Writing Online Is Now Paying My Mortgage. Here Are My Lessons So Far

How random strangers on the internet are now paying for my cost of living

If you ever told me that my writing would pay for anything, let alone my mortgage, I would have laughed you out of the room.

Since making my first $1 writing in 2020, I was hooked.

I realized that if I could make $1 writing online what would stop me from making $100, $1,000 or even $10,000?

Answer: Only time.

Time to build my skills. Time to learn the ins and outs of writing on different platforms. Time to network and find great mentors.

Once you make your first $20 online, it rewires your brain. You see opportunities where others only see dead ends.

A quick note on my earnings:

I should note that I have an additional advantage of having geographic arbitrage.

No, I am not a digital nomad that lives in Bali, although that would be really cool. I live in Australia so I get an additional 40% boost for every dollar I make on Medium. Not too shabby if you ask me.

How it started vs how it is going

I learned to ignore most people

I’ve had so many people tell me that blogging is too saturated.

The market has moved they said. Why would anyone read your writing?

But I’ve made thousands of dollars since I started. I also had people tell me the same thing about podcasting. In less than 12 months, we made tens of thousands of dollars in revenue.

The bottom line is that your mindset determines your income far before talent or skill becomes a factor.

The people who doubted me are now asking me how I did it.

Create in silence. Let your results speak for themselves.

I am consistently good > occasionally great

I am not the most talented writer on Medium.

Heck, I am probably not even the most talented writer among my friends. I know of people close to me who are leaps and bounds more gifted with the keyboard than I am.

But I am making a decent amount of money while they struggle to make anything. The biggest difference? I am consistent.

I’ve written every day for the past 2 years. I publish frequently. I schedule non-negotiable times for writing. I treat myself like a writer.

I willingly embrace the boring and do the same thing day in and day out. Even when my writing sucked and no one was reading my articles, I persevered.

A lot of friends started writing on Medium when they saw my results but stopped writing once they hit what Seth Godin calls ‘The Dip’. I’ve seen it time and time again.

The Dip is a great filter for when the initial motivation for writing wears off and the reality of content creation sets in.

Motivation to write will get you started, but discipline to write will get you where you want to go.

Writing for one day won’t change your life, but writing consistently for a hundred days will.

If you can persevere through the dip whilst most people quit, you have the foundations for making money writing online.

I created momentum

Consistency builds momentum.

My best articles have come from when I’ve been writing and publishing consistently. My words flow. My sentences are sharper. My ideas are better.

I get into a creative groove where everything I touch seems to turn into gold.

We’ve all had that experience where you go on a hot streak of ‘wins’ that seem to make the next win attainable.

The truth is that the next win is still statistically the same regardless of previous wins but the psychological inertia you’ve built through increased confidence and focus is what makes the difference.

The periods where my writing sucked were when I stopped and started. I would write consistently for a week and then not write again for 2–3 weeks. Life got in the way. Work got busy.

The break would mean that I became rusty. It gave what Steven Pressfield calls ‘Resistance’ a chance to accumulate. It allowed doubt to slide into my mind again like a creepy guy DMing me on Instagram.

Showing up consistently reinforced the identity that I was a writer. Every time I sat down to write was a vote of the writer I was becoming. Every day I didn’t write feed into my imposter syndrome.

You are always building momentum in positive or negative ways. Choose actions that build positive momentum. Break cycles of negative momentum.

I created a writing system

Show me your writing system and I can almost predict how successful you’ll be writing online.

I’ve created a system for writing that suits my context and lifestyle:

Read 3–4 articles from top writers in my niche.
Write every morning.
Produce at least 250 words.
Publish a minimum of 2 articles per week.
Write down 5–10 article headlines per day.
Mindmap 1–2 articles out before writing.
Read a book a week.

When I complete my system, I am successful.

I don’t care about the metrics. I care about implementing my system. Focus on the process and the score will take care of itself.

You first make your writing system and then your writing system makes you.

I learn from the best

One of my favorite Medium writers put it best:

You can shit on people who do better than you.
Or you can learn from them.
— Source

Study your favorite writers in your niche. Look at how they formulate their headlines. How do they structure their articles? Look at how they frame issues in a novel way. Do their online courses and buy their books.

Invest time to learn from the best on your way to becoming the best.

What does my journey mean for you?

With the right mindset and habits, anyone can make money writing online.

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