$150 this month, or Rs. 26,500

Medium is white AF, and white people seem to enjoy being scolded.

My two most lucrative pieces had ‘white people’ in the title: The Gig Economy Is White People Discovering Servants ($52) and White People, You Need To Wash Your Butts ($19). See below:

I also got accepted to a publication (The Startup) during this time, which was nice. It’s not that this publication has driven a shitton of views, but it directs interesting people my way, and they seem engaged, and they clap, which is what payment is based on.

I also had a lot of posts curated, which is where humans employed by Medium select them for distribution, in categories (like Immigration, or Business, or Space). Like the publication, this doesn’t drive huge numbers, but what it does is change the mix of people reading. For a normal post only a minority of readers are actual Medium members. For a distributed post, you get a lot more — and those are the ones whose engagement actually pays.

Again, I really like that they’ve found a way to reward me for engagement with paying readers, not for wild-donkey clicks. I still think about an audience (a foreign audience in my case), but more than anything I think about quality.

In general, I find writing on Medium a lot like cricket. You need to keep batting, hitting a lot of ones and twos, and if your form is good you’ll eventually get a four or a six. And that can change the whole momentum of the game. I actually published less in July (14 so far) than June (27) but again some of the June traffic caried over.

Last month I earned $70 (Rs. 12,500) and this month I earned twice that, $150 (Rs. 26,500). I think it should be possible to earn a lakh (Rs. 100,000) eventually, so I hope Medium’s business model works out. I quote Sri Lanka Rupee prices because that’s how I think. The Partner Program isn’t really open to people from Sri Lanka, or India, or places where Stripe doesn’t process payments. I’m only able to do this because my wife has a British bank account and the money is just sitting there.

I do think they should open up the program, both to give opportunites and to diversify the voices here which are, as mentioned, generally woke but also pretty white.

But so far it’s great for me. I’m enjoying writing and thinking again, and I can do that without also trying to figure out the business model for it. I know that Medium still isn’t profitable, but I think they’re doing something good and I hope it’s sustainable. I wish them luck, and thanks for all the fish.

Further Reading
How I Earn Money On Medium (last month)