I Wrote One Story and Made $1000!

I made $1000 from one story! Wanna know how?

I got my butt off Medium and pitched to some proper magazines. The ones that pay decent money for proper journalism, with photos.

Here’s how. One day I was scrolling through US magazines online and I came across this fabulous little publication on senior living.

I looked at their submission guidelines and pitched them some story ideas. They paid well, so I expected the entry-level to be high, and thought they’d ignore my attempts to communicate, but not so!

To my surprise and delight, they came back, commissioning two stories over the next few months. It might have been more if they weren’t crushed by economic woes during the pandemic and went out of print.

The stories they bought were about seniors learning to use new technologies in life-changing ways, and a cancer survivor who’d built a new career as a freelance photographer.

I had to go out and interview people, photograph them, write the stories, and then sign away my rights to use the work again… so you won’t see those stories here on Medium. But it doesn’t matter because they paid $1000 per article.

I don’t usually earn such good rates, but it’s nice when you can get it.

Making $1000

So when you read about making $1000 on Medium with one story, it’s possible but probably unlikely from relatively small writers like me.

If I want to make $1000 per article, I’ll pitch to the newspapers, to big glossy magazines who tend to have big budgets, or I’ll accept that I’m a relatively unknown journalist, and sell my ideas to a regular client for $100-$200 instead. Because that’s where most of my work comes from — regular clients with modest budgets. And I value them all.

What I don’t expect is to make that much for one article on Medium. Not generally — not without a hell of a lot more followers and a big pinch of luck. I’ve earned almost $200 on one Medium story that went moderately viral last month, but some of my stories make less than a dollar.

If you want to sell a $1000 story, the best approach is to pitch the idea to a real publication that pays for proper journalism. Then deliver something totally brilliant, so you can do it again.

The downside

The downside, of course, is that it’s not easy to get that $1000 gig. For every $1000 article I write, I spend a lot of time pitching ideas to editors and get completely ignored most of the time. Or worse, they take my idea and assign the job to one of their other writers!

To get that $1000 job in print publishing, you may have to spend a lot of time pitching to a wall of silence. Literally days, or possibly weeks, with no guarantees.

Which, of course, makes Medium look quite attractive.

If you want to be a freelance writer in the print publishing sector, you need to be able to take rejection, carry on through the wall of silence, and keep going. Perseverance is key.

Now I must go because the guinea pigs are trashing their house.

I looked at their submission guidelines and pitched them some story ideas. They paid well, so I expected the entry-level to be high, and thought they’d ignore my attempts to communicate, but not so!

To my surprise and delight, they came back, commissioning two stories over the next few months. It might have been more if they weren’t crushed by economic woes during the pandemic and went out of print.