Finally Distributed

Fourteen months ago, I was *not* a writer. If I did it, you definitely can too…

Adrian Eaton
6 min readNov 12, 2021

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After a year of writing and several rule-changes from the Medium team, one of my articles was finally selected for “Further Distribution.”

I’ve never considered myself a writer — I’m what we call a “math & science guy” through and through.

I have no clue how the Jessica Wildfires and Tim Dennings of the world do what they do.

Distributed Story:

The Journey

I originally joined the Medium Partner Program in September 2020. The first week of October, I decided to write full-time.

At the time, California was on fire from top-to-bottom and the United States was redefining itself in the wake of BLM Summer, just before the most contentious Presidential Election in living memory.

As much as I loved my old job and my coworkers, I couldn’t stomach the denial that’s necessary to continue “business as usual.”

Photos by Obi Onyeador, Egor Vikhrev, Thomas de LUZE, respectively, on Unsplash — Collage via Author

I set out to create Share The Wealth — a publication that focuses on neoliberal hegemony as the root cause of Western society’s many problems.

Medium was a great place to write, and the pay-per-view was great compared to other platforms. But in mid-October 2020, just two weeks after I took the leap, Medium decided to cut writer pay down to 1/10 of what it used to be.

The first article I ever wrote (which, in hindsight, is not great) made about $5 in its first month. Now, an article with the same viewership and engagement metrics will only make $0.50 (50 cents). That’s frustrating.

I stopped writing for a while.

I wasn’t sure if I’d start again.

Fortunately I did.

Medium is still a great place to share ideas, even if it doesn’t earn a living.

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Adrian Eaton

Ideas for a better future.