I read Jari Roomer’s “The Medium Formula”… here’s what I learned.
Famous Medium author Jari Roomer recently published The Medium Formula eBook, and it’s a box of treasures. I read it, and I want to share with you what I learned.
If you are a writer on Medium (or elsewhere) like I am, and you are finding your way into becoming an established and sought-after author, this article might be the way to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Roomer’s “The Medium Formula” is a compilation of must-have strategies, methodologies, and frames of mind that have helped him make it into the top 1% of writers on Medium.
I’d fancy that, thank you.
If you haven’t heard of Jari Roomer, you’d probably be thinking, “who died and made him king?”
…and is this a fan article? Or worse, a paid article?
It’s nothing of the sort. I have been a reader of Roomer’s articles for the past couple of months, which is how I came across his eBook.
I am just a writer trying to learn from others who’ve passed this road before me, and why walk this road alone when I can bring along my fellow writers?
Jari Roomer is, in fact, a great writer who’s been writing on Medium for 3 years. In this period, he’s written almost 300 articles and amassed about 4 million views and 30K+ followers, making 5 figures in the process and building an online business using his Medium traffic.
This made me all the more interested in reading his eBook.
So, let’s explore it.
What Jari Roomer says The Medium Formula can help you with
Let’s establish some house rules first. This is targeted at writers.
If you are not interested in writing or putting effort into writing, this is not for you.
If you’ve read the numbers I just mentioned earlier and thought that this would be, as Roomer said, “a magic pill to get rich quick”, I’d suggest not reading the rest of the article as you’d be wasting your time.
This is for writers — existing or new — who are willing to invest in themselves, learn how to write, and earn from their writing.
So, as I read The Medium Formula, I found out that it gives information on:
- How to write viral articles on Medium that would attract readers
- How to make at least $1,000 every month from writing on Medium
- How to be highly productive and adopt a successful writer’s mindset
- How to start and grow a list of email subscribers using Medium
- How to overcome writer’s block
- How to generate a flow of content ideas and never run out (my favourite part)
Of course, there are more tips and topics, but these ones stuck with me, and here’s what I learned reading about them.
3 Things I Learned from The Medium Formula
1. A writer begins their journey to success by shifting their mindset.
Roomer starts with a valuable point in the first chapter: mindset.
As he called it, mindset is “the foundation for successful writing.”
He talks about the importance of specific mental shifts that a writer needs to make before even putting pen to paper — or in Medium’s case, finger to keyboard. Those mental shifts are vital to becoming the best writer you can be.
It all starts with the ego. Roomer shares a quote by American author Steven Pressfield that I cannot but reshare here:
“We’re trying by force of will, lust, ambition, greed etc. to come up with something that we can show to the world and be rewarded for. Ah, but it ain’t so easy. The process begins immediately to humble us. Like a stern but loving master, the struggle itself nudges us, shifts us, reroutes us. We realize — through blood, sweat and tears — that betting on the ego is not going to get us there.”
— Steven Pressfield —
In short, drop your ego. No writer makes it from writing just one article. My favourite advice from Roomer was “detach your work from your self”. Do not identify with your writing. Your writing is not you. It is merely a product of what you do.
Whether your writing fails or not does not imply that you fail. Just keep on writing — which leads me to mental shift #2: Abundance.
Roomer talks about how successful writers are prolific in their writing. In fact, this can be seen in other lines of work, too.
Look at Picasso, for instance. He created an estimated 50,000 works of art, averaging two a day. Clearly, not all his artworks were successful. He only needed some of them to be successful, making him one of the most important figures of the 20th century.
Thomas Edison is another example. The man made a thousand attempts before inventing the light bulb.
Now, I am not telling you to write a thousand articles. Just know that being prolific will do wonders for you. Just keep writing.
I won’t go into the other mental shifts for brevity, but I highly recommend you read the eBook to learn about them.
2. You are better off finding your niche and focusing your writing on it than going all over the place.
This is especially true for newly starting writers. Roomer says, “when you write about everything, you write for nobody.” Selecting a niche is extremely important to stand out and grow faster.
Why?
Being known in a specific niche helps you develop the image of the expert that you are. Choose the topic you know most about and are passionate to share about. That could be technology, entrepreneurship, science, self-improvement, politics, or health, to name a few.
It’s your niche. Find it. Focus on it. Write all about it.
Once you’ve done so, you can reach out to Medium publications within the same niche and ask them to publish your article there. There’s always a publication for a certain niche.
If there isn’t, create one yourself. But beware, having your own publication is no easy job. Trust me; I’ve tried it myself. While it feels good to set my own rules, it is no easy job to start one yourself when you don’t have an audience yet. Leveraging other publications’ audiences is an excellent way to find your way through.
Roomer explains all about how to find your niche, build a brand image on Medium, and reach out to publications. I have already started implementing his suggestions. Let’s see how this turns out.
3. Train your idea muscle. Never run out of ideas.
This was my favourite part of the book. Roomer refers to an exercise from author and entrepreneur James Altucher, which is:
Write down 10 ideas every day.
That’s it. Every day, write down ideas within your area of expertise. If you are an innovator, write down ten product ideas. If you are an entrepreneur, write down ten business ideas. If you want to write a book, write down ten book ideas.
Roomer brings it closer to us as Medium writers. Since you want to write on Medium, go ahead and write 10 article ideas every day.
I have been doing this exercise for the past two weeks. Although I had some resistance in the beginning, it became easier as I went. I can assure you that A LOT of the ideas were plain awful. But it’s the exercise that matters, not the ideas.
Doing this exercise has been helping me develop better and better ideas to write about, like this one. In fact, while I was doing the exercise, I realised, why not just talk about what I learned from the book?
Not only is it easier to write about what you learned, but it is also extremely valuable as it helps reinforce your learnings in your mind so you can get better and better.
My Feedback on The Medium Formula
I believe this eBook was worth the money. The value in it is absolutely clear, and Roomer does not beat around the bush. His message is straightforward, well-explained, and well-supported by evidence and examples.
I’d recommend it to anyone willing to grow as a Medium writer as I am. I will definitely apply some of Roomer’s suggestions as I go and see where all this will lead me.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll write another article one day about what I learned from applying The Medium Formula.
There’s another article idea to go into my idea bank!
Have you read Roomer’s “The Medium Formula”? What are your thoughts about it? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time!
