400 Followers- 40 days- 14 articles-0$

The journey so far has been very interesting. From a person who could barely speak a proper sentence in English, I have come far, I am able to read, write and communicate fluently with people. 

I have always kept myself engrossed, picked up new strengths, and my interests have always been diverse. Writing articles is the most recent of my interests and I took this one as a challenge to write clear, legible, and understandable articles on various topics of my interests. While this was a bit challenging but now with more than 400 followers, I can proudly say that I have achieved at least something of what I had dreamt of sometime back and I will continue to hone my skills to make myself better and better with each passing day.

My Journey So Far

It gives me a lot of joy to even think about my journey so far. I love to be busy, and so when I found some free time, writing articles was the first thing that came to my head. It was never a concrete idea as to what should I write on but nevertheless I started and I started exploring diverse topics. 

There are times when I get stuck and I am short of words but for sure I have reduced that waiting time. Every day I spent around one hour on this new faculty of mine and I am loving every bit of it. My only worry is that in spite of a decent following and viewership, I have been unable to earn anything. 

My journey on this platform started with the article- " The Importance Of Mother Tongue In Education" when I realized the effort that the Indian government is putting into introducing the regional languages in our education system. We have been misjudging till now and the credit goes to the previous governments which concentrated all their efforts on transitioning to the western system of education. 

My next article was on Afghanistan titled, "Afghanistan- The Graveyard Of Empires" focussing on the stunts tried by various empires and their collapse eventually.

Since then I have tried writing in various genres. In this journey, I have met many accomplished people who were ever ready to guide me, made many new friends. The writing community has acted as my emotional support during times of need. 

Now with around twenty articles published in various publications and with a good following in just over 40 days, I can proudly say that when you have set your sight on something, there is no power in this world that can stop you.

How did I reach 400 followers in 40 days?

Start by connecting with like-minded people. Networking is the key and Facebook groups are the best available resource. The aim is to meet and mingle with bloggers of all stages. Grow with those who are just starting out and learn from the more experienced.

Consistency was the key to continue increasing my follower base. I regularly published articles, no matter the topic you want to write on. But obviously, sometimes make use of situations when something is trending or has gone viral. You never know when your article will catch someone's attention or it may start trending or it may get selected as one of the top stories on a blogging site. A similar thing happened when my blog, "You Have To Let Go Sometimes" was selected as the top story on the Vocal Media platform. You never know when things will work out for you, so write consistently.

Writing is not a race against time, so stop speeding up just for the sake of finishing some articles. Give your valuable time to it. In the initial few days of writing, you can try following some accomplished authors and their writing styles. 

Focussing on the trending topics will help you to increase your audience and the viewership of your articles.

SEO is one of the most important things you can learn as a blogger because it helps get your content seen by the right audience. So, learning about Search Engine Optimization(SEO) is worth it.

Still, 0$ earning

Finally, the most important part of this article i.e. 0$ earning. Even after everything fell at the right place, why the hell I didn't even earn a single dollar?

I realized that the problem was not from my side but directly from Medium's side. The biggest lesson that I learned here was that how much ever you work hard, things will only happen if all your stars are aligned and God wills it to happen. Medium responded to my request for Medium Partner Program, telling me that Stripe (payment processor) is doing its beta testing in India and monetization is still not possible in countries like India. 

But this didn't stop me from writing, as earning from blogging was never the reason for me to start writing on Medium, so why should it become the reason for leaving this blogging platform. I have continued writing and I am enjoying every bit of it and I don't intend to leave this anytime soon.

In the end, just bear with Medium for some more time as they are doing their best to expand in these countries(India, Brazil…). Until then, we can continue writing and increasing our follower base attracting more views, claps(which by the way you can do 50 times👏, FYI), and followers.

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