Member-only story
How to Start Monetizing Your Writing
Don’t make the mistakes I did.
Technically, I monetized my writing from the beginning.
My first paycheck from Medium in 2020 was for 89 cents.
I couldn’t really buy anything with that — even the cheapest cup of gas station coffee is about $1) — but the payout alone made me realize that there was something to writing on the internet. It made me realize that the work had a chance of being worth it — even if no one else in my life understood at the time.
I didn’t have more than 10 followers at the time, I hadn’t gone viral anywhere, and I didn’t even really know what I was doing, but I realized that money was there and if I worked really hard for a long time, I could probably make some money with this writing thing.
Fast-forward 3.5 years later, and writing on the internet is how I make most of my money today.
Here’s what I did:
Offer a service before a product.
Every writer dreams of writing a book that is a best seller and making zillions of dollars from their book.
I wrote an entire novel before offering a service. I was new and naive, and I didn’t know any better.