I help you write confidently, build your audience, and scale your income. Subscribe for first-hand insights and actionable strategies to turn your ideas and knowledge into a thriving digital business, so you can make money doing what you love.
You need to get bored to be successful (online)
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Hey Reader, Last week, I wrote about how I'm using some of MrBeast's most effective strategies to grow my business. Today, I'm thrilled to share that thousands of readers have loved the piece and that it has already generated over $1,000 through Medium's Partner Program: If you're not familiar with Medium, the Partner Program, and how to easily monetize your writing, take a look at this brilliant video by my friend Zulie Rane. In a nutshell, you make money on Medium if readers discover and like your stories. Users pay a small subscription fee to be able to read on the platform, and that fee turns into your payment when they engage with your work. Readers are on the platform, paying money and attention to discover new writers and great stories. So if you enjoy writing or have an interesting message to share, Medium might be the perfect platform to get started and reach millions of readers. I recently hopped on an interview to share how (and why) even brand-new writers can grow an audience on Medium:
😴 Boring is Good Most people fail to grow an audience and make a significant income online because they're impatient. I've been writing online for over five years, and I constantly meet writers who tell me they've given up on Medium because "it doesn't work anymore." In reality, they're just looking for an excuse not to do the work. 😅 The truth is, your first few pieces might barely make enough to buy a cup of coffee. ☕️ If you're expecting to become rich overnight, writing online is the wrong path, and Medium is the wrong platform. But if you're excited to share your ideas, knowledge, and passion with the world, you might fall in love with the journey and make a decent (side) income. Imagine making an extra $500, $1,000, or $2,000 while doing something you genuinely love and connecting with brilliant people from all over the world. 🌍🌎🌏 That's what opportunities and platforms like Medium are all about. It's not about quickly making money. It's about allowing you to do what you love and build a community of like-minded thinkers and readers. I recently interviewed Mike Blankenship, the founder and writer of The Tonic for my private membership, and one of the brilliant messages he shared is that boring is good. Most people fail to build an audience because they get bored too quickly. They want to write about a dozen different topics and constantly try new platforms. 😵💫 The truth is, you don't get any better if you always change your strategy and approach. You become a great writer by doing the same thing over and over and over again. My writing is worth reading because I published over 600 articles on Medium, not because I tried ten different platforms. I built an audience of over 70,000 readers because I kept showing up with the same messages, not because I wrote about new, trending topics all the time. We all love familiarity and being able to trust our favorite writers and creators by knowing that their work is worth our time. To quote Mike, you'll have the most fun when you're making money, and you'll only make money if you're good at what you do. To be completely fair, there are a gazillion other reasons why people fail to build an audience and make money online. One of them is that they don't know what they want. They don't have clear goals or a specific vision. If that's you, the following quote by Derek Sivers might be as inspiring to you as it was to me: “Please don’t think you need a huge vision.
Just stay focused on helping people today.”
Building a successful content/writing business is rarely about doing things perfectly or knowing exactly what every step of the way will look like. It's about helping people. The internet is loud and crowded. It's hard to know who we can trust and who's selling false promises. There's an abundance of content, but most of it is useless and repetitive. If you can focus on genuinely helping people for long enough, you'll be one of the few to stand out. ❤️ Big love from my screen to yours, 👋 Want more?
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Write • Build • Scale with Sinem Günel
I help you write confidently, build your audience, and scale your income. Subscribe for first-hand insights and actionable strategies to turn your ideas and knowledge into a thriving digital business, so you can make money doing what you love.
No, this isn't clickbait - I actually asked my grandma if she liked what I'm about to share and she DOES. But I have to go back to the '80s to make my point.. that's when my Turkish family immigrated to Austria. And there was one thing I hated while growing up: My grandma always asked me if my friends were Turkish. (Because she thought they'd be better friends if they were lol) Everywhere we went, she told me to be friends with the Turkish girls - at weddings, on vacations, anywhere. To her...
Hey Reader, Ever since we launched the Write • Build • Scale publication on Substack, we've been facing a challenge. We talked to dozens of creators who have been on Substack for much longer than we have. We even talked to the Substack team. And we kept facing the same unsatisfying answer: There's no perfect solution. The problem we faced was how to best combine Substack with the tools and platforms we've already been using for years. Ever since we joined the platform, we wanted Substack to...
Hey Reader, Are you aiming to make more money through your writing in 2025? Maybe it's the first year you're giving online writing a shot at all? Either way, I've got something for you: My amazing co-founder Jari has written an incredibly useful guide that'll help you go from struggling to making a full-time income through your work (while ultimately working less than 25 hours/week!) >> The full guide is available for our members on Substack. Here's the 5-step process in a nutshell: #1. Solve...