As a New Writer, Here Is Why You Should Stop Submitting Your Stories to Big Publications

Chase value, not views

I started on medium as a reader, exclusively. When I read a story featured in a big publication, I would think, “Maybe my work too can be in front of xxx thousands of people”. So, months ago, when I started writing on medium, my goal was to get my story into a big publication. Guess what, that hasn’t happened yet.

I did what I think most new writers do. Write a piece, edit and proofread to be sure it is perfect enough for the big dogs, send a pitch and hope it gets accepted. Or if I had been added as a writer, I hit the “add to publication” button, then wait to get accepted.

I continued in this routine for a while, and it became boring. I was sure I would either get the regular rejection message,

Hey XXX,

Thank you very much for submitting a beautiful story. We’re going to pass on this time. But we really appreciate the chance we’ve got in reading your story, and we hope you will keep sending us more stories in the future..

Or they will ignore my submission. And that’s frustrating.

As a writer, and especially a new one, that is not the response you want to receive after submitting a piece to an editor or a publication.

So I thought, if these big publications would continue sending me useless rejection messages, maybe the not-too-big publications would have some mercy on me. After publishing my work in smaller publications and some medium-sized publications, I have come to learn that my initial goal of being featured in a big publication was not the right goal in the first place. I am setting better goals now.

Here is why as a new writer on medium, getting published in a big publication shouldn’t be your goal, at least for now.

You get nothing from their rejection message

I don’t know about you, but when I get such a response, I shake my head and say, “what the hell is this”. Writing, editing, and proofreading is a lot of work, and at the least, you deserve feedback from an editor, especially one requesting submissions.

Feedbacks are supposed to help you as a writer, tell you about your writing or your topic and idea. The rejection message from the big publications doesn’t tell you why your story was rejected and what you are doing right or wrong; Nothing at all. And the funny part is they tell you to send your stories in the future.

If I don’t know what I am doing wrong, I would probably make the same mistake the next time. And my story will probably be rejected once again. So what is the point?

Maybe I am just a writer who has been rejected so much, and I am ranting. I get it. But I deserve better than “we are going to pass”. I want to get something more insightful and helpful. And it can be as simple as,

“We published something similar recently.”

“You might want to work on your grammar and punctuations and try again.”

“We are not interested in this topic at the moment.”

These are just one sentence long, but they are more helpful than the “Pass-over feast” they serve writers.

They waste your time

It is better to get a rejection message than wait endlessly for a response and get none. At least, after a rejection, you can wipe your tears, work on your story if you need to, and find another home for the story.

While some big publications state that if you don’t get a response in a week, you should consider it as rejection, some have no clearly stated time frame, and you are left to wonder if you should still wait or move on.

If you are a serious writer on medium, it might become arduous to manage all your draft and unpublished stories. I like to get my stories out of the draft folder as soon as possible. It clears my mind to better focus on unfinished stories.

Being published in a big publication does not necessarily equal more views

This was my initial presumption and the primary reason I wanted to be featured in a big publication. But I have come to know that a story may be self-published and still perform better than one in a big publication. Although many people follow these publications, these people don’t read every story in the publication. If your story is of no value to them, they will not read it.

However, If you write an excellent piece that people want to read, they will read and engage with your work irrespective of the publication that houses it.

Here is what you should do instead of chasing the big publications.

Serve the market what it needs/wants

You are not just a writer, you are a business person. A business person doesn’t just wake up one morning and create a product or service without considering whether the market needs the product or service. A business person must ask, “will people pay for this product or service?” Similarly, as a writer and business person, you must also ask yourself, “Will people take out their time to read my story?”, “Does this story educate, entertain or have an ‘audience value’?” If the answer is a no, you might want to write it in your personal journal where you alone will see it.

Just this morning, I read an interesting piece by Danny Forest titled The Deeply Flawed Medium Article That Made Me Over $9,000. From the title, you can guess what the article is about. Danny recounted how an article with grammar errors, poor punctuations, and missing words earned him over $9000. You might wonder how an article with that many errors could earn over $9000 with 766k views. Well, the simple answer is that the article had value. It had something to teach the readers, and that was more important to the audience. In Danny’s words,

“An article with good lessons and decent sentences beats a perfectly written one with mediocre advice.”

Submit to publications that give you feedback

Rejection is a good thing because it is from them we can learn and grow as writers and humans generally. As a writer, rejections are inevitable, and you should get used to them. However, you should welcome rejections that bring you closer to an acceptance on your next try.

I have worked with fantastic editors here on Medium: Jon Hawkins, owner and managing editor of The Apeiron Blog, Kelly Eden, owner and editor of Inspired Writer, and Aimée Gramblin, owner and editor of Age of Empathy, just to name a few. If they reject your story, you know why it is being rejected, and therefore you learn what to do differently the next time.

If you are consistent in sharpening your craft and delivering great content, perhaps the big publications might reach out to you to have your work featured in their publication. I believe that is a better way. Best wishes.