October in Review: 3 Months in the Medium Partner Program

Overview

This October, I published 7 stories, which is an improvement from September’s 4 (5 counting the month-in review).

I got more into media review/analysis this month, covering Taylor Swift’s latest album, as well as The Long Walk, an adaptation of the book by Stephen King.

I also tried my hand at something closer to a personal essay, discussing my love for Blue Öyster Cult.

I continued to publish short fiction stories, as usual.

Growth and Earnings

I gained an additional 20 followers and 8 email subscribers (thank you, all). Because I’ve only been monetized for 3 months, it’s a little too early to tell, but so far this seems to be an ‘average’ month for me.

It was a little better than September, but not quite as good as August, at least in terms of audience growth. The stories themselves actually had a better conversion rate, though.

At the time of writing, I have a total of 87 followers, of which 41 are subscribed via email. I don’t know how other authors sit with that ratio, but just under half seems pretty good.

We got a story to cross the $1 mark for the first time, being the Taylor Swift review. It’s closer to $2 now. My article on The Long Walk performed similarly.

Overall, each story is performing better, averaging about 30 cents each, which is a big improvement. Before, anywhere between 2 to 15 cents was the expectation.

So far, in total, we have about $7 in earnings. By the end of November, I figure we’re on track to cross the $10 threshold and hit 100 followers.

However, I did start a Buy Me A Coffee page, which is a tipping platform. Whether or not anyone will actually donate over there, I have no idea. I figured it can’t hurt, though.

Going Forward

My biggest issue is consistency. There’s bound to be some variation in publishing schedule just due to the nature of publication editors, but generally, I want to aim for 1–2 articles a week.

So far, the average has been working out to meet that, but only because during one or two weeks, I finished and published multiple articles at once.

An article complaining about Magic: The Gathering and my personal essay were published on the same day! Again, some of that is due to editors just happening to review them during the same day, but I submitted them within 48 hours of each other, so most of it falls on me.

I don’t think it actually affected the performance of either article much, but in general, I’d like to avoid something like that happening again.

Content isn’t going to change; everything is going to be based on media or fiction, but I might try to do something with health or another type of ‘self-help’ adjacent story this month, just to try it out.

A big thanks to everyone who has been reading my work!