I Challenged Myself to Write an Article for Medium Every Day, for 30 Days

For years, I’ve wanted to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The challenge is to write an entire novel (50,000 words) throughout the month of November. There are entire planning guides and YouTube videos dedicated to NaNoWriMo prep: it’s a serious commitment for 30 days.

I’ve tried to do NaNoWriMo, many times, and failed miserably. Usually after a few days I’ll find myself so drastically behind on my word count that it feels impossible to catch up. My intentions are good. Last year, I did a lot of planning.

But life happens, I have kids, we have the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. Plus I’m a freelance writer, so I’m churning out thousands of words per week for clients, let alone adding NaNoWriMo to the mix.

This year, I decided to try something different. I wanted to write one article for Medium per day. At ~1,200 words per article, this felt much more manageable. Plus, writing more consistently on Medium has been my goal for a long time. I knew I wouldn’t publish every day, but a side benefit would be creating a backlog of articles to publish in the future.

Thirty days later, I was more than a little surprised by the results.

I planned out topics for 30 days.

For years, I’ve published 2–3 stories per month on Medium. I’d tell myself that I wanted to publish at least one per week and it just… didn’t happen.

I also publish a weekly Substack and bi-weekly newsletter and manage to get that work published as planned. Something about having a specific due date (when I know the audience is expecting new work) is more motivating than Medium. I’ve been accepted into many Medium publications, but have no control over how quickly they publish. So it’s always felt haphazard.

But even with my inconsistent publishing, I’ve continued to save ideas for Medium articles. I use Trello to plan my content calendar. So ahead of my November challenge, I selected 30 ideas and scheduled them out over the course of the month.

I even did a small amount of prep, adding bullet points to each idea. I wanted to focus on executing the article, not thinking through its structure or what I wanted to cover.

I sat down each morning (I’m an early riser!) and typed out the article according to my Trello schedule.

My earnings increased by 12x.

My earnings on Medium have always been mediocre. In October, I earned a whopping $37, with two new articles published.

I’ve had a few articles take off over the years, but most of my work would only get a few hundred views at most.

My earnings in November, after publishing 15 articles: $471.56. I also gained about 150 new followers throughout the month.

I was shocked.

While I earn a lot of money as a freelance writer, my own writing isn’t a source of income (yet). I only recently added paid subscriptions to my Substack and my newsletter earns nothing. But I’ve told myself that I’m in it for the “long haul” and will continue to write and publish my own work.

Suddenly, Medium feels like a viable additional income stream, if I stay consistent.

My first freelance writing job (back in 2020) was for a content mill and I was paid $27 for 1000 words. An entire 2.7 cents per word.

Based on the number of words I published on Medium in November, I earned about 3 cents per word. A far cry from what I charge as a freelance writer now, but kind of wild compared to what I was earning for client work three years ago.

And the difference? This work is mine. My ideas. My content. My potential to keep earning more every month.

Medium editors convinced me that they care about quality.

There is a lot of garbage on the internet; some truly terrible writing. It permeates social platforms, crappy blogs, and even Medium. Generative AI has certainly made this worse, with robots churning out hundreds of thousands of words that no human would actually want to read.

Medium staff send occasional emails to writers with platform updates. In February 2022, Medium announced a new “Boost” feature, rewarding writers for high-quality work and helping them reach a larger audience. About a month later, one of my stories (about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank) was boosted and got nearly 40,000 views. I figured it was something of an anomaly, since it was a timely topic.

In July, Medium announced that its Partner Program would incentivize “high-quality personal stories, hidden life wisdom, and deep knowledge that’s locked up in our collective lives.”

Out of my fifteen published stories in November, five were boosted by Medium editors.

Like with my Medium earnings, I was shocked.

But it made me believe that Medium editors are truly standing by what they say: they’re going to reward writers for publishing great stories on the platform.

I’ll still publish in my Substack and newsletter. I write about very different topics and for a very different audience on those platforms.

But Medium has become my home for sharing my experiences: leaving the corporate world, launching a freelance writing business, and the occasional quips about productivity or parenting.

I gained momentum.

I was stuck in a cycle for years. I couldn’t figure out how to motivate myself to write consistently on Medium.

The 30-day challenge was exactly what I needed, because of the results I saw — both with earnings and boosted posts.

Did I write all 30 days? No. I wrote 18 days. I got a sinus infection which knocked me out for about 10 days. It was all I could do to deliver my client work, let alone anything else.

I published 15 stories, which means I still have a few sitting in my queue, ready to submit to a publication.

Am I going to shoot for writing 30 stories per month? No. Based on my results, publishing 12–15 per month feels like a good goal.

But I’m also planning to do my 30-day challenge twice a year. That way, I can grow my backlog of written work. If something happens (like an illness), I can maintain my publishing schedule.

Looking back, I’m so proud of sticking to my writing cadence as well as I did. I’m so pleased with the results. It was the kick-in-the-pants I needed to prioritize Medium as a platform for my words.

You can read about the future of work and career pivots on my Substack or get productivity tips delivered to your inbox through my newsletter. (or both!)