Don’t Be Disappointed When Your Article Fails (Do This Instead)

3 simple ideas to increase your impact.

Writers tend to separate rejection and success into two different buckets.

Rejection means you simply weren’t good enough. You failed.

Success means you did everything right. You had a mission, put in the work, and achieved your goal.

When we look at writing through this lens of separation, we miss the opportunity to take a failure and mold it into something better. A rejected article doesn’t have to be forgotten. It can be pulled apart, reformatted, and used elsewhere.

The key is putting your failures and successes on the same wavelength to recycle your content instead of throwing it away. Here are a few ideas to get started.

Cut The Original Article In Half

Sometimes you’re just overthinking it. We have an idea in our heads about how long an article needs to be, how it should be formatted, and the key points it needs to drive home. I find this problem on Medium, where I try to have most of my articles fall in the four to six minute length. But this can lead to articles dragging on and being supplemented by filler content rather than driving home a core idea.

For example, I had been playing around with a post about how reinvesting my free time has led to career growth. The concept was great: it felt relatable, was backed by a story, and ended with a takeaway that others would find valuable.

I just couldn’t get it right.

Instead of adding more to flesh it out, I decided to try a different approach. I kept the intro and the conclusion and deleted everything in between. “Great Opportunities Happen in Unlikely Places” started as a seven minute read that went absolutely nowhere. By the time I hit “publish,” it was a quick-hitting two-minute piece that left a lasting impression on readers.

Take Out The Core Themes And Tweet Them

If content is king, distribution is king kong. Every failed (and successful) article should be broken down and repurposed on other platforms. This idea is based on the reverse pyramid model, which basically explains how to work smarter not harder by spreading out your content in as many different ways as possible.

A long-form article can be used for 50–100 pieces of content across your Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and other active social channels. Even an article that is rejected from a publication or struggling to generate views can still provide massive value elsewhere.

Several months ago I wrote an article about coffee alternatives, highlighting spirulina as one of my favorites for sustainable energy. Because of this, an algae superfood company contacted me to try their product line and provide feedback. Eventually, I published a spirulina specific post using their company in the background for quotes and information.

Long story short, it didn’t do great. However, I have used lines from that article on social media nearly a dozen times, bringing in new readers and building connections on Twitter. The Tweet below was shared by the companies founder on Twitter and Instagram, which also brought in about fifty extra views to the article.

Distribute The Best Snippets On Quora

Quora remains one of the most underutilized platforms for writers. While it doesn’t offer the same exposure as it once did, Quora is still a great place to test article ideas and utilize some of your failed content.

A while back, I dove headfirst into writing about health and fitness, resulting in a lot of trial and error pieces. Some of them did really well and others fell flat almost immediately. One area that really caught my attention was jogging, and the health benefits of running at a controlled pace.

I posted an article about jogging on three different occasions but could never nail one that I was really proud of. Instead of letting those hours go to waste, I saved the research I had found and started using it to answer questions on Quora. This opened my writing up to a new audience and let me direct views to my other posts by offering a link at the end of my answers.

Think Outside The Box

I’ll be the first to admit that pouring your heart into an article that flops absolutely sucks. It’s a terrible feeling that all writers experience. But you don’t have to let failure get in the way of your long-term growth.

The ideas above are just a few things that I have used to make sure that I am not reinventing the wheel on every failed piece of writing. This methodology allows me to drastically increase my production without doing more work.

Next time your writing comes up short, don’t get discouraged. Be creative and think outside the box to find a fresh alternative.

Failure in writing only exists if you let it.

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