30 Submissions to 30 Pubs in 30 Days — The Results are In!

Well, it’s been a crazy month.

I set myself a target to submit 30 articles to 30 publications in 30 days. One submission per day.

Anangsha Alammyan said: “You’re going to blow something up with this. Mark my words.”

I marked her words. She was right.

And I did it!

Did I meet my targets?

Submissions: Achievement unlocked ✅ Goal: 30 submissions Achieved: 30 submissions

Follower growth: Achievement unlocked ✅ Goal: 250 new followers Achieved: 260 new followers (increased from 989 to 1,249)

Income: Achievement unlocked ✅ Goal: $250 Achieved: $427.56

What’s more, I had 8,217 views during the 30 days, and 4,215 reads:

My total views on Medium now exceed 30K:

I’m not sure how to have a party on Medium, but:

🤩 🥳🥳 🤩 🎉🎉 🤩

And if you want to join the Challenge for yourself, you can do that here:

Quick Reflection & Caveats on the Results (More Detailed Reflection Below)

This is my biggest ever month of earnings on Medium by a long way. In fact, the income for the 30 days is nearly as much as I earned in total during my previous 3.5 months writing on Medium.

And three caveats:

1. Earnings are correct for the exact 30 days of the challenge. I took the earnings stat on March 31st, so the earnings cover March 1st-30th, since Medium doesn’t show earnings for the current day.
2. I actually submitted more than 30 articles during the month. I found that I enjoyed writing poetry so much that I couldn’t stop writing more. The earnings from these poems are really small, pennies per poem. The 30 submissions I counted above are the 30 articles that I submitted to different publications as part of the challenge.
3. $173.97 of my earnings during the 30-day challenge came from a single article that I published in February. This emphasizes the power of a back catalog and consistent publishing.

Challenges Results — Articles Published

• Articles published during the 30 days: 35
• Rejections: 3
• Non-replies: 1 (no timeline was provided by the pub for what counts as a rejection, so I ended up submitting to an alternative pub)
• Still waiting for a reply: 2
• Publications submitted to: 30

I link to all the articles that were published in my original write-up:

The Top 3 Performing Articles

I’m keeping it simple and using income as the key metric for top-performing. All of these articles also got a lot of engagement in the form of claps and comments:

Earned $54.27:

Earned $36.30:

Earned $18.65:

How Long Does it Take to Get Published?

With every article, I kept a record of the time between submission and publication. For most publications, this was under 48 hours. That’s impressive, considering most editors are volunteers! As a writer, I find this fast turnaround incredibly helpful.

Some publications take 10 days or more to respond. The publications that take longer tend to be the bigger pubs that are likely flooded with submissions, such as The Ascent and Writing Co-operative.

Here are the details of my results:

• Published the same day: 11 articles
• Published the next day: 9 articles
• 2–4 day wait: 5 publications
• Longest wait between submission and publication: 11 days

I wanted to give a particular shout-out to ILLUMINATION (92K followers) for their speedy response time for a publication with a huge following, coupled with editor feedback. Publication with them was within a couple of hours.

Which Publications Do I Recommend Writing For?

I recommend all the publications that I published with during the month. In every case the publication process was smooth, and I had a positive interaction with the editors.

My main advice for picking a publication is twofold:

• Find the publication that’s the best fit for your article
• Aim high! Don’t be afraid of submitting to your dream publication. The worst that can happen is your article isn’t for them, in which case you can submit to an alternative pub.

Here are some pubs I would like to give a particular shout-out to:

For Beginner Medium Writers — ILLUMINATION and Writers’ Blokke

For writers who are starting out on Medium, I highly recommend ILLUMINATION (92K followers) as a way to build your confidence in publishing and get access to lots of readers. Plus my article with them as part of the challenge was curated.

It’s a great place to start, and I know many writers (including myself) who love writing for them.

Writers’ Blokke (2.8K followers) is another excellent publication for beginner writers, especially for articles about writing or creativity.

For Bookworms — Books Are Our Superpower

As a booklover, Books Are Our Superpower (6.6K followers) is a great place to share my favourite books, and the stories of how books have influenced my life. The editor Anangsha Alammyan is a prolific and widely respected Medium writer, so any feedback she gives is worth paying close attention to.

For Poetry— The POM

The POM (1.2K followers) isn’t named after the Australian slang for an English person. It actually stands for Poetry On Medium. It’s a supportive community of poets that includes a Facebook group. The poems I submit to The POM always get a lot of reads and engagement.

For Nature Writing — Weeds & Wildflowers

Weeds & Wildflowers (1.3K followers) is the first publication I wrote for on Medium. Dennett is a warm and welcoming editor, and the community around the publication is supportive too. It’s a great place to meet other writers who like nature writing and poetry.

For Intermediate and Advanced Writers — Publishous

From the first day I started writing for Medium, it was my goal to write for Publishous (45K followers). It’s my dream pub! The editors Nicole Akers and George J. Ziogas are incredibly supportive at giving feedback on articles, and everything they publish is of an exemplary standard. You need three months of publishing on a regular basis on Medium to write for Publishous.

Pros and Cons — Was the 30 Day Challenge Worth the Effort?

Yes!

Overall, I’m incredibly happy with the results of the Challenge. Here are my favorite parts from the 30 days:

Trying out different genres

I didn’t enjoy writing every post. There were some I just pounded out from a sense of duty, because of my commitment to complete the Challenge.

Others flew from my fingertips like I was releasing bluebirds from my soul. I realized that I especially enjoy two types of writing:

• Personal storytelling
• Poetry

I would never have discovered how much I enjoy these two genres without the experiment. I’d never even considered publishing my poetry until a little over a month ago. Now I can’t stop writing it, and I’m excited to keep publishing.

I liked trying my hand at different writing styles. I loved writing a journal entry for Unwritten Journal. I found it a good way to explore my thoughts without needing to think about article structure.

I also found it incredibly fruitful to tap into my anger and write rants. Several of my articles this month began as a rant. You can get your anger off your chest at The Venting Machine.

Data analysis

The experiment has helped me to see which genres most resonate with my readers. Articles about creativity and writing continue to be popular, as they were before the challenge.

My biggest surprise was how well my mental-health articles performed. This has encouraged me to share more on this topic. This personal story was one of my top-performing articles during the challenge:

Meeting other writers

When I launched the Challenge, I offered other writers the opportunity to take part, and I was excited and delighted when several writers said yes.

I’m especially proud to have met Zach Klebaner, Alana Rister, Ph.D. and Catherine Mancini who took the Challenge with me. Here are their pledge posts:

Zach:

Alana:

Catherine:

I also got much braver at asking for feedback from other writers — which has helped me grow a lot as a writer. If you like a particular writer, be brave and say hello. You can leave a private note, tweet them, or join Facebook groups for Medium writers and meet other writers that way. Once you get to know them, then you can ask for feedback on an article.

Thank you to all the writers who gave me feedback this month, whether in private notes or public comments. You know who you are.

Engaging with new publications I’ve never written for before

I’m now a writer for close to 50 publications. This gives me options to write in many different genres.

When I started out on Medium, I found that it can be a challenge to get added to a publication. Editors are busy, so they can take a few days to respond to requests. Plus it takes time to find the different requirements of each pub.

This 30-day experiment pushed me to reach outside my comfort zone, search for new publications, and request to be added as a writer. Crossing these hurdles has opened up opportunities for my future writing.

Planning and scheduling

I ran a tight ship for the 30 days, with my full content schedule planned out in Notion:

This is the first time I’ve planned out a schedule for my content and I LOVED the focus it gave me. The plan changed a lot — right until the last day, I was moving content around, coming up with new ideas, adjusting the planned submission dates.

But it made it so easy to choose what to work on next. Whenever I had a moment to write, I opened up Notion, and looked at which article was next in line and still incomplete. Then I got to work

And Now… the Downsides

The challenge wasn’t all roses and sunshine. Here are some of the downsides:

• Time. During the challenge, I spent a lot of evenings writing. Too many, and it started to impact my relationship with my family and friends. I’m slowing down my writing pace for April to give back to loved ones.
• Stress. It got stressful towards the end. Before the challenge, I banked a lot of articles. But I used these up early. As I entered the last 10 days I realized I had a week left of stories to put together. This meant some fast and furious writing!
• Rejections. I’ve learned not to get too sore about rejections, I simply go ahead and submit to another publication until the article gets published. Even so, it’s never fun to be rejected. All of my rejections during the challenge were from Start Up owned publications. Start Up, Curious and Blank Page all said no to the articles I submitted. I guess something about my writing style doesn’t jive with their editorial team — or it could be that the articles weren’t good matches for what they’re looking for.
• Self-doubt and shame. Was I too vulnerable this month? This question plagues me. I usually aim to be positive and upbeat in my writing, so sharing my vulnerability and darker side was a challenge. This opened up great conversations with writers that I’m close to, but I do wonder how it impacted my wider audience and their willingness to engage with my writing.

Results from Other Writers

Here are the results from other writers who took part in the Challenge:

◦•●Christina M. Ward ●•◦

Catherine Mancini

What Happens Next?

I LOVED completing this Challenge, it gave a focus for my writing, and I was incredibly surprised by the results. The relationships I formed with other writers during the Challenge has been my favorite result of the Challenge, and I cherish these new friendships.

I recommend taking a Challenge if you’d like to improve your writing. If you’d like to take this 30-day Challenge for yourself, it’s still open. You can find out how to join here:

I’ll also be launching a new Challenge next month, with a focus on improving my storytelling skills. So watch this space!

One More Thing:

Zulie Rane (22K followers) taught me almost everything I know about publications on Medium.

To learn the exact lessons Zulie taught me, then check out her course Medium Publications 101 (affiliate link). I spent hundreds of dollars coaching with Zulie, and it was worth every penny. You can get the same information at the fraction of the cost with Zulie’s course. I’ve taken it myself, and I highly recommend it. Tap this link to find out more.