Your Fast-Start Guide To Medium - Ten Easy Steps

Just Follow These 10 Easy Steps To Get Paid For Writing On Medium …

NOTE: You can access these three articles ON Medium (they are FREE to read):

How To Promote Your Book AND Make Extra Income On Medium

Making Money On Medium: or Where’s The Money Honey?

Your Fast-Start Guide To Medium — Ten Easy Steps

Whether you plan on getting started on Medium in order to post articles in the FREE section to gain followers and traffic OR if you plan on becoming a paid member, most of the steps are the same.

Ten Easy Steps To Getting Started On Medium

Some of these will take less than 10 minutes to complete, some of them are ongoing and a few of them will take as long are you need!

Step ONE:

You can sign up by connecting from your Google or Facebook accounts or by entering your email address. You will have to agree to Medium’s Terms of Service (check box). If you sign up with an email address, go to your inbox find the verification email and click on “sign-in”

Be sure to sign up with a user name that make sense (to you and hopefully others) and that you are not going to wish you were so impulsive in using six months from now! The link to your name will end up looking like this: melanierockett/medium.com

DONE.

You can use your FREE account to view all FREE articles and THREE paywall articles a month.

So … since three paid articles hardly gets you through the first hour … sign up for a month $5.00 OR a year $50.00 I would appreciate it if you used my affiliate … CLICK HERE https://melanierockett.medium.com/membership

Step TWO:

Start doing some research. As a paid member you can read literally hundreds of thousands of articles. Check out and read what other members are posting in a variety of categories depending on YOUR interests. Check out some a few of the higher profile members as well as writers who have just got started.

Look at the different kinds of articles that can be found. From haiku poetry to short stories. From really short (150 word) articles to articles that are major information sources and amazingly comprehensive. If you want to promote affiliate programs, make sure you check out and see how others do it. And if you want to focus on book reviews see what different writers do with them.

As you are exploring and reading … you will want to acknowledge the writers you are reading (see Step SEVEN).

You can do this by:

Clapping. You can clap up to 50 times … give them 50 if you really like and find value in the article. JUST hold down the clap button and let the claps add up!
Highlighting (the pen icon) passages or sentences that resonate with you.
Commenting or asking a question on something specific in the article or in general about the whole article.

Step THREE

Start working on your first article. If you have a blog or write a lot, you might already have an article ready to go or that will be ready with a few minutes of editing and proofing.

Find a writing program that you are comfortable working in: Scrivener, Microsoft Word, Google Docs or your website/blog editing page. You should write there (NOT in the Medium writing panel) and keep your work somewhere safe (in the clouds).

Your articles should be as grammar perfect as you can make them. MY preference for an Automatic Grammar Checker is ProWriting Aid. https://melanierockett.com/the-one-thing-that-is-sure-to-kill-sales-is-bad-grammar-and-typos/

Step FOUR:

Find or create an image or images for your article. Some of the short form articles don’t have images, BUT on most articles images can make a BIG difference between someone clicking and reading .. or not.

Medium makes it easy for you by automatically connecting to Unsplash. My preference is either pixabay.com or the PRO version of Canva.com. There are dozens of others to choose from … just do a Google search for “royalty free images.”

Step FIVE:

Copy/paste your article onto the Medium “edit page.” Add your Title. Add your header image (banner) and add your text. Make sure everything looks as pretty and easy to read as it can, using Medium’s formatting choices.

At the end of your article you can add a short BIO. You can add links to your website/blog, newsletter and social media. You can also add suggestions for other articles readers might be interested in. Once you have even a small library of your own articles be sure to promote your OWN stuff!

Step SIX:

Finally! Click on the publish button. A pop-up pane will prompt you to choose up to five keywords Do your best here … you can always change these later.

Hit the publish button for immediate gratification OR schedule a date upon which your article should appear.

Once you have met the requirements to become a PAID Medium contributor, you will also be able to choose from “paid” or “not.”

Step SEVEN:

When your article goes live … grab the URL and promote the heck out of it. On twitter, on Facebook, on your blog and in your newsletters. Send the “free access” links to your friends.

Step EIGHT:

Start building a following. IF you plan on becoming a paid member you have to:

Be active: This means publishing a few articles. reading, clapping, highlighting and following other members.
Accumulate 100 followers. I’ll have a full How-To Build A Following article for you in a day or two.

Depending on how fast you want to get there, these “should” become daily or weekly TO DO List actions for you.

Step NINE: (optional)

Participate. There are a variety of Medium communities on Facebook and on Slack that you can join and participate in. The majority of them are to help you get reads and claps on your articles. A few of them are heavy on the how-tos, and learning … answering questions being supportive and helpful.

SHOULD you do this? “Should” is not necessary. It can help you when you are first getting started BUT this can take a huge chunk of time out of your day, so be careful.