I finally hit both of these major Medium milestones!
It took 14 months to accomplish both. Plus, an update on my efforts to sell my ebook...
February 14, 2024.
That’s the day I set an intention to tackle two goals on Medium.
The goals were:
Earn $1,000 in a month.
Get a story boosted.
It took a little over a year, but I’ve finally hit them both.
It’s always intriguing to look back and see how things turn out. It’s never the way you expect. I’ll show you what I mean…
My one (and only) boosted story
In the article above, I mentioned that I would be going for the boosted story first.
The article that I linked to was about how to get a story boosted on Medium in three steps.
The steps:
Find a publication that will boost stories.
Figure out what gets boosted (and what doesn’t qualify).
Write a boost-worthy article.
(None of those steps are super helpful by themselves, but I did link to other helpful articles.)
I knew my Medium meta stories would never get a boost, so I thought I would try something with manifesting or the law of attraction.
I tried with this story about trying past-life regression hypnotherapy. I got a comment from an editor saying they were going to nominate it, but nothing happened. It wasn’t boosted.
But…
As I mentioned, things never quite work out the way you imagine (or the way they’re supposed to).
It was a story I wrote in June 2024 that got the boost.
I didn’t follow any of the rules:
It wasn’t in a boostable publication. (I put it in a pub I created.)
I didn’t write it to try to be boost-worthy.
I used an AI-created main image (not even a good one!)
But it was boosted, and I got to check that one off the goal list.
Earn $1000 in a month on Medium
This goal seemed downright stupid.
I felt dumb writing that Twitter post because I made $1.12 the month I wrote it.
“Who am I to make $1k in a month? Only good writers do that.”
But, as I mentioned in my story, I like to put things out into the Universe in writing because things seem to happen when you set an intention like that.
(They just don’t always happen super fast…)
I started making quite a bit more (around $500 per month), so I felt OK about getting to $1k.
“If I can make $500, I can make $1,000! I think?”
Of course, we all know what happened with Medium at the end of last year, and I felt like the Universe was giving me a little wake-up call.
I didn’t even make it to $200 in December.
Yikes!
I thought my time at Medium was done.
Then…
Something unbelievable happened in January. I had an article go viral, and I got *so* close to that $1k goal.
So close, yet so far…!
The next two months were pretty good, but not good enough for my goal.
Oh well! I couldn’t complain. Those were still great results.
Then…
April came along.
I’m writing this on Monday, April 21, 2025, and it finally happened. I reached the $1k goal:
And I feel absolutely…
…not much.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited to hit this goal finally, and I’m grateful for the earnings. I truly am. But I’m not jumping up and down like the woman in the main image.
Instead, I’m already thinking…
“That was nice. Now what?”
lol
Well, I guess it’s time to make an intention to hit $2k in a month. (Assuming my account remains in good standing and Medium remains online…)
Let’s see how long it takes this time.
I’ll let you know!
How my updated ebook is going…
I also wanted to give you an update on my updated Medium Money ebook. My plan was to:
Write an article on Medium giving helpful writing tips and linking to my book there.
Write a sales page on Substack and house it on my homepage.
Link to the sales page via some of my other Medium articles.
I did the first step and wrote a “Writing Tips” article.
I stuck my ad in the middle:
And I also promoted the book at the end:
But…
That article didn’t do that well. Medium is different from the first time I put my book out. They don’t promote writing about writing as much. I think it’s going to be a tough sell on there now.
I also completed the sales page, which you can see here:
I’ll write more about this (and how I’m using it) in a later post.
I’ll see you next week, where I’ll give you a full April earnings report. (Can you believe it’s almost May??!) 🤘🏻
P.S. Don’t forget I have a super short newsletter called Intellectualists that goes out Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s just a short list of useful articles and resources related to money, writing, marketing, and side hustles. It’s 100% free (and always will be)!
Great success. With my almost 400 articles on Medium, I'm on track to make a $1.10.
Congratulations