Since I first started writing on the Medium Partner Program in September of 2017, I’ve made $317,000 dollars directly from the platform.

Since publishing my first book in 2016, I’ve made roughly $56,000 from book sales.

I’m not even counting the money I’ve made from other revenue sources like affiliate marketing, online courses, and coaching.

Writers on Medium have been making insane amounts of money in recent months, with the top earner on the platform making more than $50,000 in a single month.

You can look at these figures in one of two ways. You could feel envy and resentment because you’re not making much money right now.

Or, you can feel inspired and imagine what your life would be like if you even made a fraction of that income directly with your words.

Let’s talk about the inspiration part.

I’ve been on the other side of articles like this. They pump you up because seeing someone get results makes you feel like you can do it, too.

But, on the other hand, you can feel envy and assume the person who publishes the post is doing so just to humblebrag.

I thought about a way to make this the most useful and inspirational article of this kind you’ve ever seen on the internet.

This single blog post will be more valuable than 99% of the $497 blog courses writing coaches advertise to you.

And here’s how I’m going to do it:

• We’re going to go deep – I won’t share empty tips. I’ll leave no stone unturned. I’ll share resources and examples you can use. You’ll see every exact figure in chronological order. This post is long enough and useful enough to be a book that I charge for, but I’m going to give it to you for free.
• I’m going to be brutally honest with you – I make it a point to make zero guarantees of success when it comes to my writing and I’ll never make any part of the process seem easier than it is. I’m also going to talk about the downsides of following this path because there are plenty of them.
• I’m not going to hold back extra information – I have paid programs that dive deeper into explanations of these points, but you’re going to get the exact blueprint, right now.

This is the type of post you can reference weeks and months into the future. You’ll have no excuses left by the time you’re done reading it. While I’ll never guarantee success, this is about as close as you’ll get to a bulletproof method.

Are you ready to dive in? Grab some coffee, exit your other tabs, and buckle in.

Proceed With Caution

Before we dive into the skills you need to make this level of income, or even a fraction of it, with your writing, let me share a few serious caveats.

Your odds of making this amount of money are slim to none. You’re not going to hear me make a bunch of empty promises that you can do this because I highly doubt you will.

If you have the talent and desire, you can achieve similar outcomes. But I won’t deny the obvious truth about blogging you already know.

When it comes to making money blogging, or successful any other online business or project most people never do it.

I’m attempting to actively discourage anyone who believes in a get rich quick, or get rich at all, path.

Why? Because if you get into blogging with the wrong attitude, you’ll waste your time. I have an online course that teaches people how to earn money on Medium, but I prefer you not buy it at all if you’re not serious.

I wouldn’t have created the course at all had people not repeatedly asked me for advice. From now on, I’ll share this article when people ask me for advice.

You never need to take an online course. I believe in the power of investing yourself, but don’t just let any random person on the internet sell you a dream. Be skeptical.

If I feel this way, why write a blog post with such a gimmicky headline?

To get your foot in the door so I can tell you the brutally honest truth. As you’ll see later in this post, as much as you say you hate clickbait, gimmicky promises, and absurd income reveals, part of you loves it too.

I wouldn’t use these methods to get you in the door if you didn’t need a little pizazz to get you to click. It’s cool to have high hopes and ambitions for your writing career, but you need one important trait.

Without This Trait, You’ll Fail As a Writer

You have to really enjoy writing and do it primarily for love, not money.

Mark Manson has an excellent quote about the path to making a living as a blogger:

As a business plan, blogs suck. They take years and thousands of hours of work to ramp up to a level where you can monetize them. And in many cases the methods you use to monetize them kill your brand and tarnish your writing’s credibility, making them impossible to turn into money-makers.

I don’t know the real numbers but I would estimate that 99% of blogs out there have no significant readership, and of those blogs that have a significant readership, 99% of those make little or no money.

He’s 100 percent right.

I create this content knowing the vast majority of people won’t use it successfully. But, I found success by being the one percent of people who do follow through with guides like this.

I’m writing this in the hopes that you’re one of those rare types. And don’t beat yourself up if you’re not one of these people.

You don’t need to blog because it’s trendy or because you think it’ll make you rich.

You should only try if you’ve always had that itch to write. If you’ve always had it in the back of your mind that you’ve wanted to be a writer, you’re on the right track. If not? You should quit while you’re ahead. Seriously. This isn’t reverse psychology. Most are not cut out for this life.

You don’t have to fall in love with writing the very first time you write a blog post to be successful, but to be a successful writer long-term, you’ll need to develop what is essentially a mental illness — this demon that possesses you and makes you put words on the page over and over and over again until you can build a solid audience and find your voice.

Now that I’ve been as discouraging as I possibly can, let’s talk about the skills you need to become a successful writer. One quick note before we move on, too.

I teach traditional blogging techniques. It’s not the only way to become a successful writer, but I learned how to write this way.

I can only teach what I know, and I vouch for this process because I’ve seen it create a diverse array of successful voice and writing styles.

You can try other routes. Be artsy and esoteric if you want. I teach simples skills, like a bounce pass and dribbling between your legs. Because I mastered these basic skills I have the confidence to try pretty much any writing style there is.

Also, these skills help you learn how to write for an audience, which is a skill that helps writers in any genre.

You Must Learn This Subtle Art and Science to Attract Readers

Be honest, if I titled this post “How to Gradually Build a Sustained Writing Career, Slowly, Over a Period of Years, Using Tons of Effort” you wouldn’t have clicked.

I had to ‘put some cheese on the broccoli’ to get you to digest the ‘healthy’ message.

You can write the most amazing blog post ever written, but without a solid headline, no one will read it. I see headlines as the biggest sticking point for new writers, so I’m going to break down the process in as much detail as possible.

Before I talk specifics, you must get this lesson to sink into your brain first.

You have to write a ton of headlines to get good at writing headlines. I’ve written more than 15,000 headlines since I’ve started writing. Only one percent of them are really good.

Those one percent of headlines I’ve written created 99 percent of my viral successes. Every single morning, I write down 10 ideas for headlines. My blogging mentor, Jon Morrow, used to write 100 headlines per day. (Download his headline hacks guide here for additional reference).

When it comes to practicing your headlines, here are some helpful frameworks:

• People don’t buy drills, they buy holes : You want to focus on the outcomes and promises your post is going to deliver
• The two most powerful frames:  When you write a headline, you want to speak to the readers fear and frustrations or their hopes and aspirations
• Listicles work : As much as people say they hate them, data shows that lists posts are still the most successful headline format
• How-to posts : This is the second most powerful headline format. People want to feel like they’ll learn or grow from reading your posts.
• Power Words : Read this post that shows more than 800 different power words you can use to evoke emotions from your readers. I use a headline analyzer from The A.M. Institute that grades your headlines based on the percentage power words are included
• Contrast :  A recent viral article I wrote had the title — 8 Really Small Things That Tell You A lot About Someone.
• Exclusive or ‘secret’ information: Check out this amazing headline from Zulie Rane for an example: The Psychological Trick That Lets You Subtly Influence Human Behaviour
• Sticky Phrases: If you can create a cool name to make a basic technique look like a unique process, it will stand out against other headlines, e.g, The Art of Detachment: How to Stay Focused and Reach Your Goals
• Numbers and figures: Using numbers and figures, especially ones the speak to saving time, attracts readers by providing a specific outcome. From blogging superstar Benjamin Hardy, This Morning Routine will Save You 20+ Hours Per Week
• Name Dropping: Using well-known names boosts your credibility to due to a psychological bias called the ‘mere association effect‘ Check out this headline from Matt Lillywhite (and notice he also uses the sticky name technique and power words in the same headline), To Become Extremely Productive, Practice “The Elon Musk Effect”

Let’s take a look at some of my most successful headlines and break down why they worked so well:

• The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People — I added a small twist to a well-known phrase, The title of the best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. People will read the post to confirm they’re an effective person or because they’re afraid they’re ineffective. I also used a polarizing premise on purpose. If you read the comments there are just as many negative ones as positive. Controversy drives engagement.
• 7 Psychological Superpowers Few People Have You Can Use to Set Yourself Apart — I used over the top and gimmicky words in my headline to describe basic principles like being a good listener. Also, it makes for a shareable post because people want others to know they have these ‘powers’. Although the points themselves were simple, they were potent and profound enough to justify the headline.
• The 10 Most In-Demand Career and Business Skills for 2020 — People want to make money and be successful in their careers. 2020 also makes the post seem timely and relevant.
• 15 Signs Your Life is More on Track Than You Think it is — The word ‘signs’ attracts people because they’re superstitious and love to self-identity. Why do you think horoscopes are so popular? This headline reassures you before you read it. With 15 points, I’m basically guaranteeing you’ll find something in your life to feel good about.
• Use the ‘5-Year Rule’ to Create the Future You Want — I used a sticky name here instead of saying “Work Hard For Five Years to be Successful.” The subtle tweak of turning it into a ‘rule’ makes the process sound more proven and effective.

If you’re worried about feeling clickbaity, I’ll share a story of a conversation I had with a popular writer a few years back.

I told him I was struggling to grow my audience. He pointed out the fact that my headlines were weak. I told him I didn’t want to sound sleazy.

His response “I use clickbait all the time because…it gets people to click.”

Never listen to what people say, watch what they do. Everyone says they hate reading clickbait, but they won’t click on your articles if you don’t go the extra mile to persuade them.

You want to balance clickbaity headlines with stellar, in-depth, and useful content. I wrote a gimmicky headline, but now I’m giving you a highly tactical and useful article that will genuinely help you.

You Need This Skill That Will Addict Readers to Your Blog Posts

The job of each sentence is to get the reader to the next sentence.

You need your points to move seamlessly from one to the next and you must understand that your readers are looking for any excuse to click away from your article.

Think about your own behavior when you’re reading blogs.

You’re jaded from reading tons of empty advice. You think you already know what the blogger is going to say, but deep down you still want those valuable insights. As a writer, you need to play on the cautious optimism of your reader and use techniques to keep them hooked.

Here are some of my favorites:

• Pacing and leading — If you can guess what the reader is going to think, especially an objection, and state it right away, you’ll hook them because you met them where they’re at. Once you’ve done that, you can lead them down the page to your valuable ideas
• Subheadings — Read this article on writing irresistible subheadings. It taught me most of what I know. When you write a sub-heading, you want to give the reader a hint of what’s coming next, but avoid giving it all away up-front. The same rules that apply to headlines apply to subheadings
• Confidence triggers — Don’t use phrases like “I think” or “I believe” stand by your word.
• Transition words — Words like ‘because’ and ‘therefore’ keep your reader going along with your line of thought
• Pattern interruptions — You want to add little elements of surprise that keep your reader from getting bored. Sub-headings can work as a pattern interrupt. So can things like pictures, line breaks, bold, italics, and bullet points
• You vs. I ratio — Using the word ‘you’ makes the reader feel like you’re talking directly to them. I also will use the word ‘we’ to create comradery and make them feel like we’re in this together. You can use the word ‘I’ but avoid making the post seem like it’s all about you.
• Active voice — Instead of saying “John is the author of five best-selling books” say “John published five best-selling books”
• Sandwich technique — The beginning and end of your blog post and the beginning and end of each point tend to matter more than what’s in the middle. When writing list posts, use your best points at the beginning and at the end
• Contractions — Instead of saying ‘you will’ say ‘you’ll’
• Intros and conclusions — Your intro can make or break your post because most people use it to decide whether or not they want to keep reading. I love using the P.A.S. formula (explained below) opener to keep readers hooked. When you end a post, you want to give readers a motivating rallying cry or leave them with a prompt or question that makes them think.
• Editing tips — Omit needless words. Read this book to learn top-notch editing skills. Also, remove redundant sentences. Say more with fewer words. Read your work out loud to catch odd sounding phrases.

I also use different tools to measure how readable my posts are. The Yoast SEO WordPress plugin has a ‘readability tool’ you can use to grade your blog posts.

Some other valuable tools you can use are:

• Yoast SEO – This  WordPress plugin has a ‘readability tool’ you can use to grade your blog posts [screen shot below]
• Hemingway – An app that helps you write simple and precise sentences, like Ernest Hemingway
• Grammarly Premium – The premium version gives you specific insights to make your writing more engaging

I have a simple process I use to consistently structure ideas and craft readable essays:

• Mind Maps – You grab a pen and paper and jot down notes. You start with a central idea in the middle and write little bubbles for your main points. Then you write smaller bubbles underneath those bubbles for sub-points.
• Outline – Take those loose notes and create an outline document, transforming those bubble into coherent talking points
• 3 Step Edit – During the first edit, I look at the entire structure to see if the post makes sense. I’ll remove 25 percent of the content in this phase. In edit two, I’ll look at each sentence to see if it earned its way onto the page. During the last edit, I’ll fine-tune the post, maybe read it out loud, and add all my links, resources, photos, quotes, graphs, etc.

Here’s a visual representation of what my outline would look like:

• How to Start Writing: The Ultimate Guide
• How to Pick a Writing Topic (and Stick With)
• How to Write an Article Like an Absolute Boss

If you can master just those two items alone, headlines, and streamlined content, you’ll stand out in a sea of average bloggers.

As you’ll see when I describe the step by step, month by month, year by year process of making a living writing, following this process damn never every single day accounts for 80% of my success.

Above all else — marketing, promotion, tech skills — you need to constantly practice writing blog posts and essays.

These next techniques I’m going to show you will help you consistently write popular and viral articles.

You Need to Study and Implement These Classic Mind Control Techniques

You learn one important truth when you study skills like copywriting and persuasion.

You learn that people respond to psychological tricks without their permission.

When you understand that people use emotion more than logic when it comes to decision making, you can add little wrinkles to your writing that will keep them engaged.

Think of some of the techniques you logically understand don’t matter but respond to anyways, e.g, creating a higher price then slashing it to make a ‘sale.’

Kohls once famously tried removing the word ‘sale’ from their marketing and opted to just lower the prices altogether. It backfired. Deep down, people want the tactics and crave the illusion.

You can sell and persuade people even when they actively know you’re trying to do it.

Every writer should read these books and guides to understand persuasion:

• Copywriting 101: How to Craft Compelling Copy
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
• Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions
• The Boron Letters
• The Psychology of Human Misjudgement

At this point, I’ve learned dozens of different persuasion techniques, but some of my favorites are:

• Mere association — Citing well-known and popular people in your work makes you look credible simply because you associate yourself with them
• The P.A.S Formula — Describe a problem your reader is having, agitate the reader by explaining how their problem will get worse, provide a solution in the form of the rest of your article
• Future pacing — Describe a better future for your reader with your phrasing, e.g., “Imagine yourself six months from now” or “Picture what your life will look like if you accomplish ‘x’
• The 3 nod technique — Get your reader to silently nod their head yes to three questions or statements in a row
• Commitment consistency — Make statements to your reader about their positive character traits, e.g., “You’re a smart person.”
• Authority bias — People automatically trust reputable people and institutions. Citing credible sources makes you look credible.
• W.I.I.F.M Principle – Always answer the question “What’s in it for me?” from your reader’s perspective. This will keep you from writing self-interested articles and will make you address your readers needs.

Use the popular S.T.E.P.P.S Formula Before You Hit Publish:

Jonah Berger detailed and shared this framework for understanding virality in his book Contagious: Why Things Catch On

• Social Currency— People share content that makes them look good. This is why a headline like “10 Qualities of Likeable People” works so well. People sharing this post are telling others they have these qualities.
• Triggers — You want to use phrases that are ‘top of mind and tip of the tongue.’ He cites the viral song Friday by Rebecca Black that triggered people to play it often once per week.
• Emotion — When we care, we share. This works both positively and negatively. You want to use high arousal emotions either way, e.g., anger, fear, outrage, inspiration, passion, and excitement.
• Public — You want to create content people want to share publicly. You can use current events and trends to create this effect.
• Practical value — Educational and how-to posts work well because people like to learn and grow
• Stories — Humans learn and share information primarily through stories. Great stories help the reader identify with them. People make the mistake of thinking that any story is a good story. People don’t care about your story, they care about the way the story makes them feel.

Now, you’re armed with the basic tools you need to create compelling articles that can help you build an audience and grow your income.

If you master this next skill, you’ll learn how to become so good they can’t ignore you.

You Need to Learn the Skill All Successful Writers Use to Master Their Craft and Build A Huge Audience

Pablo Picasso once said:

 “Good artists copy, but great artists steal.”

You never want to plagiarize, ever, but you can reverse engineer the success of other writers and use it to create your own unique work.

In the past five years, I’ve kept an eye on writers I looked up to as well as my ‘competition.’ I never behave from a competitive, frame, though. I believe writers and creators should have a collaborative attitude and learn from each other.

Let’s take a look at this in practice. There are a ton of insanely good writers on Medium alone.

You can take a look at the things they do well and incorporated them into your work without copying their exact strategy.

Let’s break down some of the skills you can learn from top writers on the platform.

Sean Kernan — The Master Story Teller

Sean has a keen ability to tell stories from his life that relate to his readers. Before he became successful on Medium, he was a popular writer on Quora.

I can tell Quora helped him master his craft because the website has the questions and inner thoughts on people’s minds — a perfect resource for audience research.

Pay attention to some of the things he does really well:

• Subjects — He tells stories from his life using subjects readers will identify with, e.g., temptation to cheat in a relationship, interesting tales from history, aging, lessons learned from parents, having divorced parents. Always think about how your story relates to others or whether or not the story is interesting and compelling.
• Headlines — Sean is one person who I look up to when it comes to headlines. Look at a few of his best (and notice the power words highlighted): A Crumbling Marriage Killed My Childhood Friendship, Four Small, Non-Verbal Things That Will Get You Judged Instantly, My Classmate Propositioned Me, While I Was Married
• Diversity and experimentation — Instead of sticking to one tried and true formula, Sean will mix things up. He’s not afraid to come up with bad ideas. I credit Sean for creating an entirely new trend on Medium — biographic storytelling.

Jessica Wildfire — How to Turn Boring and Trite Cliches Into New and Interesting Ideas

You have better odds of blogging success if you write in popular niches, but you have to deal with intense competition. You can stand out by taking a novel approach.

Jessica often harnesses the power of juxtaposition. She’ll take a unique stance or show you a different angle of common tropes.

Look at some of the skills she employs in her writing:

• Bucking conventional wisdom – Look at the titles of some of these articles where she goes against popular self-help themes — 10 Kinds of Self-Help Articles Guaranteed to Make You Feel Terrible About Yourself and 11 Clues to Help You Spot Predatory Self-Help. In an article titled, If You Want to Make More Money Writing, Read More, she makes a valid argument that you don’t need to listen to writing coaches at all to be successful.
• More unique headlines – Look at the way these headlines provide a unique twist on common styles – 10 Habits of Deeply Angry People, Some of The Very Best Advice, Boiled Down into One-Liners,  20 Self-Help Books Ranked from Worst to Best
• Wit and humor – If you want to stand out from the crowd, wit and humor can give you an edge. Take a look at one of her biting and funny lines “I’m rich now because I wrote a book about all my failures. Then I went out and interviewed a bunch of people who were actually successful. They told me how to do things like eat vegetables. Everyone loved it. Now I have a podcast and a super hot girlfriend.”

James Altucher – The Best Blogger on Planet Earth

James inspired me to write more than any other writer combined, times ten. You can’t copy his style. Impossible. You can only hope to swipe a fraction of his powers.

For the first two years or so, I studied James like a hawk.

Here are some of his skills I failed to copy, but are worth mentioning anyway:

• Opening sentences – Your first few lines the most valuable real estate on your blog post. Check out some of his most famous opening lines “I am mentally ill. And I’m in a mid-life crisis. I’m dishonest. And I’m a horrible father. And I think with my dick.” or “I have one bag of clothes, one backpack with a computer, iPad, and phone. I have zero other possessions. Today I have no address. At this exact moment, I am sitting in a restaurant and there’s no place for me to go to lie down.”
• The story hook opener – Instead of just hitting you with pieces of advice, he’ll tell a story about how he implemented the advice first, then give you the tips. As he likes to say “advice is autobiography and nothing more.” See the weird magic here where opens a post about writing advice with a story about trying and failing to hit on girls.
• Authentic vulnerability – In his post, he’ll share intimate details about his life, especially his failures. He tells stories of him losing millions, suffering heartbreak, and going through depression. He’ll then tell you how he bounces back from it all. He’s a master at using his life story to describe the hero’s journey.

On top of learning to reverse engineer styles, you can reverse engineer techniques you see other people using to promote their work and build their audience.

As I moved forward in my writing career, I always paid attention to trends and said yes to new opportunities I saw other people using.

Some people say platforms like Medium have matured. Doesn’t matter. You’re in it for the long haul. Platforms evolve. They also come and go. Same with strategies. If you train your eye to always be on the lookout, you’ll catch the next trend.

Personal Examples Of Opportunities I Seized in My Writing Career

• Five years ago, a friend asked me to write articles for his website, I said yes.
• A few weeks later I noticed a Facebook friend published a viral article on Thought Catalog. I submitted an article the next day, got accepted, and worked exclusively with an editor at the website for 18 months.
• I kept searching for new places to publish my work. Anytime I saw someone publish on a popular website, I’d pitch that site. This read to several popular articles on sites like The Huffington Post, Thrive Global, and Smart Blogger.
• Four years ago, I saw a fellow writer publish a viral article on this website called Medium.com. I started writing on the website and built my follower count to 10,000 plus.
• I reached that milestone by using strategies I saw work on the platform — submitting your work to publications, using images and formatting, observing headlines and content of popular articles.
• Colleagues of mine had success publishing books on kindle, so I published my first book about a year after I started writing.
• I joined the Medium Partner Program in September of 2017 and published for 19 months straight until I had enough income to quit my job.
• I still spend daily time observing what works on the platform and incorporating it into my work