18.4K Reads, 450 Followers, $515 Earned - A Month of Intensive Blogging
A Breakdown of My Earnings and Strategies for Maximum Engagement
Creating valuable content is challenging.
We all possess invaluable knowledge, yet extracting and presenting it in a way that helps others can be surprisingly difficult. In this article, I will delve into two key points:
A breakdown of my earnings to highlight the types of stories that drive engagement.
My strategy for brainstorming new ideas, including how I leveraged my engineering skills to assist me.
August Earnings Breakdown
Earnings August:
The earnings breakdown:
Stats for August:
The number of followers I gained:
Strategy to Find & Write Engaging Content
One of the key resources that shaped my approach to content creation is Nicolas Cole’s book, The Art and Business of Online Writing. This book offers insights into how online writing works and what it takes to succeed.
A crucial point Cole emphasizes is the importance of researching what works well for other authors in your niche.
The best writers online aren’t just creative; they’re data-driven. They analyze what works for others in their niche, paying close attention to patterns in content, headlines, and engagement.
This allows them to make informed decisions about their own writing strategy, increasing their chances of success. In the world of online writing, it’s not enough to write well — you have to write what works.
So, I leveraged my engineering skills to build an analytics platform called Medium Insights.
This platform helps me identify posts that drive engagement, making it easier to brainstorm ideas for content within my domain that resonates with my audience. With Medium Insights, I can create content that aligns with what readers are interested in.
Take a look at the demo of Medium Insights here.
Here are some screenshots:
I’ve always appreciated the quote from Medium
Be part of a better internet
I originally built Medium Insights to meet my own needs, but I’m excited to offer access to a few others as well. I’d love to brainstorm ideas on how we can improve it together, making it easier for writers to create valuable content.
Just as Medium Insights helps me identify engaging content, I rely on Notion to keep my writing process organized. It’s my go-to tool when starting a new story. Before I begin writing, I answer a set of questions for each new article.
Once I’ve answered these questions, I head over to Medium and start writing. I usually begin with the main points and then move on to the introduction and title. At this stage, I don’t worry too much about perfecting the language. My focus is simply on getting my thoughts down, regardless of how it looks.
Once this initial draft is complete, I set it aside for a day or two before coming back to it to fix any grammar mistakes. GPT is my best friend for this task. Here are the prompts I use:
“Help me proofread my article. I’ll paste it paragraph by paragraph. Are you ready?”
“This sentence/paragraph is too long/complex. Can you make it more concise/easier to understand?”
I prefer my sentences to be brief and direct. The second prompt helps me break down long, complicated thoughts that I’ve written awkwardly
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