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IT REALLY IS ABOUT MORE THAN MONEY
I’m Happy With My Payout From Medium This Month
Even though it was less than the average payment I used to earn for just one free-lance article
Some boosted stories in May significantly increased my monthly payout, bringing it back to the levels I’d enjoyed when I first started writing on Medium. I’m happy, of course. Extra money is always helpful. But — for just a moment — it struck me that the amount was roughly what I used to earn for a single article as a freelancer in California. And that was almost twenty years ago.
The thought, as I said, was fleeting. That comparison is like apples and oranges. Well-paying freelance articles involved research, interviews, fact-checking, editing and, often, significant rewriting. All the detailed scrutiny and analysis could be frustrating —especially for a non-detail-oriented person with what I darkly thought of as an anal-retentive editor. Ultimately though, I usually felt good about whatever I’d written.
I also feel good about most of the pieces I post on Medium. But the process is completely different. No carefully constructed story proposals and then time spent waiting for a response — I just sit down and write. Sometimes I know exactly what I’m going to say, other times…
