Editor’s Corner: 4 Suggestions To Writers For Successful Article Publication
Editors read, give suggestions, and publish
It is not easy to be an editor. An editor has a continuous dilemma. Should I publish the piece of work as it is or should I make some changes? It does not want to spoil the work of the writers, nor their own writing style so it sends a private note with a suggestion.
The writers don’t see this note and the draft keeps lying and delays occur. The editor is not comfortable with the delay because it adds to the mess in the queue and the writer is unhappy that it has taken so long to publish a post.
What is a via media?
The editor is interested in 3 important things:
🍀1. The submission guidelines
Every publication has its own set of priorities in topics or specialization. Some publications have formatting requirements. There are some needs of topics.
Let us take some examples: The Memoirist publishes only memoirs and its topics are nonfiction. If you are interested in fiction submit your articles in the Lark. If you write an article of 1 minute and 150 words The Short Forn publication will be an ideal fit.
If you submit an article that the publication is not taking it will be rejected. Send an article of 500 words to The Shortform and it will certainly be rejected because Shortforms are only 150 words.
Illumination has published its updated submission guidelines for all its publications. It does not take Medium or its earnings articles in Illumination but in its sister publication Illumination Mirror but there are a handful of articles every day still submitted on Illumination about Medium.
Another very distinct problem is when a writer submits more than one article per day the editor can only publish one article per writer or it will be a sackful of the same writer's articles. That certainly must be avoided.
Helpful Guide: Read The Submission Guidelines Carefully
🍀2. Take care that your article is error-free
These days a lot of articles that are submitted are full of errors. This shows carelessness on the part of the writer.
It has the impression that the article has not been read and reviewed properly by the writer before it is submitted for publication.
So many writers do not have English as their first language. It is perfectly fine. Use a grammatical tool and make your article error-free.
There are many suggestions for tools that can be used but the easiest is to install Grammarly. It is free and best for blog writers. Use it and enjoy error-free articles.
Suggestion: After you write an article, close your Medium account and after ten minutes open your Medium account and review your story. Sometimes red lines appear after you close the account and reopen it. When you reopen it your story is refreshed and if there are errors red underlines will appear for you to correct it.
Helpful suggestion: Make your corrections, read it, and submit it to the publication.
🍀3. The pictures should be properly accredited
Please note that editors do not want to get into trouble. They will not publish your post if you have used a copyrighted photo because they do not want you to get in any trouble.
A copyrighted photo means that the picture taken by the person shows his right to the picture. You can only use it with permission and also if the original person demands an amount it must be paid. If a copyrighted picture is used without these requirements it will not be published.
Look at the above photo in the article. There is a link that says that it is from Unsplash. When you click on the link it takes you to the source. Such links must be inserted even when photos are taken from free sources.
Often I go with the link and the link does not open. This is certainly not proper accreditation.
Helpful Suggestion: Give proper accreditation to the photo that you use. Link it and see that it opens at the source.
🍀4. Formatting of title and subtitle and kicker
The most important part of your article is the title. If you format it incorrectly the editor does not like to publish your article.
Example: My Personal Experience Of Traveling.
This is formatted with big T and the first letter of every word is in a capital letter.
I have found many writers using the sentence case for a title. That is certainly incorrect.
The subtitle should be in sentence case.
Example: Solo travel tips from my recent travel
This is formatted with small t and only the first letter of the first word is in capital. The rest of it is just like a sentence.
Please do remember if you do not know already.
A kicker is not necessary. It is written above the title to enhance and make it self-explanatory about what you are writing.
A kicker for the above example would be formatted with a small t. It will be above the main title and each letter will be in capital letters. TRAVEL
To wrap up
If a story lacks proper title formatting or photo citations, it will not be accepted. If your post has a lot of grammatical errors or typos, it will not be accepted. If your story does not fit within the submission guidelines, it will not be accepted for publication.
The work of editors is an integral part of the publishing process, ensuring that articles are of high quality, accurate, and aligned with the publication’s goals. Understanding the steps editors take when articles are submitted can help writers appreciate the effort and expertise that goes into making their work shine.
©Dr. Preeti Singh, 2023. To get my stories in your inbox, you may subscribe to my content here. You may connect with me on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, or via email: [email protected]