, but that’s true of any platform. I’m not picking on Medium. I’ve made friends and business collaborators here, so I have no qualms about Medium. Admittedly, I’ve written lots of fluff in my time. What you get with a liberal publication (politically and editorially), is that anything goes.

So while digging for gold, you get a lot of junk. Apologies for all the junk I’ve made in the effort to master the craft.

But there’s junk and then there’s outright charlatanry.

For example, I know one “expert” who wrote a popular post on how to hack online newspaper paywalls. That’s not a big deal since most news is propaganda and click-bait, but think about it. Medium is a paywall platform! Also, I’ve had many journalist friends who lost their jobs because of the downsizing of the profession.

Showing people how to steal content when they should be paying for it is like throwing gas on a fire. It cuts into the bottom line of a newspaper’s revenue and their writers’ salaries. And it’s illegal. How is that different from walking into Starbucks and stealing a newspaper? Nothing about the pandemic is behind the NY Times paywall (though you might have to sign in to your free account.) So anyone who writes stuff like this is the enemy of all writers who rely on institutional pay.

This goes to show that people will publish anything these days without thinking about the consequences. In this case, this writer whose goal is to attract writers to buy his blogger products, has effectively cannibalized the industry. That’s not expertise or craftmanship, that’s chicanery.

What makes matters worse is when editors write this way. One of the top business publications had an editor who got all of his post ideas from tiny book summaries he created. That explains why his posts had countless misquotes and a shallow understanding of these books.

I’m not saying this just to be mean, though it absolutely is. My higher purpose in mentioning this is that what he’s doing is disrespectful to these great authors and it perpetuates sophistry.

Summaries ruin books, despite being handy if you never want to read them. Who would see this as a commodity? Yet most of this editor’s posts did quite well as you can image, and now there’s a course out on how to do this!

Here’s another amateur-to-pro-in-one-hour situation. Someone posted an article on why people shouldn’t use Facebook to promote their Medium posts. They tried it a couple times, shared their results, and concluded that writers probably shouldn’t promote their posts on Facebook.

This article got thousands of hits and several comments were praising him. But they were all wrong.

As a long-time owner of a successful digital marketing agency, I can tell you that Facebook ads are not easy. It would take several months, but more likely a year or two to really get masterful results. And at that point, you’d be unwise to not leverage the platform for your most important posts. I use it all the time to show new audiences my client articles, and it’s the best $20 spent for a top-of-funnel campaign.

But you’d only know that if you were a real expert.

Everyone’s An Expert On The Internet

In a third head-scratcher example, I read an article in a top publication that got over 10,000 claps and dozens of comments. They basically talked about how to rank articles in Google with basic SEO. They bragged about how they could easily do it and showed readers a few generic strategies.

However, if you looked deeper you’d see that the keywords she ranked for on page #1 of Google were very easy long-tail words. That is, the keywords were so obscure and there were so many of them, of course she ranked. It’s no secret in SEO that the longer the keyword phrase, the better chances of ranking. Plus, if no one is Googling the term (search volume), you’re sure to rank high.

Try ranking for “chartreuse hand-carved clogs”. I promise you that you’ll rank on page #1!

The truth is, everybody ranks for something on Google.

It’s just a matter how difficult that keyword phrase is, how great your content is, and what domain you’re publishing on. It’s child’s play really, and you don’t need to be an expert to do it. And yet “experts” writing thinking-out-loud-fluff is what trends!

So what writers need to know is that sometimes thinking out loud on topics you barely know should be kept to yourself.

There I said it.

I know, I sound like a jerk for saying that and maybe I am. I’m not trying to be a jerk or elitist here. I’m just looking out for the reader. If readers believe this false information, who is this helping? And if writers don’t know what they’re saying because they haven’t really experienced it or even talked it over with real experts, that’s on them.

It’s a privilege to publish, and that should be taken seriously.

This is not said to dissuade “discovery posts”. However, no one ever puts up a disclaimer like “I’ve only been doing this for three months, but this is what I got. Comment below to share your insights or questions.”

No, we’re too busy trying to earn respect and posing as an expert.

That’s not ethical or useful — and yet Medium is flooded with this fluff. A little honesty and scientific experimentation would be much better for people who want to use the platform to discover, explore, and learn — while writing. This is what a good writer would do. They 100% should write cruddy stuff because they’re learning how to write better. But maybe they shouldn’t take on the façade that far too many writers use.

Free Advice For Anyone Who Will Listen

There is a reason why pop psychology is hot. It’s because you can air out any opinion and don’t have to prove it. Even PhD-produced psychological studies can’t be replicated these days. That’s perfect for most new writers trying to get traction, but that don’t make it right. Many millennials don’t understand that anecdotal evidence is an oxymoron. That is, they think that their experience proves it!

In college, this was the topic that most of my students struggled with frequently. They wanted their opinion to be enough. And when they did do scholarly research, the statistics were often cherry-picked. That’s not what a good academic or freelance writer would do, but it’s all too common.

Don’t believe me about all fluff on the Medium? Check out the site for a few minutes and see what’s trending. I don’t follow any publications, and yet my home page is mostly fluff. Since I follow other writers, a lot of stuff is written on how to make money on Medium, as we discussed above. Even the front page when you’re not logged in is fluff. That’s what gets clicks!

Yet, some of the writing here would be the best on any platform!

Again, I love medium and people should write lots of honest stuff here. However, the algorithm for readers promotes sketchy stuff and so you must go through article offerings much like a flour sifter.

Successful Writing On Medium

I think a good writer has something important or impactful to say and that’s written in a clear way. You don’t need Pulitzer Prize level writing where the grammar is flawless, every word or sentence is perfect, and the storytelling is off the charts. You definitely know everything you need to know about the storytelling aspect if you passed the 10th grade. All that definitely helps, but for the most part people want edutainment.

People don’t go to Medium for college lectures or kid-level stories. They go there to gain some sort of insight about the world and maybe themselves. They go there to learn a specific skill or strategy. And they go there to get the spin on news or revelations about the human condition.

I think of Medium as social media on a long-form platform.

You can take time to tell your story or unpack your case study. You can give your strong opinions or analyze others. To do this well takes someone who knows how to think and write.

You can’t be a copy of a copy or fake your expertise.

In fact, you can copy the high-earning writers and still come up short because they are better writers with an original point of view only they can deliver.

Therefore, being okay at the mechanical level of writing is not enough. As mentioned above, you have to have something else to offer. To do this, add your experience, point of view, and research.

For this reason, millennials and older people have the best chance of succeeding on Medium.

They’ve had jobs, they went to college, they fell in and out of love, and they definitely have some opinions. Wield that ethically and great content will ensue.

Good content is not rare at all, and I’ve spoken to dozens of people making lots of money on Medium. Their secret is the know-how to write for the masses on the platform, follow the curation guidelines, and put their spin on trending topics. That’s it! Voracious readers are everywhere.

We have a 99% literacy rate in the USA. Most everyone has at least a 10th grade English education. If you want to be successful on Medium, write 100–200 posts and you’ll start seeing some money come in. But please, for the love of God don’t complain about anything until you’ve written your 100th piece!

If you’re the kind of person who asks things like “What’s the quickest way to make money by doing the least amount of work?” Medium is not for you.

Writing is a real skill. It takes time. College-educated people get a massive head start. They only have to learn how to write less academically. ESL learners have the steepest hill to climb because they’re essentially trying to master at least 10th grade English, and storytelling, and their niche. It’s a lot.

But the good news is this: No one said you had to be right or the most well-researched writer. If you write too intellectually, it will go right over everyone’s head. So stick with that 10th-grade reading level and add in some originality to a trending topic. You’ll do fine and be successful here. You just have to determine how you define success.

Write something honest and something you can be proud of. That’s the ultimate success. When you do the best publications and clients often find you.

To learn how to write about ethical enterprises and make more money than 95% of Medium writers for free, click here.