My highest earning story
By: Nasar Karim
Tags: Writing, Writing On Medium

My highest earning story

So far…

sPhoto by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

The second paragraph of this article was originally the final paragraph. I’ve moved it to the front to save you some time. If you just want a ‘sure-fire formula for instant success on Medium’ you’re in the wrong place. Here we go…

“Apologies if I’ve disappointed you. This isn’t an article about the tools and formulas I’ve used to repeatedly write high earning, viral articles. There are plenty of articles like that out there by other contributors. This is just me, writing about writing. It’s something I love doing, it’s something I’ll keep doing, and it’s something I’m glad I have the opportunity to do. The fact that it may or may not one day be financially beneficial is a bonus.”

Now for the rest of the article.

I’ve been on Medium for 6 months, and I’ve never written a viral article, I’ve never even come close. I’ve yet to earn 100 dollars in total, but that’s no reason to stop writing. In the absence of a serious psychological imbalance, I doubt anybody could write if they did it for money alone. The odds are too small. I write because I love writing. Thank God I have other means of paying bills and feeding myself. Writing is just like starting a business, the ability to get started without quitting your job is a blessing. The business might explode, it might grow slowly, or it might fail altogether. Because the barriers to entry are almost non existent (you need time and something to write on), you can keep trying forever.

There are a lot of articles on Medium about how to make money writing. Everybody would like to write a viral article, one that gets read by millions of people. Viral articles, as well as making a good bit of money, open up all kinds of doors. The size of a writer’s audience is a ticket to many destinations; the bigger the better.

Writing is a bit like being a rock star, everybody knows about the few who succeed because they succeed massively, and the other 99% or so barely survive at all. If you became a bestselling author, you could make some serious money. And if you kept it up, you’d be made for life. Think of people like Stephen King, James Patterson, J. K. Rowling, and E. L. James, writers who are worth hundred of millions. Those at the very top of the pile are billionaires. So just like anything else, if you rise to the top of the pile, you have it all.

I’ll say it again though, you can’t just write for money. There are much easier ways to make large sums of money. According to the Guardian, the bestselling author of the last decade, in any genre, is Julia Donaldson. Donaldson is a former busker who was in her forties when her first book was published. If you have children, or you’ve ever found yourself in a children’s books section, you’re almost certainly familiar with Julia Donaldson. Her most famous book, The Gruffalo, has sold over 13 million copies and her titles have spawned clothing lines and toys. The Sunday Times Rich List estimated Donaldson’s net worth as £30 million in 2017. By comparison, 9 year old Ryan Kaji made around $30 million this year. He is the highest earning YouTuber for the third year running. He reviews toys. Like I said, there are easier ways to make money than writing.

In case you’re wondering, my highest earning article to date has made just over $3. It was an article about ‘The Secret’, a book that has sold over 300 million copies. As I’ve not been typing about the miraculous power of hope, you can probably guess that I’m not a big fan of The Secret. My fastest earner ‘Strangled, cut into one hundred pieces and dissolved in acid ’ made over £2 in the first 24 hours, then did nothing at all for months. My third highest earner so far is ‘Why you get even fatter after dieting.’ My most read article so far is the first one I wrote, about the loss of my best friend, “Before you kick the chair.”

Acknowledging that I’m probably wrong, I imagine I’ll keep writing for Medium, and as the years go by my readership will grow fairly steadily, until eventually I will make a reasonable living. Medium will be another income stream. Maybe it will take care of my monthly expenses. What I know for sure is that if I stop writing, I will never make anything. Success at any endeavour takes effort sustained over a long period of time. If you’re going to give something a few shots and then quit, you may as well not try in the first place. Jennifer Cohen conceptualises the persistence required for success as ‘The 10% rule.’ Essentially, she states that you must be bold, and you must give anything you do at least 10 attempts. Cohen gives a great Ted Talk on the topic entitled ‘The Secret To Getting Anything you want in Life.’

Being a human being who can imagine and plan, I do think about the future. I would love a future where I can live well just by doing the things I love to do. Writing is foremost amongst them. I don’t know if I’ll ever reach that promised land, but I do know I’ll keep trying. Writing on Medium is a start. I’d love to have some published books as well. Actually I’d love to have a lot of published books. The thing that really gets me going is the certainty of death. One day I’ll be dead, but any books I have published, assuming people actually want to read them, will continue to provide an income for my children. Dr Seuss’ rhyming books still earn millions of dollars a year for his family. Ernest Becker, author of ‘The Denial of Death’ might suggest that writing is my immortality project. My way to still be around when I’m no longer around. My means to stamp my name on history. I wouldn’t disagree with him, but I’d add that some success whilst I’m alive would be great as well.

Writing is creating, and creating is contributing. In ‘The most important job in the world’ I wrote about about the fact that a lot of ‘good jobs’ like investment banking, don’t actually create anything at all, they just skim money off of endless large transactions. Those jobs are all about making coin, and nothing else. The opinion I expressed in that article is that the most important jobs in the world are those which equip and inspire other people (teaching and writing amongst them).

Poetry comes easily to me, and I’ve published a lot of it on Medium. Poems have helped me publish 126 articles in my first 6 months. Whilst poems garner a lot of comments, a fair amount of reads, and lots of fans, they make very little money. But that doesn’t matter, because writing a good poem is very satisfying. My three favourite poems on here are currently ‘The Monster’, and ‘The Meagre Man’.’ The most widely read are ‘The Wizard’, a poem about finance, and ‘Another Pretty Face’, a poem about beautiful idiots. Writing short stories is a lot harder than writing poems, but I published one of those on here as well. ‘Ten Forty Seven’ is a story I wrote for a teacher, to help with one of her English lessons. After being told that it had several children in her class, and a few teaching and leadership staff in tears, and that a lot of reluctant writers produced some excellent work after hearing it, I thought it must be very good. But so far on Medium, it’s had less than five views.

Clearly I’m going to keep writing, and clearly I’m not expecting it to make me rich anytime soon. If I ever become a literary rock star, I’ll be an old one, like The Rolling Stones. That would certainly be very enjoyable.