My Least Productive Month on Medium Brought In Nearly $10K

6 min readNov 17, 2020

I don’t always make $10,000 a month on Medium, though of course, I wish that I did. While I may never be one of the tip-top earners here, I still think there’s hope for me to grow and earn more in the future. Besides, even when I don’t earn $10K, I feel incredibly fortunate to do something I love in the comfort of my home, and still make better money than I ever did working for somebody else.

Even so, writing is work. It’s hard work. It takes a lot to consistently publish money-making stories which translate into lots of member reading time while raising a kindergartener — especially in the middle of a viral pandemic. Like most folks, I get burned out. I get sick of social distancing, sick of politics, sick of social media, and sick of being tired. It probably doesn’t help that I’m autistic and things like organization or planning are rarely my strengths.

I’ve had to adapt to make writing work for me this year.

Honestly, I’ve been through plenty of hard times in my 38 years on earth, but I’ve got to say that 2020 is seriously for the birds. Of course, part of the problem is that 2020 is almost over, so the stress of this past year will surely be bleeding into the new one.

That means nobody knows just how much longer things are going to suck and when life will actually feel normal again. I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s made writing much more difficult this year.

In my effort to adapt, it’s led me to shift my work a bit. I’ve taken some time off from the deeply personal stories I would typically write. Instead, I cover more culture, celebrities, politics, and religion — these topics are great because they interest me and many of my readers. I have plenty to say about them, but they don’t require me to bleed. Not really.

So, the shift in focus has basically allowed me to keep writing through the year even when I am depressed or unmotivated, and when it feels like all I can do is cope.

The other thing I’ve done this year to cope with the stress of 2020, is to write fewer stories. Now that part’s really scary. Instead of publishing every day, I often skip a day or two, or more, and allow my drafts to “breathe.”

I never used to feel like I could do that. If I wanted to make good money, I really felt like I had to keep my name out there on a daily basis. But, I’ve been doing this thing for a long time, and I’m not quick at it. Most posts take me hours to complete.

That said, mixing things up in 2020 has felt very important. I want writing to be this thing I love to do, and not lose my love for the whole thing. With 2020 being such a helluva hard year, I keep coming back to this idea that I need to do the thing that I’m afraid of and give myself some space to be okay.

I’m guessing that many of you are in a similar headspace.

Taking a break from writing so much is… complicated.

All in all, the changes have worked well for me and I discovered that I can write successful pieces that don’t revolve around super personal stuff all of the time. I feel good about that since I generally like to write according to my moods.

Am I worried about people unfollowing me because I’m writing about different things? Not enough to change gears, I suppose. Since I began blogging on Medium, I’ve often taken on popular culture or social commentary because I think the way we talk about human issues matters. Like it or not, we are all impacted to some extent by the culture we live in, and I find there are some really interesting discussions that happen when we talk about various pop culture headlines.

After all, when I write about my super personal stuff, people only read it because it somehow resonates with their own experiences or somehow makes them think about an issue from a new perspective. They’re not reading about my life because I’m so damn interesting.

My Least Productive Month on Medium Brought In Nearly $10K

I’ve had to adapt to make writing work for me this year.

Taking a break from writing so much is… complicated.

Written by md tahmid