For Pete’s Sake, Can’t You All Just Accept Published Stories?

Summary

Lindo Shandu, a concerned writer, expresses frustration with Medium publications that require new drafts for submission, rather than accepting previously published stories.

Abstract

Lindo Shandu, a passionate writer, finds it exhausting and time-consuming to write new drafts for each Medium publication that requires them as part of their submission guidelines. Shandu questions the purpose of the "Add to publication" option if these publications won't accept already published stories. He suggests that accepting previously published stories that meet curation guidelines would be a win-win situation for both writers and publications. Shandu has tried submitting published stories to such publications but has been rejected. He seeks to understand the reasoning behind this requirement or encourages a change in the rules.

Opinions

Lindo Shandu believes that requiring new drafts for each publication submission is exhausting and time-consuming.
Shandu questions the purpose of the "Add to publication" option if publications won't accept already published stories.
He suggests that accepting previously published stories that meet curation guidelines would benefit both writers and publications.
Shandu has tried submitting published stories to such publications but has been rejected.
He seeks to understand the reasoning behind this requirement or encourages a change in the rules.

It would make our job a lot easier

Hi. I’m Lindo Shandu, and I’m a concerned writer.

Medium publications whose submission guidelines require the submission of a draft as part of the guidelines for writers getting approved to your publications, don’t you think you’re being a little hard on us?

This, to me, means that every time I would like to be accepted as a new writer to such publications, I must write a new draft for each of those publications. This is quite exhausting and time-consuming, even for a writer as passionate as myself.

I’m also talking to those publications who add new writers to their publications after having left a simple comment of request on a post to be added as such, which is good, but then require the submission of drafts before their work get published, which I think is not so good for the above-mentioned reasons.

What if I already have a self-published story that perfectly meets your curation guidelines? Won’t you accept it just because it’s already been published?

If that’s the case, then what is the purpose of the “Add to publication” option from the drop-down list of the 3-dotted tab?

What if I just click on an already published story that best meets your curation guidelines and add it to your publication? Other publications easily accept these stories and even edit them before publication, if need be. This has made my job much easier, not to mention that I always look forward to writing for these publications.

Besides, isn’t this a win-win for both of us?

I have a couple of self-published stories that best meet the curation guidelines of some of the Medium publications that I would like to write for, but since they accept drafts only, I can’t submit my stories to these publications. I tried to take my chances a couple of times by submitting published stories to these publications, knowing exactly that they accept drafts only, but unsurprisingly, they got rejected.

I’m not telling you to change your rules, or maybe I kind of am, but can you at least please think about what I’ve just said?

Or perhaps make me understand because clearly I don’t.

Fellow writers, what’s your take on this issue? Let me know in the comments.