Well, Jack, I tried this too and have stopped doing it very soon. As an editor of a couple of publications here, I also started to receive stories that were clearly written the way you describe your writing (blogging) here — with the sole or at least main purpose of cashing-in.

With a rare few exceptions, I hated those stories and what paid membership turned Medium into, so much so that I eventually put a new rule in my publications’ submission guidelines — NO PAID STORIES ALLOWED. Period.

I get far fewer submissions, but the ones I get have the power to bring tears to my eyes, they are that real, that sincere, they are what Medium USED TO BE all about.

So, Jack, for me a true writer is the one who writes because they must and not to cash-in. As you might remember, Mike Essig left the paid Medium program train too, quite a while ago, and it was not because he wouldn’t make any money publishing here.