How I’m Going to Make $3,000 Per Month From Writing Online

3 Lessons That Took My Content to the Next Level

I have been creating content on the internet for just over a year and I’ve finally started to make some money from it, but I never thought that it could be possible to make a full-time income… until now.

Earnings from 1 article in 1 month.

After a viral Medium article, a high performing YouTube video, and my first successful brush with referrals/affiliate marketing;

My eyes have been opened and I have completely changed the way I think about the (still very new) landscape of making money on the internet. So I crunched the numbers…

This is my realistic plan to make $3,000 per month from content creation.

(If you'd prefer to watch the video instead… although there are calculations in this article that are not mentioned in the video)

Income Stream #1: Medium

Current Performance / Proof of Concept:

My Medium Stats for the Past 30 Days

I’ve been writing on Medium inconsistently over the past 2 years and I have only very recently started seeing the volume of views shown above.

So what changed?

I used to write about all kinds of topics from data science to philosophy but around a month ago I took a page out of the YouTube playbook: Niche down.

I’ve started writing my articles for a particular group of people. Mainly, people interested in productivity, technology, and content creation. (These groups overlap quite a bit.)

Below is an example of what happened when I wrote an article trying to solve a problem and provide value for a specific audience — people struggling with procrastination:

Currently making around $10–15 per day from this article alone

Top 3 Reasons for my Rapid Growth

  1. Niching down — Creating content consistently for a specific audience has been the primary factor contributing to my growth in followers and email subscribers. When people know what to expect of you, they are much more likely to want to hear more of what you have to say. And if you write about anything and everything, readers won’t want to follow along with you as a creator.
    For instance, the overlap between finance blog readers and snowboard trick terminology blog readers is (aside from myself) basically zero. So making content for both of these niches isn’t the best idea.

  2. The HIVE Formula — (Hook, Intro, Value, End Screen) or HIVE is a formula used to give your content a more story-driven approach. As human beings, constantly searching for meaning, good storytelling is the difference between failing and successful articles or videos. The more I focus on storytelling, the more people seem to enjoy the content.

  3. Titles and Thumbnails — Typically you only hear talk of title and thumbnail optimization from Mr. Beast level YouTubers but this strategy applies to Medium as well and it can make or break your content. Even if your article is the best thing since sliced bread, it won’t get a single view if nobody likes your title and thumbnail. This section is so important that it could be its own article. (Highlight this if you’d be interested in that.)

Monthly follower, email subscriber and referred members growth

The 80/20 Rule of Content

Like almost everything in life, Medium article performance is subject to the Pareto Principle (commonly known as the 80/20 rule).

This means that 80% of your earnings on Medium will be from 20% of your content.

Let me say that again for the people in the back:

80% OF YOUR EARNINGS WILL BE FROM 20% OF YOUR CONTENT.

Content creation is a numbers game. Once you create a piece of content, it starts spreading through various algorithms that inevitably lead to people engaging with it. The more content you have flowing through these algorithmic pipes, the more people will ultimately see your work. (This is where the serious money happens…)

Future Medium Earning Calculations:

If you publish 2 articles per week, you will have created over 100 pieces of content on Medium. This is the number that I’m going to set as my input goal.

  • Given that my current best article generates roughly $10–15 per day

  • and assuming that 20% of the 100 articles will generate 80% of the money

I believe those top 20 articles will fall in the range of earning $1-15 per day.

This is quite a wide range but it will be helpful for the calculations below:

20 articles earning $1 per day = $20 per day (or $600 per month)
20 articles earning $5 per day = $100 per day (or $3,000 per month)
20 articles earning $15 per day = $300 per day (or $9,000 per month)

These numbers may seem far-fetched but there are top writers on this very platform that are pulling in $25,000+ per month and it doesn’t stop there…

Referred Members

At the moment I have 11 people who signed up for a Medium subscription through my content as a Referred Member. Medium pays writers for each referred member to the amounts below:

10 referrals — $20 per month (or $240 per year)
20 referrals — $40 per month (or $480 per year)
50 referrals — $100 per month (or $1, 200 per year)
100 referrals — $200 per month (or $2,400 per year)

My goal is to have 100 referred members by the end of this year so consider signing up for a Medium Membership through one of my articles. :)

Other Potential Income Streams

(I’ll talk more in-depth on these when I have more experience.)

  • YouTube — Turning blog posts into video content

  • Personal Website — Repurpose content for wider SEO net

  • Email List — Weekly/Monthly newsletter, way to directly contact audience