Writing for Profit — A Primer

How articles on Medium aren’t that great literature they are claimed to be

Nov 25, 2024

This text was written in the beginning of 2024 for being published on Medium. As everything that is about Medium itself and published there, it gained moderate traction.

It has a special property: it was “improved” by the help of the Hemingway app, as an attempt to see if writing like a 5th grader really would make anything better.

Now, today, I understand that this article may have been the first step I took to leave that platform — as I had been writing there for almost a year at the time and was beginning to find it a bit wrong for my taste.

Later, of course, it all fell apart completely, with articles getting no readers at all and the earnings dropping to almost nothing.

All to the better, because it made me jump into Substack, where I had an account since the time I began writing on Medium; I just had not used it. Today, I really enjoy it here.

There is a huge difference between Medium and Substack. Really, so significant that I think it may not be fully understandable for people who haven’t tried both. Hopefully, the story below can give a hint on what kind of thinking and writing people develop with the monetization model of Medium.

Have a look!

— o O o —

You may now laugh at me, but I have been naive. Stupid. Trusted people.

As we all learn from our parents and from life, we shouldn’t trust anyone. Especially not when there is money involved.

When money goes in, the friendship goes out.

I honestly thought that writers on Medium wanted to write great literature.

But then I studied the fine print.

Ouch!

How it is meant to be

Medium is a place for writers — and readers. Some like to write, others like to read what they write, and that should be a good match.

When Medium first started, it was for good writers. Those who could write long, well-researched articles in magazine quality, worth something. Worth some money.

Now Medium has redefined itself. Not this minute but over the years, and it is spoken about as a platform where people can learn how to write.

Try to taste the difference when saying it — “good writers” vs “learn how to write”.

That’s the official story. The reality is different.

How it is

Have you ever wondered why everything on Medium has been written in short phrases, with blank lines in between?

This is not how a printed book would look like, is it? But Medium has this style.

We have all heard of reading skills and statistics that say — write for a 5th-grader, then all readers can read it.

And we have heard that people have a short attention span — they need everything split into 5 second bites.

But these are not the real reasons.

The real reasons are — money, more money, and lots of money!

The trick is to keep you reading for 30 seconds or more. And to drive you to highlighting something, giving claps, and commenting.

If the text is super-simple, your eyes scroll over it with ease, you enjoy it and want it to last, and you quickly spot something to highlight.

Now we just need your claps and comments.

But why?

Medium pays money to the writers. Only to those who are members of the Partner Program, but that’s a detail, since very many writers are on Medium with the hope to earn money, so they are clearly members.

The purpose of Medium is — to most writers on the platform — to earn money. Writing is only the means to it.

What they learn here is not to write, it is to earn money.

They do marketing — like the sellers of watches, sandals, and other cheap crap from their booths near tourist attractions.

These sellers are not doing it to enrich the world with great merchandise — they do it for the money. And they know how to catch your attention.

Just like the Medium writers.

How it works

Medium has a formula for calculating the earnings. When you read an article, the formula determines how much the writer will earn.

In the formula are the elements:

Read to view ratio (read-through rate)
Point for a clap (one or more claps, it doesn’t matter)
Point for a highlight (one or more, it doesn’t matter)
Point for a comment (one or more, long or short, it doesn’t matter)
Extra points if you follow the writer after reading the article
Extra points if you were already a follower when reading it, or if you were already a follower of the Medium publication it was published in
Extra points if the article has been boosted by the Medium staff
Extra money if the reader is a Friend of Medium

The formula can be seen in its entirety at Calculating Earnings in the Partner Program, but you cannot calculate it yourself due to various blurry details.

The writers can, however, increase their luck by tricking you into giving them as many points from the above list as possible. That will earn them more money.

The read to view ratio is for the individual article and is new for each day — it is unknown to me if the ratio and the earnings are recalculated for the full day or if it is done for each read. A ratio means “number of reads out of number of views” — so, how many percent of that day’s viewers stayed for at least 30 seconds.

What happened to “good writers?”

Tricking you to read an article for more than 30 seconds is easier for simple topics that speak to everybody in a simple language — but it still may require some skills. Simplicity is not easy to achieve.

But is it good writing in a traditional meaning?

Would you buy a novel written that way? No, probably not.

Would you describe a novelist writing that way as a good writer? No, definitely not.

It only works on Medium and social media. It has no value anywhere else.

What happened to “learn how to write?”

This is similar to the question about good writers:

Do you learn how to write well by writing like a fifth-grader? Or by asking for claps and comments in your text?

The answer is probably both yes and no, depending on your initial skills. And if you intend to become a social media copywriter, then you may benefit from what you learn by writing for Medium.

But it will not teach you how to write a novel or a magazine quality article.

So, about that great literature

It may be here. Because, luckily, several writers have decided to pay little attention to the earnings — either because it is too complicated to find out how it works, or because they simply do not like that kind of writing it leads to.

I personally find that too many articles have little to no value at all, they are just there to make you spend 30 seconds and have fun with clapping, highlighting and commenting something polite but useless. They are not memorable — you quite certainly will not remember them.

But there are also articles, stories of all kinds, that do not follow the pattern above, and which can make you want to read more from the writer, want to buy a novel that this writer has written.

And some similar articles that you can recognize as good but which are just not for you, due to their topic or style, length or whatever, so you skip them (for now) but you may remain happy that they are there for others to enjoy.

And then, corresponding well to the name of the platform — there are quite many articles that end up right in the middle. They are of medium quality, with some skills behind them, with an idea and a great flow — but partly ruined in the attempt to adapt them to the earnings model of Medium.

All-in-all there is too much of the writing on Medium that is only or mostly for the sake of making a profit.