October 2022 Earnings Report — a Repeat of September
Not a great month
My stats for October are almost identical to the previous month. I am tempted to just change the title of that report. If you’re reading this and feel like you’ve already read it, it’s because not much has changed from last month.
Ever since May, many writers have been talking about a summer slump in views and earnings. October is definitely not summer, so something else must be going on.
The current theory of most writers is that the new CEO has made changes that have tanked views and earnings for most writers.
Some writers have higher views and earnings though, so that can’t be the whole story. It’s probably a big part of it though.
All through September and October, I’ve been thinking about living Medium for good. I’m simply not enjoying writing here like I used to, and the earnings are not really worth the effort I’m putting in.
I’ve started to diversify away from this platform my started my own side hustle blog. You can read about how it only cost $33 to set up the blog.
So, back to October.
Stories
I published 24 stories in October, which is five more than in September. It’s well below my average of 35 stories per month which I’ve achieved over the last year. Back in April, I published 58 stories.
You may think my views may be down because I’ve published fewer stories, but that’s not the case. In April, my stories averaged almost 1,000 views per story. In October, they averaged under 500 views per story.
Views & Reads
Views for October came in at 11,577. That’s up 14% from 10,138 in September. For most of the month, it’s been downhill, although views picked up on Halloween. Probably because I wrote a few posts about Medium, and those always do fairly well. The numbers differ from the screenshot because the dates don’t match up.
My read ratio in October shows as 54%. But no individual story from October is showing a read ratio of over 50%, so I’m a bit baffled by the stats.
Followers, Subscribers & Referred Members
Back in April, I gained 657 new followers. In September, it slumped to an all-time low of 222. In October, it’s fallen even further. I got 193 new followers, giving a total of 4,627.
I find the follower count to be a pointless number though. I guess that most are no longer on Medium and many others have never really followed me anyway.
I gained 7subscribers in October, which is two more than in September. In April, I got 30 new subscribers. I now have 143.
I got one new referral this month. I now have 16. That gives me an extra $33.46 a month.
Earnings
My earnings for October were $234.76, which is almost identical to September’s $228.95.
In April, I earned $1,695.06.
In the last year, I’ve earned a total of $7,023.90 here. That’s an average of $585.32 per month.
The Future
I’ve more or less decided to continue writing here until the end of the year. If my views and earnings slump even more before then, I may leave sooner rather than later.
I find it harder and harder to motivate myself to write here. I’d earn more taking a minimum wage job. I’m not going to take one though. I don’t need the money. I’m just pointing out how low the “pay” is here.
We’re all competing against each other though. If we earn more, others will earn less. Writers like Tim Denning are still making great money here, so it’s obviously possible. But he’s a better writer than most of us, so he deserves what he earns.
If we want to earn more, we have to become as good as writers like Tim. That’s down to us.
Hopefully, November and December will be better months.
