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1 Month, 10 Articles, 100 Followers, and 1000 Reads

The experience from my first month as a new writer

by Percy Bolmér, February 27, 2021

I’ve reached my first three big goals as an author. I’ve published 10 articles, reached 100 followers and my first article now has 1000 reads. It might not seem like much for some, but it feels like a huge achievement for me. I thought that this wouldn’t happen for a very, very long time. Especially not the followers, which I am grateful for!

It took me two days after publishing my article to get my first follower. At that time I told my spouse about it and I was all super excited. I’m still excited when I get followers, It’s just that the first one felt really special. Somebody was interested in what I wrote and wanted more, I still find it hard to believe. I couldn’t imagine getting 99 more within such a short time. I didn’t even plan to keep writing, since I only had that one article in mind. It was my spouse that told me to keep writing since I seemed to enjoy it.

Why don’t you keep writing, you seem really excited and happy about what you’ve written.

It wasn’t before she said this that it occurred to me how much fun I had writing the article.

This article differs a lot from the rest of the ones I’ve written. I have so far only written tutorials, but I wanted to celebrate my achievements, and also give myself a new challenge. Hopefully, someone out there that is aspiring to start writing reads this, and I hope it can give them the courage to take the step and start writing.

This is the article I first wrote, It’s about software development using a technology called gRPC.

What motivated me to start writing?

One month ago I was trying to solve a work-related problem. I’m a software developer, and we are very spoiled with good write-ups on how to solve problems. This one problem got me stumped though, there wasn’t any information to be found on the topic. I spent way too many hours trying to solve it, but I just couldn’t let it go, out of pure stubbornness I kept bashing my keyboard. After all that blood and sweat, I felt that I needed to share the solution with the world.

I got a tip from a friend that I could use Medium to write about it and publish it. I’ve never done this kind of writing before, I don’t think that I had the courage for it. I’ve been afraid that the readers would shred my articles to pieces and send me threatening emails saying how bad I was.

Even though I was afraid, I wanted to share the solution. I eventually convinced myself to publish it, nobody would even read it I told myself.

Little did I know the adventure I was in for.

Why did I keep writing?

Writing did something to me. It has a relaxing effect on me and it’s exciting at the same time. I’ve noticed that writing about the subjects you think you know is great for learning. I didn’t only learn more about programming, I also grew as a person. Writing made me feel confident about myself.

When I am describing topics in my articles I have to dig deeper into the topic than I’ve done before. I’ve gone from understanding HOW things work in software to understand WHY. It gives a deep insight that’s worth a lot. I think this is also why I feel more confident, I feel enlightened.

My articles are about teaching others how to develop software, but for me, they are about learning and growing as a person. I’ve learned that it is OK to express myself.

Readers are also a big part of why I continue. Like I wrote before, I was afraid that the readers would hate the things I wrote. I was surprised about the number of people reaching out, but I was even more surprised about how they reached out. Nobody was negative or angry, everybody was friendly and praised me. Sure, I got feedback on some things but always expressed politely and nicely. This one guy even added me on Linkedin and wrote to me that he appreciated the writing and thanked me. Someone thanked me, that made me want to write a thousand more articles.

Let’s not forget the ability to make a few bucks. During my writing on medium, I’ve been able to gain about 200$. While it might not be a lot, I would lie if I didn’t say that it is encouraging.

What did I learn during my first month writing on Medium

Writing on Medium is great, It allows new writers like myself to start very fast and easy. We don’t need to build a blog or a website to share our thoughts and ideas. I want to scribble down some things I wish I could tell myself a month ago.

Stats are fun and very unhealthy.

I am getting better at not looking on my stats page. Stats are fun and helpful in determining what articles work and whatnot. But for me, writing is about feeling good, and I have a very unhealthy habit of checking my stats multiple times a day. We want people to read the things we create, so stats are important. But don’t spend hours monitoring them, they are still there tomorrow. And take it from somebody who has starred at them for a month, stats don’t seem to increase just because we watch them. Don’t have a bad day just because the stats have a bad day. I’ve had some days when I almost got no reads.

Publications are important

I’ve had the privilege to be published by ITNEXT. I reached out to Kiarash Irandoust about my first article and they helped me very much, I’m very grateful to them. Publications can help us reach more readers.

SEO

SEO settings are used by search engines to rank your articles when people are searching for keywords on google, yahoo, etc. By default, Medium will take your article’s title and subtitle, which might not always be very SEO friendly. Remember to change it for your articles by going into the article settings.

Keep small and long-term goals– I love the feeling of accomplishment when a goal is done. It keeps me motivated. I am horribly bad at creating short term goals, and I do keep working in it. This post is about some of my long term goals being accomplished, faster than I expected. I now have a few new goals to strive for, but remember to split them up into smaller goals. Better to feel great many times than to hunt a goal for a year and them quitting by lack of fulfillment.

My new goals that I’m longing for and will keep working hard for.

• 300,500,800,1000 Followers
• 5k, 10k reads on a story
• 100,300,500 fans on a single story
• 20,30,50,100 articles

Thank you for reading my rambling, I felt that I had to write this article. I feel a big sense of achievement. And thank you to my followers, It means a lot.

Now, go out there and start writing!