Writing

How to Get Out of Publishing Purgatory

I thought I was the only one with 20+ drafts still waiting to see the light of day. I’m not.

I Googled “drafts purgatory Medium” to see if I was the only one with over 20 Medium drafts at various stages of completion. Google (and Medium) didn’t disappoint.

Turns out I’m not the only one. I came across this piece from M Gleeson about how she has 28 drafts in “publishing purgatory” as well. Like me, some of her drafts are more incomplete than others. One might just be a really good headline that I came up with. Another may have the beginnings of a solid article, but I just need to hunker down and do some research on the topic before diving in. Yet others (and perhaps the most aggravating of all) are my completed drafts at the top of my list, the ones that I’ve worked on most recently and have submitted to a publication. I’m just waiting to hear back.

Various publications have different turnaround times for when they’ll typically get back to you on a published piece. Of course, editors are humans too, many of them with full-time jobs outside of Medium. So it’s understandable if it takes someone a few days or a week to review your article, especially if you’re submitting to a larger publication (confession: I’ve pitched an article to The Startup which wasn’t accepted; doesn’t mean I can’t try again, though!).

One of the most impressive things about ILLUMINATION is the fact that their turnaround times from article submission to publication are some of the fastest I’ve seen on Medium. What makes this even more impressive is the sheer size of the publication; with well over 80,000 followers and growing, Illumination is well on its way to becoming one of the largest Medium publications.

None of this would have been possible, of course, without Dr. Mehmet Yildiz, whose tireless efforts make Illumination and the whole family of publications including ILLUMINATION-Curated, Editor of Technology Hits, Illumination’s Mirror, Illumination, SYNERGY, and Illumination Blog possible. It takes dedication, commitment, and persistence to create such a large network of dedicated writers.

Many of Medium’s famous writers from the past have either moved on from the platform or stopped writing here. To find peers in a similar stage in their Medium journey as you is a comforting feeling. To be able to be published in such a publication and have your work read by potentially thousands of others is a blessing.

What can you do if you’re stuck in publishing purgatory? It’s a unique situation to be in, but not an uncommon one. I have two solutions. First, have a deadline in the back of your mind for how long you are personally willing to let a piece be “under review” by the editors of a publication. For some articles, it may be a week. For others, it may be two.

But just a fair warning and piece of advice from a novice who’s learned a thing or two from countless hours and weeks on Medium: if a publication still hasn’t gotten back to you two weeks after you submitted to them, look into the pub more. It’s possible they haven’t even published anything in a year. If so, they’re probably not getting back to you anytime soon. Instead, do the dirty work before you submit to a publication so you don’t waste any time. Check out their most recent pieces, when they were published, etc. If it’s been a while, maybe your piece would do better elsewhere.

My second piece of advice is to self-publish. Yes, you heard me right. Self-publishing is still an underutilized yet invaluable way to promote your page, your writing, your brand, and still possibly get published or curated. One of my pieces, for example, was a piece I self-published because I couldn’t find an appropriate publication. Stephen Muskett, M.S.Ed ended up reading it and reaching out to me to have it published in Age of Awareness. I gladly accepted, and the piece turned out to be curated more than two weeks after I originally wrote it. It now has a second life in a medium-sized publication, thanks to Stephen:

Enjoyed reading this article? Follow me on Medium! I’m a medical student from Atlanta, Georgia interested in writing, health disparities, and clinical research.