How to Publish on Medium… and Make Money from It

When it comes to writing online, there are endless options for publishing your work.

However, for the most part you have two main options: to create your own website to publish your content, or to use a site that will host your writing for you.

If you don’t want to do the extra work of setting up your own website, you can use Medium to get publishing right away.

If you have been writing online for any length of time, you have probably stumbled across Medium.com as a publishing platform.

If you’re a writer, you might want to know how to publish on Medium and how to get set up with an account. We will go over what Medium is, how it works, how to publish on their site, and how to monetize your writing on Medium.

What is Medium

According to their website, Medium is “A place to write, read, and connect.” If you haven’t used it before, it is essentially a publishing platform with a social networking aspect built-in.

As you publish, Medium helps send your articles out to people who are interested in the topics you write about. It also has a clean interface so you can publish easily without all of the complications of publishing on your own site.

Just to note, Medium is not the first website to offer an easy-to-use blog. Before Medium there were sites like WordPress.com, Blogger, and Tumblr. However, Medium has a different overall look and different monetization features.

Why publish on Medium

A lot of people choose to start writing on Medium because it’s free and already has a lot of built-in traffic. With a traditional website, you often have to work hard to send people to your website. On Medium, when you publish with certain keywords or categories, people who are already on the site will naturally find your writing. 

That can save you a lot of time from worrying about growth, SEO, or any of the other stresses that come with owning your own website.

There is a built-in algorithm, similar to what you would find on social media sites, that tailors content to you so you can find interesting writers and posts to read. As you can imagine, when you publish on this site, it gives the same benefits to your content as well by showing it to people who would be interested in your work.

It’s not easy to do, but there is also a chance for your articles to go viral across Medium. If they hit a certain number of readers, likes, and comments, there’s a chance for them to appear in front of more people or to be sent out in their newsletter.

Medium also connects to your social media profiles, so you can automatically send out your articles through them. This also means you can connect with people who already follow you on social media. If you’ve done the hard work to build connections and get to know other people, they will have the chance to follow you on Medium as well.

Keep in mind, you do not have to exclusively only post your content on Medium or on your own website, you can share it in both places if it makes sense for your publishing strategy. 

How to get started with Medium

To start writing on Medium, you will need to sign up for an account on their site. As mentioned before, it’s free to sign up but they do have a membership option. The membership allows you unlimited access to every story with a portion of your membership going to the writers you read the most. It starts at $5 per month or $50 for the year.

Once you sign up, you’re ready to start writing. Signing up for an account also gives you the ability to comment on other people’s blogs, follow certain authors or publications, and generally network with other writers.

The basics of publishing on Medium

To publish on Medium, you simply need to add in a new post, write your text, and format it to look how you want it to – which is easy with their editing tools. It’s helpful to have a tool that is easy to edit and manage if you don’t have a lot of technology or coding skills.

After you write your post, you can add in some tags or add it into certain publications. Then you simply need to publish the post and if you link your social media profiles, it will automatically send out to them as well.

You can learn more about publishing on Medium and formatting your article in this article.

Inside of Medium, you have the option to set up what they call a publication on top of writing your regular articles. Publications are often written by multiple authors around one particular topic. You can create your own publication or join one that already has readers (with permission from the publications’ editors).

Publications allow writers to send out newsletters and they also receive their own stats page, so all the writers involved can keep track of how the publication is doing or where readers are coming from.

Plan what to write about

Ideally, before you start publishing on Medium, you should outline what you’re going to cover and make a basic content calendar.

Once you decide what to write about, you’ll want to set up a publishing schedule. What can you fit inside your schedule and how often can you publish a post? Answering those questions will give you an idea of how often you should be publishing. You don’t want to set up a blog to only publish in it once every few months.

Medium keeps track of your engagement and your overall metrics, so you can see which posts are gaining traction. That way, you can tailor your future content around what your audience already loves to read. Even with the best planning, it can be hard to figure out what readers will love to read from you, so analytics can help.

How to make money on Medium

Now let’s get to the real question that most people want to know: how can you make money on Medium? If you’re going to be putting in the hard work to come up with a niche, publish regularly, and stay on top of your content, you might as well make some cold hard cash while you do so.

They have a whole page that breaks down the specifics, but we’ll give you a quick overview to get started.

First, you’ll need to apply for the program and meet its eligibility requirements. As of the time of writing this article, to meet their criteria you need to publish a story, gain at least a hundred followers, and publish one every six months.

One of the first ways you can get paid is by keeping and attracting readers to your work. The more people read and stay on your stories, the more you will get paid.

From there, you can also make money based on how many people you can convince to join the Medium membership. As of the time of writing this, you earn half of their membership fee (after payment processing fees) for as long as they remain a member. That’s a good deal for a lot of creators out there to start making an income from their writing.

Overall, Medium is a great site for writers to publish their content and reach a whole new audience.