Which Writing Platform Is Best For Making Money? Medium vs News Break vs Vocal Media
There are three well-established programs where you can make money writing online. Those three programs are Medium, News Break, and Vocal Media. I’ve experienced all three and have a firm favorite myself, but it’s important to remember that what works for me won’t work for someone else, and vice versa. Each of these platforms has preferred content and rules to abide by if you want to make money writing online.
This article will get into each platform, what kind of content performs best, and the pros and cons.
If you prefer watching, you can check out my video on how to make money writing online with these three platforms here:
Writing on Medium to Make Money Writing Online
I want to start with Medium because it’s the one I’m most familiar with. I’ve been writing on Medium for over two years now. I’ve earned over $40,000 in two years of writing on Medium, so it’s clear that it’s very possible to make money writing online with this platform.
What is Medium?
Medium is a blog-cum-social network. Anyone can sign up and start posting today without needing to go through any verification process on either signing up or posting content. When a paying Medium member reads your story, you get a proportion of their $5 monthly membership fee.
How can you get views?
How the social media element comes in: when you write, your work is reviewed by Medium’s “curators.” These employees check out your work to see if it meets their criteria. If it does, they distribute it into one or more topics. Even if you have 0 followers, but your work gets distributed, your post will still be seen and you’ll make money writing online here.
Benefits of writing on Medium?
The upshot of this is that even if you know nothing about SEO, nothing about marketing, nothing about sales, nothing at all (like me, back when I started in 2018) and if you write well, you can make money writing online and build an audience.
Additionally, because the majority of your views will come from distribution, you don’t need to niche down at all. You can post about cats one day, coding the next, and end with a post about internet writing platforms as I’ve done this past week.
Downsides to writing on Medium?
Like any other platform, the algorithm can be obscure and tricky. It’s subject to alteration by Medium at any point and without warning.
Furthermore, Medium is purely focused on the writing. This means you have to be careful that you don’t include too many promotional ads or embeds in your story. Many publications on Medium also remove any call-to-action you may have and replace it with their own. This is a tradeoff you have to decide on your own — post in a publication for more views, but potentially give up the chance to write your own call-to-action?
Finally, only those who live in countries that Stripe supports can earn make money writing online directly on this platform. Medium pays out through Stripe and as of today, there is no workaround if you live in an unsupported country. I will note that Medium remains a fantastic place to build an audience and sell your website, services, or expertise even if you can’t make money writing online directly from the partner program.
Type of content that performs best on Medium
In my experience, Medium likes fairly long (800+ word) posts that weave in expert opinions and citations with a personal element. The audience is huge for self-help, personal development, coding, relationships, psychology, and finance. (My cat articles typically do quite well, too.)
Topics like fiction and humor do not have such a developed audience, so it’ll be tougher to make money writing online with those subjects on Medium.
Summary of writing on Medium
Very easy to sign up, start posting, and make money writing online (bar geographically). Health, wealth, and love topics perform best. Beginners can easily earn money if they’re good at writing.
Writing on News Break to Make Money Writing Online
News Break has been around a long time, but they only just opened their creator program in October. I’ve been writing there since early December 2020.
What is News Break?
News Break is a news site. To join, you have to be vetted as a creator. Once you’ve been approved (which is hard) your posts have to go through an approval process. I’ve heard that posts are often denied for being too racy or sexual in nature, but as I don’t tend to post in those topics, I cannot verify it. This all makes it a little tougher to get started and make money writing online on News Break.
How can you get views on News Break?
News Break’s views are very hit or miss. I have had posts that have done spectacularly well…
And others that inexplicably have done terribly:
Benefits of writing on News Break?
Unlike Medium, News Break offers a clear explanation for how to make money writing online with them. (I can’t discuss it due to the contract I signed with them, but the model is X amount for Y number of page views).
Furthermore, it seems even more possible than on Medium to go viral — if you get accepted as a creator. I received a lot of page views even when I had very few followers.
Finally, they offer Impressions versus Page Views statistics which is a great way to tell if your titles are doing a good job of getting people to click.
Downsides to writing on News Break?
They’re very cagey about the contract which you have to sign in order to write on News Break, which I find slightly concerning. It’s also inexplicable which posts do well and which don’t. On Medium, there seems to be much more rhyme and reason around well-performing stories.
The comments are also frankly terrifying:
News Break is also even more anti-ad than Medium. They do not allow any kind of self-promotion, which means you’re totally reliant on the performance of your posts to make money writing online.
Finally, to even start, you have to be approved as a creator, and after that, every post you write has to be approved, unlike Medium’s free-for-all of posting.
Type of content that performs best on News Break
From what I can tell, topics that are more controversial or hot button seem to do better for my own stories. On the platform as a whole, I mostly see local, real-time stories taking precedence over evergreen content, unlike Medium.
They ask that you keep your stories to over 1,000 words, so it appears they prefer long-form.
Summary of writing on News Break
Difficult to start, have to sign a contract, possibly huge number of views, but also possible to have them be inexplicably low. No self-promotion allowed. They do provide more clarity on how they let creators make money writing online with them.
Writing on Vocal Media to Make Money Writing Online
Vocal Media is the oldest way to make money writing online for writers out of the three of these. I republished 16 stories and wrote one original story on Vocal Media since starting in November 2020.
What is Vocal Media?
Vocal Media is more similar to Medium than News Break in that anyone can join, but content is moderated before being published. It’s much more heavily organized than Medium, with each published story placed in one of their categories.
Interestingly, unlike Medium and News Break where the only way to make money writing online stems from views, Vocal Media gives you three ways to earn money writing online: through views, through tips from readers, and by winning contests.
In my time on vocal Media, I earned $20 from tips and $2.15 from reads, which I have not been permitted to withdraw because it has not met the $20 withdrawal minimum.
How can you get views on Vocal Media?
With great difficulty. I published a total of 17 stories and got a grand total of 358 views.
All my content was approved and posted pretty quickly, and distributed into diverse categories. Even so, content that did very, very well on Medium did poorly on Vocal Media. I don’t know if I just didn’t trip the algorithm to recommend my content to more people, or if it’s a more organic spread that requires more followers to get more views.
The two stories that did better for me were the two that were chosen as Staff Picks, which is Vocal Media’s equivalent of curation. These also earned $10 tips each, which makes me believe that being a staff pick grants you an automatic $10. They also got around 10x the views as non-staff picks. (But in my case, that was ~100 views compared to ~10 views.)
While Vocal Media is fairly transparent about how to become a Staff Pick, I tried 4 times and only got it twice.
The two stories were filled with personal pictures, which is what I believe made the difference and helped me make money writing online, even if it was only $20 here with Vocal Media.
Benefits of writing on Vocal Media?
It’s a very wholesome place to make money writing online. I love the idea of tips (though I earned very little from them) and I really like that the contests they host give writers the opportunity to earn so much, ranging from $250 to even $20,000 in prize money.
Downsides to writing on Vocal Media?
It’s near impossible for a beginner to get many views, from what I can tell, which makes it tougher to make money writing online with them. Other than that, no downsides.
Type of content that performs best on Vocal Media
It’s a good place for people with deeply personal stories drawn from self-experience that have lots of media to post in their stories. Looking at the two stories that got Staff Picks and performed best, they both were stories that were stuffed to the brim with images I had taken, and were about an experience I had. They were also on the long side — 1,500 words or more.
Summary of writing on Vocal Media
A platform with a diversity of ways to make money writing online, but it’s hard to get money from views. Those who are good at writing to rubrics and have lots of personal stories with images, videos, or audio to fill those stories with will earn the most money.
My favorite platform for earning money writing online?
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to any reader here, but my pick is Medium. There’s no other writing platform in the world that has the same reach, audience connection, and monetization potential as Medium.
It’s also the best monetization method, in my view. It makes sense to make money writing online by writing for your audience, rather than writing for a contest or writing for advertisers as Vocal Media and News Break prioritize, respectively.
It’s a much more linear relationship between yourself and your reader and that encourages you much more to build relationships, to answer those comments, to write about things not just in a way that gets clicks, but in a way that provokes thought and makes people really feel like this story has changed their life, in one small way.
Just remember — even though Medium is my favorite, there are pros and cons for all three of these platforms that may make News Break or Vocal Media a better fit for you. This guide is designed to give you the full intel and help you make the best choice for you.
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