My Medium Journey: Episode 4
A story went slightly viral. How can I reproduce that?
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This is a monthly feature in which I document my solopreneur journey from start to … uh … whatever comes after the start. Fail or flop, I hope we can all learn something from my experience.
Well, it was a bang-up month, clearing $500 for the first time, and by a wide margin. There is a fly in the ointment, though. Half my revenue was from a single article. (I published five “serious” articles last month, not counting my monthly medium journey update and a little article about SEO I wrote on a whim — which tanked).
Over the few months I have been writing on Medium, I have had two articles that have done markedly better than the rest. All of these article were published in the same excellent publication, and all were boosted. Both were about popular topics (water consumption and mindfulness), but I thought some of the others were pretty interesting to (and it wasn’t just me — my mom thought they were great too!)
Now many of my articles have made around $100. That is nothing to sneeze at. But I remain curious what sets apart the articles that do really well (as defined by me) vs. those that do just pretty well. Is it luck? Is it subject matter? Is it the title? The writing? Not sure at this point.
What I seemed to do right
My github based project management I talked about last month seems to be doing a good job keeping me on track and keeping the article pipeline flowing. I definitely published more consistently this month.
I continue to try to engage with (almost) everyone who comments on my stories, and I also try to comment on the stories of others that I enjoy and that seem at least tangentially related to my core subject areas of mindfulness and mental health.
What I seemed to do wrong
My website was kind of a mess, unfocused, lacking a call to action. So I cleaned it up and reorganized it last month. It isn’t big deal since I am not getting a lot of traffic there yet, but I figure the sooner it is in reasonable shape the better. It is no where near perfect, or even excellent, yet. But I think it might get the job done if an interested party stumbles across it.
Just the stats, ma’am
In September I gained 188 followers, for a total of 620. I added 22 people to my email list, for a total of 41. I earned $679 for the month.
That’s all the news that’s fit to print this month. See you next month!
If you enjoyed reading this article, consider subscribing to my weekly newsletter focused on better living through mindfulness. Learn more at realandpresent.com — Eric
