Can You Make Money Writing On Medium? (Updated 2023)

Over the past year, I’ve received questions about the online publishing platform Medium; whether it’s a useful freelance writing venue.

It pays writers, who get paid according to how much attention their content receives. Increased reading time on an article increases the writer’s income.

Medium describes itself as an “online publishing platform.” Evan Williams, formerly co-founder of Blogger and Twitter, developed the network in 2012.

To be honest, I’ve long been waiting for the site to founder. In its first few years, it was a real challenge to work out what or who the site was for. It looked like a streamlined iteration of Blogger, combined with a social network.

Now it says it’s an online publishing platform. It’s subscription-based, so that it can pay writers. This is a good thing, if freelance writing is what you do, or if you write as hobby.

I’ve subscribed; any site which supports writers gets my support. But… can you make money writing on the site?

Freelance writing: can you make money writing on Medium?

If you explore Medium, you’ll find lots of posts from writers who make an income on Medium. Other writers find clients who hire them via their Medium articles.

Medium’s benefits: it’s a pleasure to read

What are the benefits of publishing on Medium? Opinion’s divided among writers.

Here’s what I like: the site is a pleasure to read because it isn’t flooded with advertising.

Moreover, I can usually find something I want to read, because the site uses some human editors rather than algorithms.

My experiment with Medium as a freelance writing platform in 2019

The best way to judge something is to use it.

In 2019, I published: 

• You Started Writing A Novel. How Do You Finish It?
• Want To Become A Freelance Writer? Here’s My Best Advice

Then other projects got in the way of my experiment.

Time winds on…

February 27, 2023 update

Over the past four years, I’ve ignored Medium, pretty much, because it became unusable, as people tried to game the algorithm.

Nothing new. The big challenge for any platform which has potential, is that people try to game the it. Spamming and gaming happens to Google, Amazon, Facebook et al, every day. Medium is no different.

That’s annoying for the rest of us.

However, last year I heard from writing colleagues that the situation had changed on Medium, so let’s see if they’re right, and Medium has potential.

In late February 2023, I posted this article on Medium.  

 

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