Should I write longer or shorter articles?
If you are a writer and looking for sites to publish your articles online to make extra money, you might be wondering if writing longer articles results in earning more on Medium.
To attempt to answer this question, it’s important to understand exactly how money flows to Medium writers: its payment algorithm is largely proprietary but it’s commonly understood to be multifactorial.
A ‘read’ on Medium is reported when the person reading spends at least 30 seconds with the article. This is the primary metric for calculating a writer’s earnings. Regardless of whether the article is long or short, a read works as a binary flip on or off. So, at least in terms of reads, the length of the article may not matter much.
But, other phenomena enter into the equation evaluating the monetary viability of an article — including the number of highlights it garners. Highlights reflect the most salient parts of an article for a reader. And it makes sense that longer pieces have more potential to plant seeds of either insight or drama.
Similarly, Medium uses a proprietary ‘clapping’ mechanism to allow readers to reinforce to writers that they like the article they just read. It’s not as clear that the relationship between article length and ‘claps’ works the opposite way, but gut intuition tells me that articles that are well-written and comprehensive will get ‘clapped’ for because they deserve it, and articles that are not will not.
Even though the unit of account — the read — remains the same, longer articles have a leg up, offering a larger canvas on which to paint highlights, engage readers in deeper thought, and give them more reason to clap. Greater length enables the writer to offer more analysis, more useful perspective and storytelling, more drama, more conflict and more catharsis. It goes without saying that longer articles tend to be more intricate, and it follows that these deliver something of value to readers that shorter ones do not. That’s why longer articles, ceteris paribus, tend to earn more.
But it’s also important to understand that there isn’t an Infographic of the Post-Information Age where article length determines earnings on Medium.
Quality, relevance, and audience reactions are equally — if not more — important determinants of a writer’s success in the platform, regardless of its length. An article, of any length, that resonates deeply with its audience, and provokes a meaningful response, is likely to bear fruit.
Longer articles may allow for more potential highlights and more claps, but length alone is far from the most important determination of Medium earnings. Writers should focus on providing the best, most relevant, easiest-to-read, most authentic content they can, and rely as little as possible on the reader’s intention to scan. By providing something of real value, and expressing their personal voice in their work, writers can earn the most — and perhaps just as importantly, they can become voices people trust.