Advice for Reluctant Submitters

If you want to see your work in a publication — just go for it!

This isn’t advice for those of you who are confident putting yourself out there. Most of you were probably submitting everything you wrote to whatever publication you saw fit from the moment you joined Medium. This is for people like me.

I’ve never liked rejection. I’ve never liked the prospect of rejection. And it isn’t a confidence thing — I know I can write, so I’m sure nothing besides the most damning criticism would affect me moving forward. I just don’t like uncomfortable situations. I can’t even handle the embarrassment displayed on any of the deliberately ‘cringe’ TV shows, so the fact the discomfort is experienced on my own, behind a screen, doesn’t make a difference.

Not that my mind is explicit about any of this. I’m fully aware that taking a minor leap of faith and asking for validation from a publication isn’t that big a deal — literally thousands of other writers have already succeeded in taking this step.

But my desire to avoid confrontation of any kind ensures I’ve become adept at making excuses good enough to fool even myself.

That’s a great publication, but I’m not sure my article quite fits — I’ll search for another, later.

That’s a comprehensive set of submission guidelines, I need to set aside more time to read it — later.

I kind of wanted to share this piece today, rather than wait to be accepted — I’ll submit the next one.

I’ve probably had too much screen time today, maybe I should give my eyes a rest first.

You get the picture.

The Catalyst

However, my attitude has had to change now that I’ve started the 30 Day Medium Challenge. Part of the challenge was originally to submit 30 new articles to 30 different publications, but I knew this would be way too far out of my comfort zone. So I set myself the more realistic goal of submitting to ten different publications. I’ve written about my adapted rules here:

Up to this point, I hadn’t submitted to a single publication during my first two years on Medium. The only publication I had featured in before starting the challenge was Swap Language. This was because an editor of theirs came across a curated piece I’d written and already self-published on The Challenges of Learning a Language and they asked if they could feature it.

It’s a great publication and a fantastic resource for anyone interested in learning languages. However, it seems like Swap Language have other priorities and are only adding new stories to their Medium publication every few months.

So I knew I’d have to branch out if I was going to have a real go at this challenge. While writing my initial story, I took a break to do a little research and found a number of growing publications like Writers’ Blokke, Illumination and Feedium to apply to. I also discovered that An Idea had previously left me a note, complimenting my writing and offering me to apply there, too.

So which was the first publication I chose to submit to? If you haven’t already guessed, I took the coward’s approach and played it safe. I wrote another article (only loosely relating to languages, if I’m honest) and stuck with what I knew.

Moving on

But I had to grow a backbone if I was going to achieve anything with this challenge, so I spent an hour applying to a number of different publications. Writers’ Blokke quickly took on my ‘opening’ piece and everything was easy from there. There are so many editors on Medium who are willing and eager to share your work, you just need to make them aware.

And guess what? Over a fortnight on, and that ‘safe’ publication is one of only two I haven’t heard back from yet (and the other has only had 3 days so far). I’ve had friendly, encouraging and mostly prompt replies all round. I’ve applied to ten and been accepted by eight — tantalisingly close to reaching my goal early.

Now, when I look back at some of the work I’m most proud of, languishing on a dozen reads because I was too hesitant to put them in a publication, I think: if only.

If only I had ignore the nagging sense that only rejection awaited, I could have had so many more eyes on my work. And who knows? It could have resulted in a little extra spare change, too.

So in future, you won’t catch me playing it safe on here — I don’t want any more of my stories to be homeless if I can help it. If anyone wants to read the one I let get away (or check to see if it ever got accepted) then it’s here:

Otherwise, good luck with your writing — and get submitting!