My 30-Day Medium Publishing Experiment
What happened when I published a post a day on Medium for 30 Days
At the beginning of May, I decided to take a challenge that Shaunta Grimes was running, to write a post a day on Medium. I’d written sporadically on Medium over the past few years, but to me, it seemed like a place that lent itself more to creative writing, not to the type of SEO-compliant articles that I was used to writing. But I decided, why not try writing a little bit of everything? I had been trying to find a place where I could post about everything I liked to write about anyway, like working from home, health, and the goals I was currently working on.
So I took on the challenge, and I saw some amazing things happen when I did.
My Medium views went up.
Of course, I expected this to happen, I was writing posts and sharing them in Shaunta’s Facebook group, and people were recommending them and sharing them on other social networks.
Views and clicks started going up on the Facebook pages for my different websites.
I have three different Facebook pages — one for my website Work at Home Tips Online, another for My eBook Journey, and one for the freelance writing business I’m trying to start up, Erica Lynn Martin Writing Services. In the past, they’d gotten maybe one or two views a day, if any at all, but after I started the 30-day challenge, they went up dramatically.
eBook Sales started going up.
I’ve also published a few eBooks on Amazon. One is called Your Work at Home Journey: Three Paths You Can Take and What You Need to Know Before You Go, and the other is called Get Paid to Talk Volume 1: Employee Work from Home Phone Jobs. Because I hadn’t been actively promoting them, I hadn’t been getting any sales. Once I started posting on Medium regularly though, I started getting sales again. I’ve only made $2.76 in the past 30 days, but I’m feeling confident that if I keep posting, I’ll keep getting the occasional sale. The graph on top shows the sales I got — one on May 5, one on May 10, and one on May 17.
The publication Conversations on the Go added me as a writer
Three weeks after a started the challenge, I got a notice that the publication Conversations on the Go added me as a writer. I’m looking forward to seeing how this helps my views on my stories.
I started getting more followers.
After I posted an article a day for a while on Medium, I started to notice I was getting more followers — at least one or two more a day. When I started, I had 76 followers, at this point I have 91 followers, and I’m sure as I keep posting and commenting on others’ posts, I’ll get even more.
How I wrote a post a day on Medium for 30 days
I have to admit, when I first took on this challenge, I didn’t think I would be able to do it. But as time went on it actually got easier to come up with ideas and find the time to write them. Some of my sources of inspiration included:
- Posts I’d written on other article sites or even on my own websites.
- Posts written by other Medium members
- Things I have going on in my own life.
- Articles or quotes I read on the Web, or books I read
- Movies and TV shows I watched.
- TED Talks I watched or listened to.
I found the time to write these posts by writing a little bit in the morning, and by using small blocks of downtime during the day. You’d be surprised how much I can churn out in just 15 minutes — half an hour is even better, but I seldom have that much time during the week. The weekends were when I did most of my writing and scheduling.
My Stories With the Highest Recommends
Over the course of this 30-day period, six of my stories got 10 recommends or more. They are:
- Reflections on 42–15 recommends
- Some of my Favorite Books About Writing — 12 recomends
- Reflections on My Future Plans — 11 recommends
- Finding my Creative Side — 11 recommends
- If Your Life Was a Movie, Who Would Be in Your Credits? — 10 recommends
- Why It’s Important to Stay Focused — 10 recommends
What do I plan to do from here?
I definitely want to keep publishing on Medium, though I don’t think I’ll write a post a day. I was able to do it this month, but it took a lot of advance planning, and I’m just not sure I’ll be able to keep it up, especially with all the things I have going on with the house my husband and I are buying. I’ll probably try to shoot for publishing on Medium three times a week, and also continuing to write on my other blogs, Work at Home Tips Online and The Erica Upgrade project.
