Medium is a great place to get your first publishing credits, but it’s also a good site to use to build a career. Medium has many publications that pay very well, plus you can make money from their Partner Program. According to a recent email from Medium, writers in the Partner Program all together earned over $11 million in 2020. For the most success on the publishing site, I’ve rounded up some tips.

Impress the editors

Editors at Medium are just like editors at any publication. They like for their writers to follow certain rules. “While we, and other publications, may look to the AP Stylebook and Chicago Manual of Style for grammar and style rules, we also have an internal style guide that the copy editors refer to when editing a story,” wrote Sloane Miller, copy editor at Medium. In Miller’s post “Grammar Mistakes That Medium’s Copy Editors Really Don’t Want You to Make,” copy editors from Medium outline the mistakes they want you to avoid when writing a post for the site. Make sure to avoid these oopsies.

Send story updates to your subscribers

The more people you get to your Medium stories, the more you make through the Partner Program. One way to get more people to a new story is to send a notification to all of your followers on Medium. There is a feature that allows you to do this easily.

1. Go to your Settings page

2. Click on “Followers”

3. Check the box next to “Display a message to promote email subscriptions on your profile and story pages”

Now, before you hit “Publish” on a story, you will have the option to send your followers an email when your article goes live.

Export subscribers

You can also save your follower’s contact information to start your own mailing list outside of Medium, which gives you a little more control and a way to contact readers about other projects.

To export your subscriber list use these steps:

1. Go to your Settings page

2. Click on “Followers”

3. Go to the Export Subscribers section and click “Export”

Customize your profile

Since you’ll probably be using your Medium profile as a writing portfolio, make sure to customize it to fit your brand.

1. Go to your Settings page

2. Click on “Design”

3. In the Design section choose “Design Your Profile”

From there, customize the colors, fonts, and header for your profile page.

Avoid clickbait

Medium is cracking down on clickbait, so be sure not to write this type of stuff. Medium has a specific definition of clickbait:

Is the title trying to exploit a reader’s personal worries, insecurities, or emotional state?

Is the title or story image more provocative than the content of the story merits?

Is the title over-reaching or over-promising with hyperbolic claims or absolutes that are not verifiable?

Is the title withholding important context; misleading the reader; or using cliches, gimmicks, or cheap language?

If you can reasonably answer “yes” to any of these four questions, we consider that clickbait — and it will now disqualify a story from additional distribution on Medium.

Learn what Medium readers want

One of the best ways to figure out what Medium readers want is to look at the most popular articles. The homepage will give you an idea throughout the year. According to a recent email sent out by the company, these were the top five stories of 2020: 

1. “Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now,” Tomas Pueyo

2. “Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting*,” Julio Vincent Gambuto

3. “A Supercomputer Analyzed Covid-19 — and an Interesting New Theory Has Emerged,” Thomas Smith

4. “Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance,” Tomas Pueyo

5. “103 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice,” Corinne Shutack

BTW, the No-Fluff Freelance Writer Starter Pack teaches you everything you need to know to become a successful freelancer writer.