MEDIUM THINGS — WRITERS’ BLOKKE

Help Me To Help You

Otherwise it may just be troublesome for everyone else — including you

The time is now 10 minutes to 1am, 2nd September 2021. I’ve been up since 7.45am, 1st September 2021. I had just spent almost 2 hours plus adding new writers to the publication and going through over 50 submissions. This is also the first time this month that I’ve had the chance to open Medium.

On average, I receive between 30–60 submissions at Writers’ Blokke (WB) on a daily basis. That’s 30–60 articles that I will have to skim through to see if they are within Medium and WB’s submission guidelines.

On top of that, I also receive about the same amount of responses, from comments on my articles, or requests to be added as writers to WB, all the way to ‘demands’ from some writers for their articles to be approved and published quickly.

I’ve talked about this briefly in a Newsletter that I sent out at the start of August which you can read from the link below.

If you’ve read it, then you’ll know just how hectic things have been for me lately — in terms of work as well as personal life.

My stress levels have probably reached its highest that it’s ever been.

There are definitely days where I feel like just shutting shop and to focus entirely on my own writing. I won’t lie to you because some days, it does get a bit too overwhelming.

But at the same time, I’ve come to know so many great people who are a part of this wonderful community on WB that I just can’t turn my back on them — on all of you.

It’s something that I’ve talked about as well in the article above.

So, let’s strike a deal, shall we?

Help me to help you.

Do this and I seriously will try even harder to be a better owner and editor on WB. Do this and I will promise you that WB will be sticking around for a good while more.

I fully understand that the majority of writers who request to be part of WB are fairly new writers on Medium. You just found out about the platform, you’re excited, you’re eager to start writing, and you just wanna jump right into it.

I totally get it because that’s just how I was when I first started writing on the platform.

But that’s also a reason why you should do your homework first before requesting to be part of any publication.

What do I mean by this?

I mean by the dozens of questions I get, such as:

• How do I submit to a publication?
• How do I submit an unpublished draft?
• How do I add images to my articles?
• How do I add separators in between my paragraphs?
• How do I add links to my paragraphs?
• How do I add captions to my images?

And there are actually quite a few more questions to the list.

Now, there is nothing wrong in asking questions. It’s how you learn anything in the first place. But the thing is, the answers to ALL the questions above can so EASILY be found by doing a simple Google search.

Let me tell you how my day looks like.

I usually get up by 7am — 7.45am. I’d brush up, do my morning routine, make my breakfast and by at least 8.30am or 9am, I’m at my laptop working. Because I’m mostly working from home now, I do save some time on commuting.

But from the moment I sit at my work station, I’m working until about 6pm. I’ll have a lunch break in between but the majority of the time, I’m working.

Once I’m done with work, it’s off to help my wife with our kids — getting them showered, dinner, family play time, and finally ready for bed. By the time both kids are asleep, it’d usually be around 10pm or sometimes, 11pm. It’s hard to predict a baby’s sleeping pattern.

So, at around 10pm or 11pm, that’s when I’ll finally have time to do my own things on the side. And that’s why, I’d usually only have time to start writing my own stuff after midnight.

Minimal errors

When I’m going through submissions, I will try my best to look for any errors so that I can correct them before I hit the publish button. As much as I try not to disturb the author’s original formatting or words, I do have a certain format that I like to follow for the WB publication.

There are still plenty of submissions that do not have proper formatting such as titles, subtitles or kickers.

It’s not hard to do all that and while it doesn’t take long for me to edit those stuff, but when you have to do that for more than 10 submissions, those little times add up.

So, let me help you so that you can help me.

Let me introduce you to the ultimate guide you could ever ask for to writing on Medium.

It is written by a friend and fellow writer, Casey Botticello. You need not look any further than his article because he covers literally EVERYTHING you’d ever need to know about writing on the platform.

Aside from that, he’s also a very talented writer so do check him out.

After you’ve read his article, I can guarantee you will have the best article format and you will minimise your errors.

Don’t be demanding

I get it, you don’t want to wait a long time before your article gets published — we all feel the same way, myself included.

But at the same time, don’t go demanding editors to publish your articles by commenting on their articles that have absolutely nothing to do with the publications that they run or edit for.

Yes, this has happened to me numerous times.

I’d get comments from WB writers on articles that I published in other publications, talking about topics that have nothing to do with WB, and there they are, asking me if I can hurry up and publish their recently submitted article to WB.

I’ve yet to remove any writer for doing so but God, have I been really close to doing so.

Please.

Just please be patient.

I’ve already said that I will try my best to publish your articles within 24 to 48 hours. Don’t send me a comment or demand for your articles to be published before that timeframe has passed.

And even if it does, don’t demand it unless it gets to unreasonable times like a week or two.

Have patience. Or I will have to start removing writers from the publication — something I definitely do not want to start doing.

If you really are impatient, then I’d suggest for you to start your own publication. That’s how WB came about anyway.

Be courteous and polite

This is kinda like a follow up to the point above. It doesn’t hurt to be kind, to be polite, to be courteous.

I’m not talking about just WB but also about any other publication on this platform. Majority, if not all of them, are owned and run by people who are not getting paid to do so.

I run WB on my free time which if I’m to be honest, can be spent resting and sleeping or writing my own articles. I don’t get paid for editing and publishing articles on WB. I wish I did, but I don’t.

And it’s the same for every other editor out there.

If you run your own publication or you’re an editor for a publication then you’ll know what I mean.

So, be kind to your editors.

Minimise errors in your submissions because this will then reduce the time it’ll take for the editors to edit your work.

Don’t demand or be pushy because you’d just piss editors off and risk being removed from the publication.

Instead, be a bit more understanding and again, have a little patience.

I know it sounds like I’m ranting because I actually am. It’s now 1.27am which means I’ll probably only get about 6 hours of sleep before I go through the same routine again.

And I can honestly say, it’s probably the same routine the majority of editors on the platform go through — especially those who have full-time jobs and only have time to go on Medium during their spare/free time.

So, I’d really appreciate it if all of you wonderful people who write for WB to please help me out so that I can help you out too.

Thank you.