Here’s How to Win at Publication Writing on Medium

It just takes a little strategic planning

One of the most useful and interesting aspects of the Medium platform is the thematic conglomerations we lovingly refer to as “pubs.” Publications offer us niches to climb into with our hot cup of tea and fuzzy socks or hop into with our virtual briefcase and productivity checklist on the ready. We cry with the wounded, we celebrate poetry, we find circles of friends.

In short, publications are fantastic.

As writers, they offer us rotating circles of audience, and if we are not maximizing on this opportunity we are seriously shortchanging our Medium experience.

To begin with full disclosure — I may have a Publication addiction.

In the beginning — you need eyes on your work. Add me as a writer! You beg every pub you enter. Then you add in some of the big and impressive ones. One year in, you realize you are a writer for 66 pubs, editor of 9 others and owner of 3. How. Did. This. Happen?

If you have a publication addiction — or if you aren’t writing for any of them yet, this article will address publications — the good, the bad, the ugly, and the HOW. But no, sorry, I can’t help you with your publication addiction. I might, however, help you to manage it a bit.

Publications: The WINS are waiting

This first section will cover briefly the ins/outs of publications, how to get in (etc.) and what publications can do for you.

Benefits:

In my opinion the benefits of writing in Medium publications far exceeds any frustration over the publishing process or working with the pubs’ editors.

• Gets your work in front of specialized audiences of people with shared interests
• Expands the distribution of your work and in some cases it raises the likelihood of curation
• Increases your credibility as a writer
• Gets some editorial support for your work
• Some pubs will help promote your work
• Some pubs carry on events, contests, and writing prompts which can keep you motivated, focused, and growing as a writer

Drawbacks:

• Each pub has it’s own rules for submitting and participating — these can complicate the publishing process or delay your work going live
• Some writers prefer not to work with editors who may change or suggest changes to your work
• Your work may need to stay in place with a pub for a period of time or you may need permission to remove your work from a pub.
• Sometimes your work may be rejected for one reason or another

Research each pub

The first key to a great working relationship with a medium publication is to do your research.

• Know what kind of work the publication publishes — does your work fit in there? Is there a good following for the pub? On the home page — are there recent postings? (Is the pub active?)
• Know who writes for the pub and who the editors are (check the “about” info for the pub) — if you don’t recognize any of those people, then the pub is likely to put your work in front of new eyes and new potential readers, writing associates, and other working minds you can learn from.
• Read the submission guidelines — thoroughly. Be prepared to revisit them each time you publish with that publication. Find out how the pub requires you to request to be a writer and get yourself listed as a writer with the pub. For some pubs the application process is thorough and it may take you weeks to hear back — others you can join by simply commenting “add me!” FOLLOW each pub’s requirements — always.

Nothing irritates editors more than having to tell you what is already printed very clearly in the submission guidelines. Review the submission guidelines every time you publish with a pub to be sure nothing has changed and you are submitting correctly formatted and tagged work.

How to Submit to a publication

There are tons of great stories detailing how to submit your stories to a publication — I’ll defer to what is already written on this. Here are a few:

Managing Multiple Publications

And now the meat of this article. Now that you’ve got the “add me” stuff going on and you are submitting your work, you may wake up one day and realizing your publication list is looking a bit — well — sprawly.

This is another place where knowing your publications is super important.

Here’s how I manage over 60 publications.

First of all, there’s absolutely no way you will manage multiple publications without a rotation strategy. I know a lot of prolific Medium writers, but I don’t know anyone publishing 60+ articles a week. So here’s how I break down the publications to make it more manageable.

Divide the publications list based on:

• Some publications require you to write for them weekly / monthly etc. Make sure you aim to fulfill this commitment.
• Larger / more prominent publications go into my weekly rotation — I try to write for 2–3 of these per week.
• Other publications I break into 2 categories based on my priorities, preferences, and the size of the pub. I prioritize the first list to write 4 posts per week in rotation and the second list I try to write 3 posts per week on rotation. (See Publication Rotation screenshot above)
• Each week I review my lists and select the publications to focus on for the week. Take some time to read, comment, highlight, clap and share other articles from each pub on your weekly list as well as write and submit an article to them for publication. (See Weekly List screenshot below.)

You can also choose to list publications by article type.

It helps to know which publications take which kind of work. Submit articles that are fitting for each pub. A well-placed article or piece of creative writing has a much greater chance for success!

• poetry (Poetry Palace, Sonnetry, Storymaker, Scribe, Blue Insights, etc.)
• personal essays (Live Your Life on Purpose, Fearless She Wrote, Invisible Illness, etc.)
• marketing articles (Better Marketing, The Ascent, etc.)
• self-help / life articles (Publishious, The Ascent, The Partnered Pen, etc.)
• family and relationship articles (PS I Love You , Home Sweet Home)

Whatever topics you frequently write in — you’ll want a list of pubs that accept work in that topic so you can prioritize and rotate your submissions.

For my WEEKLY rotation plan I prioritize:

• One article for Publishious (One of my favorite pubs to write for — they prefer weekly submissions so I prioritize this.)
• Three articles from my list of “prominent pubs” at the top of my excel sheet
• FOUR articles from my lower list which includes medium-sized pubs and specialty pubs
• THREE from the smaller pubs list or the pubs I writer fewer stories in their respective niches
• ONE from my own publications — I try to write for all three if I have time. I also try to get out a letter each week for all three.
• Regarding pitching to Medium in-house pubs: I try to keep one article pitched at all times. I focus on one per month. This is how I got into Better Marketing — one of my favorite publications to write for. These pitching processes are variable and sometimes time-consuming. Refer to the Medium (in house) publication you want to pitch and do some digging to find out how to pitch each one.

Sample weekly list:

Do not worry if you don’t get to them all — these are goals to keep you motivated n rotating your work. If you don’t get something written for each pub, at least you can take a few moments to go to that pub and offer a little support to the other writers there. Invest a bit of time in building rapport with each pub on your list. Find a new writer in that pub that you do not know — reach out to them. Support them. Each effort builds the benefit you can get from that publication relationship.

Also important to note:

Some of the pubs I write for I have never actually gotten work published there. I submit — crickets. No response. This usually means it is not a fit for them or they are too busy to respond. When you submit a piece, give it a reasonable amount of time (based on the response rate usually listed in the submission guidelines article) and when that time has passed simply remove the story from submission in the editor and select another publication to submit the work to. Sometimes it takes multiple attempts to find placement for your work.

Each publication you write for is a relationship.

Like any relationship you must prioritize, invest, maintain, and nurture it to get the most out of that relationship. I greatly value each and every publication that I write for — and wish all the time that I had more time to get things written for each of them.

Yes, I have favorites like Publishious, Better Marketing, and P.S. I Love you, and mostly because the editors work closely with me, are communicative and supportive, and the readers there respond well to my work. I also love de-centralized pubs that allow me editorial status and my work can go up right away. The Partnered Pen and Home Sweet Home are favorite decentralized pubs for a lot of my personal writing.

However many publications you choose to write for, whether it be a shortlist of 5 or a sprawling list like mine, you can make these relationships a valued part of your Medium experience. I’d love to hear about some of the pubs that you LOVE writing for. Drop me a comment and share with me how you manage your pubs! Have a great writing week my friends.

Christina M. Ward is a poet, nature writer, well-living essayist, and productivity geek living from rural North Carolina. When she’s not writing about writing and poetry she’s on her porch watching the birds. Life is good.