I make more money as a birthday clown than I ever would writing articles on Medium

If you're reading this, it's because you want to quit your job and write full-time on Medium or maybe even Vocal. It must be frustrating to write on any platform, while you are crying inside about how much money you are earning doing it. 

Trust me, I know how it is because I just started writing on Medium…and oh boy, do I feel like a loser.

I remember the day I first visited Medium.com, it was a beautiful post about doing what you love and making money from it. It went back to someone's life story on how they quit their boring job and tried to make a living as a writer on Medium.

At that moment I thought "That's a fantastic concept; it's so simple, and it's certainly worth a try, especially if you're like me already an award-winning author on Vocal!"

So I gave it a shot and within 30 minutes I knew that making living writing on Medium was going to be harder than I thought. 

The problem wasn't with the writing as such, that wasn't a problem, I write like I am a Russian possessed by the spirit of Jack Kerouac; no, the problem is making money doing it.

I calculated my possible earnings for last week on Medium were $00.00 (taxes included). 

Sure, I can make more than that as a professional birthday clown or busking as a balloon artist on Miami Beach, but then again, if my goal were to become a busker, I wouldn't be here on Vocal or on Medium.

Of course, it's cool to be able to write on Vocal or Medium and get all-positive comments and hearts.

It is also nice to use Medium and Vocal as a Stepping Stone, as some kind of an entrance exam for either The New York Times (for the journalists) or The New Yorker (my personal choice), or at the very least for the Saturday Night Live's writer's room. 

Okay, I got carried away. No, we are just trying to make $11.83 per month on Medium and maybe a few pennies on Vocal too, for now and that's it!

Well, stay with me. Now, I discovered something remarkable! The problem is that my articles aren't being read often enough, therefore I can't profit from them unless people do so. Is that so? Is this all there is to it?

Amazing! I realized there were too many good writers on Medium and Vocal, all fighting for readers and only a handful of them are earning any money. That was one profound discovery!

Another discovery was  -  my painful feeling of shame, which kept bubbling inside me every time I tried to write for Medium. For some reason every time I would type the first sentence of a post, I felt like all four walls of my room were staring at me, in disbelief, "What are you doing?"

Soon after that, Medium sardonically started "recommending" posts for me to read based on what THEY thought I might be interested in, and that's how I discovered what my true interests were. To tell you the truth, I'm a little embarrassed to reveal my real passions here in public.

After a week of hard work, I had only 3 subscribers, and I realized that if I ever achieved 100 subscribers, which is a prerequisite to being accepted to the Medium earners club, known as Partner Program, I would be too old for anything. I would be completely unconscious by then, and I wouldn't even be able to fathom what money are or what anything else is, and how to use those things.

But then I realized that if my Medium articles don't earn me enough money, I can always go out and earn as a clown. That sounded much less depressing because it implied being around some breathing people. As opposed to staring at a morbidly silent computer screen all day in a daze. Being a clown sounded much less terrible.

That night, I bought a strange clown outfit on Amazon with one-day free shipping through Prime. It was a real bargain because it appeared to have stained all over it as if it had been used as a Halloween costume by someone else.

So I turned into a clown, and that's how I discovered that I could make more money as a clown than as an author on Medium writing articles about making a living by writing on Medium.

Now you might think clowning makes no sense as a retirement plan and you're right, but it does make a lot of sense as a retirement plan if you want to have the freedom of making your own schedule.

In my view, being a clown may provide you with more free time than being a Medium author unless you become some sort of medium-famous writer, in which case I laugh "HA-HA-HA" and say, "Good luck with that!"

If this sounds counter-intuitive to you, it's because our society trains us to think that certain jobs are more important than others. Well, I'm here to tell you that in terms of money-making potential, being a clown is much more profitable than writing for Medium, especially when you're just starting out.

So the next time you feel like quitting your job and spending some more time on Medium, ask yourself this question, "Is it worth it?" If your answer is not a resounding "YES!," then go out and become a clown.

Or find yourself another nice gig that lets you work part-time, like becoming a clown part-time, and doing something else that makes money the other half of the time.

Anyway, I hope this article was worth your while to read. Or not, if you're a clown who didn't like my tone here and felt like bowling me over with one of those big red balls (which is really a bad idea because those balls are heavy, and as a self-employed clown I do not have health insurance).

I apologize to all clowns who might find my tone hurtful, as I'm sure some of them have used Medium as another version of Clown School. In fact, one could argue that using Medium is even better than going to Clown School because it's free and you can do it whenever you want.

That's right, I just said that Medium is better than Clown School because apparently, you can use Medium whenever you want and it doesn't require moving to a new town which usually comes with some hefty baggage fees if your destination happens to be located in another country.

I went through the trouble of researching this for you and discovered something interesting about clowning and moving to a foreign country. Sure, the idea of going to a new country sounds great in theory because at least you would be changing something in your life, but again, those luggage fees can really put a strain on your wallet.

Clown School is also much more expensive than using Medium or Vocal as a platform for self-publishing, but if you're already using Medium or Vocal as a platform for self-publishing then I wouldn't worry too much about the money.

It's not like clowns are starving or anything, they make plenty of money by performing at birthday parties, and here is a screenshot of my personal Venmo account to prove it.

And I'm sure that some retired clowns who have amassed a significant amount of disposable income might even want to spend their money on writing articles about making a living as a retired clown so they can afford to stay retired.

If nothing else, writing an article about making a living as a retired clown can be one of your sources of supplemental income. You should start getting used to the idea that if you want to retire early, then it's going to take some hustling on Medium or Vocal along with all other kinds of side gigs.

Anyway, I hope this article was worth your while to read, and if not, then you can always find some other website to read other articles about writing for money. It won't be hard to do either because there are plenty of websites out there that advocate the idea of making a living as professional writers or clowns with minimal effort.

And if all else fails, then you can always find another career that will allow you to work part-time and write articles about making a living as a professional clown or writer on Medium or Vocal during the rest of your time off.

And although this article may not be funny, it's good enough for me to hope that some of the people who read it will give me some kind of sign about that by clicking on a heart down below or paying me for re-writing their personal struggle stories.

In the meantime, I'm going to go and learn how to juggle torches in addition to being a clown in an effort to learn how to replace my current side-gig as a professional writer with something that might actually pay the bills.

But first, I'm going to go back and reblog all of those funny memes about making a living as a writer on my Medium blog so maybe they will gain some traction and gain me a few pennies there in the very distant future. Then I'll feel great about myself for writing this article, which will make me want to post another one.

Goodbye for now! 

You may read my other Medium stories here and Vocal stories here.