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September brought $180.85
Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow… even if that someone is yourself! — Plato
September 2023 was an even better month financially on Medium than August! Who knew?
September was the best of the best so far in my Medium journey, even though I had to slow down a bit.
I don’t want this Medium report to be a journal entry, but…
I got a new puppy!
Lego’s arrival is super exciting but also tiring. The 2 hours I spent every morning on writing are, poof, gone! Just like that.
I get up earlier, but the first 2 hours are not about writing anymore. Nowadays, I wake up, feed Lego, make a coffee, and play with her for 90 minutes. I know it sounds a lot, but she’s a poodle. Though I knew she’d be energetic, I wasn’t prepared for this level of energy.
Lots of sleepless and interrupted nights behind us. I just wish I could’ve taken these past two weeks off of work.
It became increasingly difficult to make time for writing. If anything, she forces me to be faster with writing & editing. I grab my laptop when I see a gap (because she’s asleep).
You’re not here for puppy talk, so let’s get to the juicy parts.
I closed the month with 938 followers.
262 lovely people decided to follow my words. I just realized now that this account will reach 1K in October. It’s wild to think about it.
September was even better than August in terms of views, too.
If you write at least 10 articles a month, you can get 6–8K views on your stories. And that’s precisely what happened to my stories.
If you read my Medium report from August, you know I did a commenting experiment that resulted in high views.
This month, I couldn’t do any experimentation, though.
I was just happy that I could publish 13 articles (fewer than in the previous month) — I disappointed myself, but I need to accept the change that comes with the puppy. I’m happy that she’s here, but regardless, I thought I could just keep up my writing time. But no!
Regardless of the smaller number of stories, my earnings went even higher than previously. Yay!
My MPP earnings have increased by more than $25 compared to August. That’s an extra chew toy for Lego!
I keep using my spreadsheet, which works well.
I added 2 extra columns since last month. Now I also track how long the article is (word count) and how much time I spent on it overall, from idea to publishing.
As I mentioned, I published 13 articles in September. Most (9) of them are shorter stories with a maximum of 4 minutes of reading time. I had to embrace more short stories. It was the best I could do.
It’s actually more challenging writing something of value in 300 words or less. If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a go!
My idea bucket is bottomless!
I have many drafts in the making. It’s just the time I’m missing so much right now.
My favourite kind of articles, case studies, are coming together nicely. I have 3 in the making, and I can’t wait to share them with you all because they’ll be so helpful to those who do content creation or other side hustles.
The Heyday of product design is over is responsible for the bulk of my earnings — $71 in September. Then, the rest came from all of my other articles together.
Even though it’s not an evergreen story, the earnings definitely exceeded my expectations.
I only applied to 3 publications; they all accepted me as a writer, but I couldn’t publish anything in the pubs yet.
An unusual thing happened…
One of the publication’s editors deleted my submitted article. I only realized it a half day later. I messaged the pub owner, who apologized. I believe it was a genuine mistake from the editors’ side, but still, it was a sad event.
What’s the key message here?
Always have a backup of your stories! Don’t just have them saved in the Medium editor because hiccups can happen.
I keep posting my stories on LinkedIn and X with little success. It only takes a few seconds, so I will keep doing it.
I’ve started posting some of my articles in Discord groups that I belong to. I also feel guilty because I couldn’t make enough time for it despite my desire to engage with the community.
My tech job is busy, too. I usually engage with the communities during my lunch break, but since Lego arrived, that 30 minutes goes to my puppy. It shows, too. People don’t engage with me and my articles that often.
I plan to return to the game as soon as I can find the time. I believe in reciprocity, so I don’t expect them to come clap and comment when I don’t do the same.
Engaging with other people’s articles works, but I spent more time on engagement than writing, which has to change. Engagement is important, but these two shouldn’t be this off-balance.
I spent 20.5 hours writing and editing Medium articles, equalling 9,220 words. Not bad, but it could’ve been better than this. Maybe in November, I can beat the number.
I spent 25.5 hours on engagement, including replying to comments, reading other writers’ articles, commenting on them, checking out other writers’ profiles, and engaging in Discord communities.
