23 Rules for Getting the Coveted ‘Chosen for Further Distribution’

Your checklist to get across Medium’s homepage and more eyes on your work.

Writing on Medium for nearly two years, I have learned a few things, seen better writers come and go, and stretched myself as a content creator more than I thought I could. Medium is a sweet place for writers. Period. The best — if you look at it as a place for growth, and possibly, a place to make a great side-hustle income.

I didn’t have any professional writing experience. I only had a computer, a defunct blog, and some patience.

Algorithms change. But what doesn’t change here is that quality writing rises to the top. My last payout was nearly 6K, and I’m at once shocked that it took so little effort to make that per month and surprised at just how much effort it took.

The best thing I did was start my own challenge. I announced to my few followers (back then, I think I had 500, I now have close to 9K) that I was challenging myself to write every day and publish for 30 days straight.

Putting my mission into the ethos made me accountable to someone other than myself. I kept the promise, added another 30 days after that, and then another 30 days for a total of 90 days. Once I published for 90 days straight, the writing muscle and habit were firmly cemented. It no longer takes a ton of energy (mental bandwidth and output) to write a post, edit it and send it out into the world.

My blogging muscle, as well as my ideation muscle, is strong from the continuous routine.

Here are the rules to follow to get chosen for further distribution

1. Write. Keep writing.
2. Don’t complain about curation. Ignore it while seeking it at the same time. Instead, concentrate on quality writing — your work will get chosen for further distribution if you focus on quality.
3. Headline — Medium is guarded about what makes a story get chosen for further distribution, but they are not shy about telling you that clickbait headlines will affect your curation chances. So make sure your headline is not promising something it doesn’t deliver.
4. Formatting counts, but don’t over format. Medium is going for a certain look and feel to their site. Think magazine style. If you look at any of the larger publications’ guidelines, you will see a similar pattern. There are some rules you have to follow to stand out. Following are the four biggest.
5. Make sure your headline is in the “Title Case.” The site I use to turn my titles into title case is linked here. All titles must in “Title Format.” Highlight your title, and click the large ‘t’ in the format editor to easily make sure your title is formatted the way Medium wants it.
6. Subtitle. Medium likes a subtitle added under the title. The subtitle should be in sentence case. Sentence case is simply in sentence form. The first word is capitalized, and the sentence ends with a period. You can ask a question in your subtitle but try not to in your title. Highlight your subtitle, and click the small ‘t’ in the format editor to easily make sure your subtitle is formatted the way Medium wants it.
7. Image. All images are credited correctly. You must cite the artist, even if the artist is you. If you added a photo, the credit should read, “Source provided by the author.” Make the image stretch across the whole page. It is the largest option on the right. Click that, and your image will look great. Some publications prefer a smaller image. I think the larger one works best. Check each publication’s guidelines to see what look they want. Choose a horizontal image. Choose an image that reflects what the post is about.
8. Write a compelling lead. After the title, the lead is the most important. Write a compelling lead that grabs the reader by the throat and doesn’t let him go. John McPhee describes the lead and the headline well, “the lead — like the title — should be a flashlight that shines down into the story. A lead is a promise. It promises that the piece of writing is going to be like this.”
9. Bulk of the text. Mix up sentences and paragraph lengths and add space between them.
10. Include headings/headlines to break up the piece and organize it well. You don’t need to include punctuation at the end of your heading, but you can. Again, look at the publications you’re submitting to, see what the majority of the writers do, or if the publication offers specific guidelines on headings.
11. Never use all capital letters in the headings or in a numbered list ie, ONE, TWO, THREE, etc., it is considered ‘shouting,’ and you don’t want to shout at your reader.
12. Numbers, in a list, below ten must be spelled out.
13. Maintain consistency throughout the story and use large subheadings or small, but be consistent.
14. Spell out acronyms on the first usage, putting acronyms in parentheses afterward.
15. Comply with Medium’s Ad-Free Policy.
16. Short quotes should be added to inlines with the main text and only use quotation style for longer quotes.
17. No spelling or grammatical mistakes — run your story through Grammarly. I don’t use Grammarly for grammar, more for spelling. Even after I’ve read my piece aloud a few times, I usually miss at least one spelling error or typo. Grammarly will catch these.
18. Use pulled quotes or block quotes correctly. I’ve written about this here.
19. Make your story’s read-time more than four minutes long. That’s roughly 600 words.
20. Call to action — Make sure your call to action is short, no more than two sentences. Medium doesn’t like glaring “ads.”
21. No affiliate links in the post — this is a no, no. Medium will not curate a story with affiliate links; they are considered ads.
22. Use the correct tags that reflect the topic of your story.
23. Stories about how to make it on Medium (like this one) won’t be curated. Medium doesn’t curate stories about Medium.

Follow the above rules for a start. I hear a lot of newbies to Medium complain about not getting chosen for further distribution.

If you follow these guidelines and still aren’t seeing curation love from the Medium gods — you aren’t getting chosen for further distribution after a few months — take a deep breath and an in-depth look at your writing. It may be in the quality, and you have to up your writing game.

I took a serious look at my writing after I kept getting rejected from larger publications. More often than not, when I wasn’t accepted, my article wasn’t as good as it could have been. I rewrote it a couple of times and was then accepted.

You can always get better at writing.

If you are serious about writing, hire an editor. Hire a good editor to work with you closely on a few articles, so they can shed light on the changes you need to make to make your writing better. Working with a talented editor will make you a better writer, as will taking a writing class.

However, more than anything, writing a lot will improve your writing the most. Start a publication, and practice your writing as the editor, you won’t have to wait on anyone else to “accept” you, and you’ll get a ton of practice sharing publically. You’ll be able to tell which of your stories are making a splash, and that will point you in the direction you need to go while aiming for curation and getting “chosen for further distribution.”

Write on.

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Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering Type A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.