It’s not earnings, it’s not reads, it’s not views, it’s not presentations, and it’s not read ratio.

It’s earnings per read.

What can earnings per read tell you about your article?

It lets you know how much time or effort a reader spent interacting with each of your articles.

This matters because each metric can only show what’s happening at a surface level.

It’s normal that you can’t tell why an article earns more than others.

But this is the whole point: many gave up or looked at it without making any adjustments to what they write or do after receiving feedback from their stats and earnings.

You have to know what your metrics are telling you.

2 articles with similar traffic and reads, but different earnings by a wide margin, are something you should look for.

Once in a while, you’ll find something that fits these criteria. That is when you should take a deeper dive into your stats and earnings.

From my last month’s experience, it can be any topic that you can hold the reader’s attention longer.

The goal is to get them to read the entire thing and engage with the article; however, most readers who read a lot don't really interact.

Usually, your most loyal reader tries to support you here and there; they can help a bit, but overall it will have to rely on your writing to attract more readers.

The first thing is to know which article will do better than others.

This process requires you to write and publish across a few topics with both short- and long-form articles.

I would break them down primary by 2–3 minutes article vs 4–6 minutes articles.

In general, if your longer-form article is getting more reach in terms of views and reads, you should stick to those articles, but occasionally throwing in a few shorter articles could help you discover if you feel your process needs a new mix or not fully optimize your time/effort vs. what your current reach is.

5 small checklists that I try to follow, and most of the time it helps.

• Title — Very catchy or informative
• Image — make you say huh or hmm
• Opening — make you read a bit, stop a bit, and think a bit
• Flow — how well the thought or idea flows; explaining too much
• Formatting/structure — how easy was it to skim and read

These are the basics, yet they are also in most of the articles you see in your feeds.

If we go back to the earnings per read theory, no one can calculate or know why an article earns more than the other one with the same or even sometimes more reads than the other one.

Yet, this also gives us a solid framework to know the difference between articles if we look at it closely enough.

Every article is different, every account is different, and every reader is different. But within these data points, you’ll likely find one that works better for you.

Keep trying your best.

Thanks for Reading

The Biggest Tell to Know What Article Will Do Well For You on Medium was originally published in Write A Catalyst on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This month, everything is fine until I realized it’s already the end of the month and my numbers weren’t moving…

This is the first time in a very long time that the 2nd half of the month is slightly better than the 1st half.

I recall I made about $30 for the first 15 days, and about half of it came from Medium member growth earnings.

Nothing was too spicy, but the hottest article came in on the 22nd with a shy 288 (97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper) coins.

It did feel like some articles were earning copper pennies while some were made of zinc…worth.

These are made of copper, I guess.

What surprises me still is how a random 2-minute article can earn about the same rate while also getting an okay reach compared to the other article that I did put a bit more effort into.

It’s really not about how much time you spent, but more like how you get the reader to click one after another.

The first article was obviously going to have greater reach when writing about AI; when we infused the two topics of AI and writing, it turned out to be the best performer of the month.

Of course, as I mentioned, the 2nd half of the month feels like mining copper over zinc.

Okay, maybe not all the way to the end…

Because just 3 days ago, it kinda crashed back down to square one.

Like a tree growing just to find out that it was just daydreaming for a couple of days in front of a drought.

I’m glad every penny counts.

Not expecting much for the final week; now with 2 more days left, it’s a no-brainer to share the stats and earnings because the needle has likely stopped.

Or maybe this one can reignite some random paywalled articles to be seen again. You never know what the new month could bring you, and it usually starts around this time.

Q4 has officially started in October for many, and right now is the hottest period of the upcoming Holidays and events.

This is a real deal, not just in e-commerce, but also in writing platforms, as people are getting ready to spend most of their time in front of a screen or stay inside and read a book or something like a Medium article.

And the money is coming… hopefully, and the traffic will follow.

This month, I probably can break $70, but I have only published 25 articles so far for October, and this one will be the 26th, and likely one more if I have the time.

Probably not, since I need to bring the kids out for trick-or-treating tomorrow.

Thanks for Reading

Another great piece of news is that one of our Medium friends has bought a copy of the Halloween kids’ activity book for their little one. They told me on Substack, or else it will take me a decade to figure out. Thanks.

Probably the only sale of the year. Happy Halloween 2026.

My Medium Spooky Stats and Creepy Earnings For October 2026 was originally published in Write A Catalyst on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Now this makes me wonder how much those article that got wider distribution made.

Well that’s not my problem for now.

Lately I’ve slowed down, but my earnings didn’t; they kept me up at night even when I’m tired after trying to finish up my 2nd Amazon KDP kids book.

Yet, Medium never fails to surprise me, this time in a good way.

This article was written after 2 a.m., right when I was about to decide whether I should go to sleep or, you know, write a random article.

Of course, like anyone else looking for inspiration or reminder is something what a standard person would do.

So I did; I recall I haven’t read a Ripton Green’s article for a while, which is also the only few articles I read and engage with nowadays.

On a normal day, I would skim around the feeds to see what’s hot just by looking at the headlines because I want the algorithm to tell me what my account is linked to, because there could be something that I can also write about and likely get a much better result if I just pop a random article out of the blue.

What this article did differently

First, it has a title from another viral article, with a small tweak, of course.

I also purposely used the same topics/tags, and it worked well.

However, what I think is the most important part is what the article is actually about.

The fact that AI is a very controversial topic, a lot like politics when it comes to whether writing with AI is good or bad, right or wrong, left or right, up or down, and who knows what people think about it.

But one thing is for sure: everyone has a take on it; not all will say something about it, but again, they will likely read articles about it.

This is when the benefits of the topic come into play; even the algorithm might be a little confused when someone writes about writing with AI.

After all, it’s a hot topic wherever you go.

And I always want to blend things together to see what the algorithm would do, or just send me to the voidland again about 1–3 hours after publishing the article.

I would say this one lasted slightly longer, and in addition, the article was twice as long as my regular article, so it kinda attracted even more serious readers, I assume.

The $0.06 earnings per read can prove that’s likely the case here.

While it’s a standard article, I did do something different.

I chatted with ChatGPT a bit, and it gave me a list of things I can talk about. I picked 5 of the 10 items, used the subheadline that it provided, and wrote my own comments on it.

I try to stay on the course of the topic of writing with AI and add some of my angles so it doesn’t sound too much like the other article about similar topics.

But there’s only so much you can differ from, so a lot is just common sense and a point of view that anyone could have.

The article wasn’t special, but it did make the algorithm sneeze and squeeze the article into a different pathway of readers, I guess.

Yet, again, it could be another one-time thing that it does once in a while to raise my blood pressure early in the morning.

Maybe you could tell me your recent experience with stats and earnings.

Thanks for Reading

In case you have 6 minutes to scroll.

The Smallest Ways to Tell An Article Was Written By AI

$2.10 Per Article From 35 Reads on Medium was originally published in Write A Catalyst on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.