The Medium Mastery Academy is a self-paced online course created by successful Medium.com writer Tom Kuegler.
The course teaches how to become more productive and more adept at publishing your own content on Medium.com. It goes into how to make money with your Medium articles, as well as how to monetize your Medium experience in 5 other ways, should you choose to do so.
Consisting of a welcome/FAQ module, 49 video lessons and 7 resources, the course shares all the success tactics Kuegler uses to publish and make money on Medium.com.
If you’re out looking at online course reviews, you probably want to know pretty quick what my opinion of this course is. I’ll give you that first, followed by lots of detail about the curriculum, the course owner, etc.
I give this course and its owner five stars, even though a few things could be still improved.
At $397 (or three payments of $133 per month), the course provides high value: immense instruction as well as enjoyment, support from the course owner, inspiration and motivation.
Taking this course has revolutionized a ton of things for me already. By the time I’m done implementing everything Medium Mastery has set into motion for me, I expect to be more visible online (one of my major goals) as well as having fun with my goal to make money writing for Medium.
I. What I love about this course
II. What could be improved
III. My views on course owner Tom Kuegler
IV. What pain point does this course address for me?
V. My income results so far
VI. The curriculum and course platform
VII. The qualities you’ll need to get through this course
I’m an affiliate of Medium Mastery Academy. I believe in this course and love recommending it. After reading my Medium Mastery review, if you enroll by clicking on any of the red buttons found throughout this review, I will receive a commission. (See my FTC Disclosure)
I love that it’s self-paced
To meet my first personal goal, I needed to have the freedom to devour just over half the course asap and then come back later to get the rest.
I love that Tom Kuegler doesn’t hold back
I even think he may have done himself a disservice. He could have made more money by holding back Module 5 for a separate course. Instead, he gives from the soles of his shoes. I can only imagine how many all-nighters he put into creating this curriculum.
I love how massively it tapped into my brain
One of the amazing things for me was how many ideas poured into my brain. As I worked my way through the lessons, I kept a notebook and pen nearby to capture every article idea that came to me. I usually couldn’t even get through a meal without having to stop and write down more ideas. Tom just tends to have that effect on you.
I love how this course brought Medium to life for me
I was a newcomer to Medium and, to be honest, I didn’t really get it. Sure, I enjoyed reading some of the writers. But until I took this course I didn’t understand the life-changing opportunity that’s available to anyone who’s prepared to put in the work.
I love how Medium Mastery shortened my learning curve
When I went to create my Medium.com account, I discovered I already had one from 2015. I looked around at what I’d done with my account and it was pretty slim. The memory slowly came to me. I abandoned the opportunity because I didn’t know how to concentrate my efforts and take advantage of all the facets of Medium. Kuegler’s course blasts you out of that kind of ignorance and gives you all the keys for success.
For me, it feels like Tom is aiming this course at people who are already on Medium. It assumed, for instance, that I already knew the lingo. Two examples: locked posts and slack channel. Having these explained upfront would have saved me some confusion.
Tom stresses that students should get their training about how to use Medium ON the Medium Help pages. Fair enough. However, he could also point out the risks when writers don’t take the time to read all the rules. In which case, for instance, they would miss the important info about duplicate content and canonical links.
I emailed these points to Tom Kuegler and he sent me a gracious reply. Sounds like he’s planning on addressing most of it.
In his writing, as well as in the Medium Mastery course, Tom Kuegler takes a warts-and-all approach. He’s very personable but also refreshingly straight to the point.
Tom is dynamic. He has high energy and total enthusiasm for what he’s doing. He’s also very attentive. If you email him, he pays attention to what you say and doesn’t just give you lip service when he writes back.
I’m deeply impressed with all he has achieved at the age of 25. He’s a role model I look up to, despite the fact I’m 33 years his senior and have been online practically since the web opened for business.
Tom drives himself hard to achieve and to give great customer service. This may someday be to his detriment—he’s been known to burn out because of his productivity levels—but you will definitely benefit from his achiever mentality if you take this course.
Tom Kuegler invites feedback from his students and expresses great willingness to improve his course.
I’ve been a writing coach since 2007. I’ve been helping writers with my own online course and other programs since 2001. However, I’m an introvert, extremely private and I’ve been allergic to marketing.
Being averse to marketing has been detrimental to my business. I love my clients and I love when a new client finds me. However, I have not been visible enough and sometimes they only find me by chance.
In 2018 I decided to change all that. I built this website to give my business a more updated look and delivery. But you can’t have a website in a vacuum. I knew I was going to have to put myself out there like never before.
I wanted to do content marketing, but I didn’t want to spend all my time on social media trying to get people to visit my blog.
This is where Medium comes in. I can enjoy doing content creation—meanwhile I’ll have the advantage of publishing my content on a site with a global rank of 272. I’ll still have to correctly position and promote my own content, but on Medium the readership is already in place.
The thing is, just signing up to Medium and trying to figure it all out myself (in the middle of my other commitments) would have been the slow boat to China. As in 2015, I may have abandoned it before seeing any results. Also, the danger of hacking at it myself is that I might have gotten stuck at the amateur level. I want my efforts on Medium to pay off.
At the time of writing this review I’m 63% done with the course. (I took that stat from my progress bar inside the course.) After digesting 63%, I deliberately moved to another phase.
Unlike many of Tom’s students, I had not already been publishing articles on Medium. Before publishing anything there, I wanted to know how to get it right.
The course layout made it easy for me to figure out which modules and lessons I needed to tackle in order to meet my first goal. It took me about 3 days of camping inside the course to absorb the targeted material.
You don’t have to do it the crazy way I did. The course is designed to be taken over a 5-week period.
After that I went on Medium and started publishing posts. I also applied to and was accepted into four publications: The Ascent, The Startup, The Writing Cooperative and Be Yourself.
For my first income results (April 2018), I made $21.94 in my first 11 days with less than 150 followers. In May I made $9.96 in passive income, even though I was offline with a pinched nerve April 20 to May 30.
Aside from it’s other benefits, I definitely want to make money writing for Medium. Even though I’m not yet living the advertised promise of the course (“How to Make an Extra $500 Per Month on Medium”) I’m pretty blissed out with my results so far. Medium Mastery has really pushed me to lift my game, and I know my business will benefit over time.
Medium Mastery Academy is presented on the course platform Teachable. It has a very simple layout. You’ll always know exactly what your progress is. After completing a lesson, you click to sign off on it and this action feeds your progress bar.
The curriculum is 12 hours of videos. There are also a few homework and resource documents. Here are the modules:
The training on headlines is worth about half the price of the course. The video lesson “What Will You Write About?” is well worth watching more than once, as is the lesson “What Kind of Content Does Well on Medium?”
Being visually shown how to use Smedian (a platform where writers can assess and connect with Medium publications) was enlightening and motivational. The walk-throughs on how to find publications that are suitable for your writing goals was a time-saver. I probably could have figured it out on my own (eventually) but who wants to have the steep learning curve?
I haven’t yet started on the modules about how to build an email list and how to monetize your following. But knowing how much zeal and sheer information Tom puts into his lessons, I have no doubt these modules will be gems as well.
Persistence
There’s a ton of material to get through. I counted 12 hrs of video. Just to finish this course can be a feat, much less do what you have to do to implement what you’ll be learning.
Be Organized
Tom teaches how to generate ideas for your Medium articles. Be sure to have a way to capture your ideas as they come.
Passion
If you’re looking for an easy way to make money online, this won’t be it. Writing for Medium takes dedication and hard work. If you don’t feel passionate about writing, and about expressing your knowledge and wisdom, you probably won’t last the distance.
A Sense of Adventure
Writing for Medium is a long-term commitment. But if you do it with a sense of adventure, a sense of discovery and the intention to stretch and grow as a human being (as well as a writer), you’ll do better than if you focus solely on trying to make money.
Tom Kuegler is a travel blogger and a lover of adventure. Let his spirit of fearless journeying that comes through in all his videos propel you through this course. His enthusiasm for Medium is definitely infectious!
I hope you’ve enjoyed my Medium Mastery review. If you want to be successful and make money writing for Medium, this is the turbo-charged way to do it. It’s also energizing and fun. — Milli
Images of Tom Kuegler and Medium Mastery used with permission
