A Huge New Audience Found My Stories

I’m sad it wasn’t on Medium, but grateful for my friends here.

I am lucky enough to be an editor for the three ILLUMINATION publications and SYNERGY. This means I can submit and publish both mine and the work of others to ILLUMINATION, ILLUMINATION-Curated and ILLUMINATION’S MIRROR.

I still mostly prefer to post in the original, it feels like home. When I occasionally write something that is curated by Medium I remove it from the main pub and post it in ILLUMINATION-Curated.

If we don’t sing our own praises then who will?

I recently apologized to a good friend of mine for asking her to click on a link I sent her via email that would help me earn a little extra on my second home these days, News Break. She came back swiftly with: never apologize for marketing your work.

It’s a good piece of advice but one that many writers find difficult to do. Time isn’t the only hindrance. Discomfort at what, at first, feels like showing off. Maybe even harboring secret thoughts of, if I’m good enough, people will find my work.

When our writing is the best it can be for all the effort we have put in, the only way most of us are going to get anywhere is to market it. Some writers have the skill and a magic touch and they achieve success within weeks, others may take months or years to find their fans.

It took a year

My community will always be on Medium. I have made so many friends whose work I seek out to read for pleasure, and who come to find my work too. Sometimes we even ask to be tagged so we don’t miss a piece.

If you are to find the success you desire, you need to make your work stand out for the right reasons in order to get published quickly by editors.

Editors know what they are talking about and want to help you better your chances of receiving applause, shares and engagement, and the coveted curation.

The good Dr is creating a structure to learn from our peers, give clear instruction on how to promote our work and his editors are also building and strengthening that structure with tools to help us realize our writing dreams.

How to improve our writing and gain curation, paid online writing opportunities, and the means to market ourselves are all free for us to take advantage of and make a living as a freelance writer.

My audience found my stories

I heard about News Break in the ILLUMINATION Slack group (it’s worth joining if you’d like more information about anything to do with writing on Medium and writing in general!) late last December. I almost waited too long to join.

This month is my third on NewsBreak. At the end of my second month of paid writing, one of my old Medium stories, retitled with a clickbait headline, went viral. It was a story about my step mum dying.

On Medium a year ago, 21st January 2004 RIP Mummy received 65 claps, 17 reads, and earned 8 cents.

On News Break almost a year later, 38 Quarts of Whisky in 30 Days Killed Her scored 27K reads over a period of 4 days. Followers grew from 50 to 240.

The next chapter from my book published as Miles on Medium, earned 112 claps and 4 fans, 12 reads, and earned 0 cents.

While on News Break, Two Little Girls Watch Mommy Leave Them is currently showing as 27K reads after less than 24 hours. The number of followers has rocketed from 265 followers to 1278!

This process of finding success took me a year of writing regularly. Plus, success for the book that I wrote and published on Amazon Kindle years ago which sold not one copy, it has finally found its audience.

I’m still enjoying learning how to be a journalist! If you are thinking of applying to NewsBreak, here’s my referral link! I believe we will both benefit from you joining!

Learn from others

Sabana Grande is correct when he tells you how to be published quickly. I’d like to add, start right, learn by reading other people’s work. Notice how they format their stories.

Remember to give credit for other’s work. Nobody is perfect. Well, maybe some of my idols on Medium are in my eyes, but most of us mere mortals aren’t.

Making mistakes is a natural part of learning. Remembering, the next time you submit a story to a publication, to check you meet Medium Distribution Standards, will help you get published quicker. Much better than forgetting to do something that will make more work for the editors and keep you waiting.

What I’m saying is, put the time in. Learn from others, build your writer family. Help them, they will help you.

Be daring and brave where opportunities for sharing and marketing your work are concerned.

Nobody ever got anywhere by being shy and waiting to be discovered! You are good enough, but you have to help yourself by sharing your work everywhere. It won’t happen overnight. If all the stars are aligned, it might.

One day, maybe you will find success too.