Cover Photo by Steve Knutson on Unsplash
10 ways to guarantee you’ll make no money from your writing
I still remember the first time I was approached by a publication to put my “work” in their publication. I felt overjoyed. I mean, I’m just a guy. I’m not even a writer — I build software for a living.
Imagine my surprise when The Startup reached out to me and wanted to publish the fifth article I’d ever written! I felt like a winner. The first three months went great, and then it all tanked.
Overnight, my stats were down 90%.
That dip, my friend, was hard to swallow. I thought I was on top of the world, and then “BAM!” — back to square one. Talk about a reality check!
Most people would have given up, but somehow I didn’t. That dip lasted six months, if not more. I reflected on what was wrong then, and sure, there was a pretty important algorithm change on Medium’s part, but it wasn’t their fault. I’d been lucky in the beginning.
Needless to say, I generated no income during my dip, but that all changed when I applied the principles in this article. Sadly, I had to learn them the hard way. So, let me save you the pain now!
Also note, these apply to any type of content you’re building online, not just writing on one platform.
1. You Don’t Spend Resources on Marketing
Medium can do a pretty decent job of promoting your articles, but that’s only one platform. And if you’re a Medium writer, let me tell you that my top 10 earning pieces are articles that rank on Google and have more external views than internal ones. SEO is still king, my friend!
Other than that, do you have a mailing list? Do you have a website? These are the first steps.
How do you bring your website to the forefront? Are you posting ads, promoting it on social media? Are you positioning yourself as an expert on the topic?
Do you discuss in forums and groups? How about LinkedIn and Quora?
If you want to make real money online, you have to do all these things and then some!
2. You Copy Someone Else
When I started writing on Medium, I was inspired by Nicolas Cole, Benjamin Hardy, PhD, Tim Denning, and more. I guess many people were or still are today. The only difference is that I didn’t copy their style or content. I adapted it to be of my voice, based on my own experiences.
Never pretend to be someone you’re not. You may not realize this, but you don’t need to be extraordinary to have a voice. I’d argue people don’t listen to extraordinary people anyway. People want to buy from people they feel they can relate to.
That brings us to the following point:
3. You Don’t Capitalize on What Makes You Human
Are you creating authentic content? Is the content you create based on experience?
One important rule of marketing is this one: People buy from people.
Let that sink into your head for a bit.
Are you creating content for people? How so? Are you telling personal stories? Are you relatable? Is your content relatable? Is your motive to create the content to help other humans? Or is it for profits?
Think about what all humans do instinctively. Think about our senses. Think about our needs and desires. Create content for that. Make it obvious to your client that, like them, you’re human.
4. You Stop Without Even Trying
Remember that six-month dip in the introduction? How long would it have taken you to give up? Most people wouldn’t have lasted more than a month. Congrats if you’d stick around longer.
Most writers I know on Medium started making real money after about three years of writing consistently. Can you persevere that much?
And it’s not just writing. Any content you build online will have a slow adoption curve. Let’s define “adoption” as a user consuming your content.
According to research, the adoption curve looks something like this:
In the first two to three years, you’re still in the Early Adopter phase. If you give up then, you lose 84% of the people you could reach out to.
5. You Only Publish Your Best Work
If I have one thing going for me, for better or worse, it’s that I’m not a perfectionist. This allows me to publish content a lot more frequently than the majority of people.
And here’s an interesting fact: the more you publish, the better you get at it. So I became a better writer a lot faster than others who are more talented than me, simply because I dared to put out something unrefined.
In the Medium world, you’ve likely heard of Shannon Ashley, Tim Denning, and Ayodeji Awosika. If you check their profile, you’ll notice they publish on average more than once a day. If you think every piece they write is their best work, you’d be wrong. And they know it.
Is your content 80% good? Publish it. The next one will be better. At your current expertise, 100% good may take weeks to reach. If you publish three to four 80% good content pieces, the next one is going to be as good as your previous 100%.
6. You Don’t Make Friends With Other Creators in Your Space
This is a greatly overlooked strategy. Your network is your net worth. The more creators you know in your space, the more influence they’ll have on your work. The more influence you’ll build yourself.
Most top creators are part of groups of like-minded creators. They advise each other. They share successes and failures. No creator succeeds as a lone wolf.
Who are your favourite creators? How can you add value to them? Have you reached out to them? Why not?
You’d be surprised by how easy it is to connect with other creators.
My friend Michael Thompson wrote about how to create a mastermind group with like-minded creators. I highly recommend considering it.
7. You Think You’re All It
I have news for you: you’re not. And none of the top creators in your space think they are. The real influential creators are people just like you. They’re still figuring things out. And it’s because they’re still figuring things out that they’re at the top.
There’s no such thing as being the expert. You can’t truly master anything. Why? Because there’s no such thing as a ceiling. You can always break the limits, as limits are imaginary to begin with.
If you think you’re all it, question yourself. People who know know that they know nothing.
8. You’re Not Consistent
Remember in point number five where I mentioned Shannon, Tim, and Ayo? They publish content more than once a day. On YouTube, they recommend publishing at least once a week. Even that’s not enough in today’s reality.
But the real key here is to make it a habit. Habits prevent procrastination. I never procrastinate writing in the morning. I’m both used to it and I love it. That’s a recipe for consistency.
Your audience needs expectations on when they’ll hear back from you. Did you know that on average today, someone needs to be exposed to your content at least nine times before they start interacting with it? Imagine if you post content once a week. That’s nine weeks until you’ll have a true impact on a single person. That’s slow!
Be as consistent as you can be!
9. You Don’t Create for Your Audience
Who do you truly create content for? Entrepreneurs and creators are passionate about some stuff, and they only want to create that which they’re passionate about. Well, that’s fine to do once in a while, but who’s your customer? You’re not your source of income, are you?
You may not believe me, but most people create for themselves first. I know I do that frequently. Dare to be a little selfless. Find traits in people who react to your content.
Here’s the typical profile of people who reach out to me: high-achiever, entrepreneur, parent, 70% female (yup!), hate comfort.
Who are the people who resonate with your content?
10. Your Goal Is to Make Money
It’s not a sin to want to create wealth. I used to think it was, but I was wrong. I need money so that I have more resources to (1) help more people and (2) help them better.
The problem is, if you focus on money, you’ll overlook all of the points above, especially point number one.
One of my favourite sayings is this: Money is a side-effect of doing good work. I don’t know about you, but getting recognition from my audience about the quality of my work strongly helps me create more good things for them. That, in turn, generates me more money.
Here’s how I do things currently: I have things that generate me money in the long-term and things that generate me money in the short-term. I try to balance this out. Creating content online is a long-term game. Don’t bet on this to be your main money-maker until you’re been consistent at publishing quality content for years. I’m dead serious here.
Summary
Are you making money with your published work online? How many of the following apply to you? What are you going to do about it?
You don’t spend resources on marketing
You copy someone else
You don’t capitalize on what makes you human
You stop without even trying
You only publish your best work
You don’t make friends with other creators in your space
You think you’re all it
You are not consistent
You don’t create for your audience
Your goal is to make money
Making money online isn’t as easy as you think it is. Creating content is a part of what you need to do, but it’s by no means the only thing.
Take a moment to reflect on the above. Rate yourself on each point. Are you doing good or bad? How can you improve? When are you going to apply these improvements?
Remember, he who acts gets.
You can do this!