How to Be a Paid Writer on the Internet
A brief overview that miraculously includes absolutely EVERYTHING you need to know!
Hey Everyone!
It’s nice to see so many new sign-ups for this mailing list. I was tempted to do another email before now, but I don’t want to flood your inbox. Besides, if you’re also signed up to follow me on Medium, you’re getting daily emails from me already.
I’ve had conversations with a few of you in the past on how to turn writing into a side hustle. So let me provide you with a quick overview of what I would do if I were getting started today. It’s really just a matter of signing up for a couple web pages, producing regular content, and persisting until you have enough of a following that you start making money.
The pages you need to know about are:
Medium
Substack
Vocal.Media
Ko-Fi
Newsbreak
Twitter/Mastodon/Instagram/Facebook (you know about these ones already but I still need to make a comment)
Let’s dig in (if you’re not interested in this, scroll down to the fun poll at the bottom):
Medium
I’ve had a lot of success writing on Medium over the last two years. It’s a platform that’s easy to work with and which provides a lot of visibility for your work. A yearly membership is only $50, and the community is very polite and well-educated. After wasting my time on Facebook, finding Medium is a breath of fresh air.
I believe you can become monetized without signing up, but if you do sign up, please use my referral link. Signing up through a referral link adds no cost to you, and it helps to support the writers you enjoy.
Without a membership I think you can only read 3 Medium articles a month, so I think it’s worth the expense. One of the best ways to improve your following on Medium (and make more money), is to leave comments on popular articles. That drives traffic to your profile.
I recently published my 1,000th article on Medium, and I saw I’m just short of 10,000 comments. I think that 10 to 1 ratio is a good objective.
If you want more details on how to earn money writing on Medium, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments below. If there is a lot of interest, I can answer all your questions in a follow up message. For now, just sign up and start playing around.
Quick note: I’ve found that your articles have a better chance of making it into a distribution channel if they follow a certain format. It’s important to avoid profanities, or even words like “hate” (which can be inconvenient when you’re writing social justice articles). If you used to read my old Streets of Lima articles, you know I never had any aversion to using profanities. I still don’t, to be honest, it’s just that these days I’m more inclined to indulge my frustrations with society by successfully launching counter-arguments to all the nonsense that’s out there (you’ve got to be sneaky). Just use profanity substitutes like, “Have a Disney day!”
Substack
The reason I’m on Substack is because Medium just got a new CEO and he made a statement about how Medium writers need to “drive traffic” to the platform.
The thing that’s comical about that is that Medium doesn’t pay you for reads from people who are not already members. So, Captain Obvious says, “Hey new CEO, if you really want writers to focus on driving new readers to the platform, why don’t you start PAYING them for reads from non-members?”
But, of course, if you want to get ahead in modern society, you have to operate on the belief that CEOs are always brilliant geniuses who got where they are because of merit. Therefore, I won’t offer any criticisms and I’ll dutifully drive traffic to my profile using other platforms.
I’ve seen a lot of other writers make the move to Substack over the years, and with the little I’ve dabbled with it, it seems to be an exciting and innovative platform. So, if you have any writing aspirations, or you just want to make some more money, sign up for an account here as well.
Sometimes simply familiarizing yourself with a platform makes things happen naturally.
Vocal.Media
Vocal.Media is a poor man’s version of Medium. My two word assessment is: it stinks. My six word assessment is: it stinks, don’t waste your time.
I dabbled with it for about a year before I figured out that Medium was better. The one advantage Vocal had was that it offered these awesome writing contests that paid out a huge amount of money. I got third place in one and walked away with something over 700 dollars.
That’s great, except that the wins don’t happen all that often and your articles never make any money. My top earning article on that page made only $7 (in 3 years). I’ve had articles on Medium make me close to $1,000 in just a month. That being said, I’ve had plenty of Medium articles that only make me $7 in three years too, but overall the chance of making money is much higher on Medium.
Still... it’s always possible that Vocal.Media could get its act together, and it does pay with views instead of reads, so if you can drive traffic to it, it might work for you. Might as well sign up for a free account I guess...
Ko-Fi
I only signed up for this because Medium put in some code so that writers could leave tips. Here’s my Ko-Fi profile (it stands for “buy me a coffee” get it?). People who like your writing can do a one time tip, or they can sponsor you with a monthly tip… yes, please.
What I’m finding is that the kind of writing I do is NEVER going to get corporate sponsorship. It’s just not. The only groups that have money are those that want to keep wages low, deny people access to affordable healthcare, gut education (you know... fascists).
Well, I won’t write anything that supports that attitude, so I have to rely on grassroots funding. So, let me just thank in advance anyone who wants to sponsor me on Ko-Fi.
It’s always a good day when somebody leaves me a tip!
Newsbreak
Ungh... well, let me tell you about it. About two years ago, Newsbreak had a program where they offered writers $1,500 to write 30 articles a month. They’d just launched and they were trying to attract workers (not “writers”...workers).
It was just supposed to be for 3 months, but then they extended it. I think they dropped the number down to $1,200, but they kept extending it. Then they changed up the deal and offered a “premium rate per impression” for a month that was very lucrative. I think I made $2,500+ that month.
The problem with Newsbreak is that it’s a very conservative platform that only offers soul-crushing comments from readers (at best... at worst they’re straight up death threats).
So, me being me, I’ve taken to using the platform just to troll conservatives. Here’s a title designed to incite rage that I’m particularly fond of:
Opinion: Christians Want to Crucify Me, But They Know Not What They Do
To make a long story short, I have 16,000+ followers on Newsbreak and they all hate me. Today, it takes a long time to monetize, and the payment fluctuates wildly. You might have an article go viral, but then they’ll change the rate per impression. What that means is that you’ll go to bed expecting to earn $500 for an article, but the next morning the rate will have changed and you’ll be making $0.35. That kind of thing is frustrating.
I don’t think I’d bother with it. In fact, I’d love to never publish there again. At the same time, it’s one of the best places for getting out a message to challenge all the absolute nonsense that people in the United States of America believe... so I’m a bit conflicted on this one.
Twitter/Mastodon/Instagram/Facebook
Meh... I guess you need all of these because they can be useful for driving traffic to your other profiles, but they’re all kind of awful (except Mastodon).
What is it about social media that fascinates fascist right wingers? I’ve been intentionally blocking all profiles that feature fascist content, and the next day when I scroll through a feed, it’s the same old nonsense. The algorithm is supposed to learn from my behavior isn’t it? Apparently the only thing it’s learning is that it needs to redouble its efforts to program me.
Mastodon is a new thing that sprouted up because everyone despises the guy ruining the Birdy web page. That whole thing is more than a little bit disturbing to be honest. Fascists always step in and eliminate any means for public discussion. Of course you’d want to control a free discourse platform and use it to quash any narratives you don’t like. Sigh...
I’ve noticed that Facebook has a kind of “business” portal that allows you to schedule posts on Facebook and Instagram. That’s kind of useful, except that the algorithm always buries articles that are about any form of tolerance or kindness... still, it may drive a few views…
In other news
All of that should be enough to get you started. If you have questions, please ask them and I’ll address them in my next email.
Meanwhile, I wanted to let you know what’s been going on.
I did my first book presentation since before the pandemic. To be honest, I was a little nervous about it since I get so many dang death threats from anonymous accounts. I’m happy to say it went fine and I’m still here. Here’s an article I wrote about that:
Should Writers Be Afraid of Getting Attacked at a Public Appearance?
The Super Bowl was last weekend, everyone was “outraged” because Rihanna performed while pregnant. I saw an opportunity for social criticism based on that reaction:
Why Shouldn’t a Pregnant Woman Perform at the Super Bowl?
Sometimes these articles write themselves. Here is a response to a twit on Social Media who objected to my previous article about Rihanna:
“You’re About to Become The Subject in an Article About Racism”
Switching gears, my big ski race is coming up. Here’s an article about ski wax (this one drove a lot of traffic from outside of Medium which I didn’t get paid for... I just love that new strategy, the CEO is a genius):
My Unapologetic Wax Tip for the 2023 American Birkebeiner
Here’s an article about the ruthless tactics white supremacists used to establish an oil monopoly in the US. I’m irritated this one didn’t get more views, it’s probably because I used the word “murder” in the title.
How America Accidentally Gave 20% of its Oil Reserves to the People it Was Trying to Murder
This week, my family has been watching the 80s show ‘Night Court’ on FreeVee. I used to watch that when I was little, and I guess it got me thinking about my childhood. So, I wrote this one:
They Demolished My Childhood Home and it Feels Strange
We had a tragedy in my community about a year ago and it’s still haunting me:
I Become Afraid Every Time I See Girls Walking Home Alone From School
Also, I keep reflecting on why so many Americans vote against things like lowering prescription prices and wages for themselves and their closest friends. It’s just stupid, and it’s so normalized people snort and laugh at you when you call them out on it:
The Trump Presidency Proved Your Friends and Family Won’t Do Anything For You
End of email
That’s more or less it for last week. Thanks for reading. Also, you can’t read all of those articles unless you get an account on Medium, so please use my referral link! Come on, do it, and I’ll teach you how to make that money back in no time.
Great to see all the old friends showing up on the email list. I hope you’re all doing well!
Here’s another silly poll:
WR