Empowering Writers
How New Writers Can Survive and Thrive on Medium
A practical guide for new writers for two critical success factors to benefit from this valuable platform.
“Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.” ― Roy T. Bennett
Writing in a content platform can be a rewarding activity, but it poses many challenges to writers, especially to beginners.
As a new writer, you need to be conscious of dynamics and politics in content platforms. There will be supporters but also critics who manifest as dream killers, noisemakers, attention seekers, and wearing many more destructive hats targeting creativity.
As long as people are not toxic, you should learn how to deal with these challenges. You need to improve your adversity quotient and remain unflappable. This approach can be applied to many other facets of life.
While critics play a role in the polarity of life, we need to develop a thick skin to survive and thrive. We exist with our antagonists.
Stay optimistic.
Critics can be a blessing in disguise.
To be a successful writer in a content platform, you need to understand the rules of engagement and comply with the policies.
The aim of this post is to introduce two critical resources and how to use them effectively to survive and thrive as a writer on this platform. I structured this story under two major themes to improve readability.
1. How to Survive as a New Writer
As a new writer on Medium, your first activity is to learn the rules of engagement. At the basic level, to survive in a platform, you need to understand the rules and comply with the policies.
The first recommendation to the new writers is to read the Medium rules.
This is the link to make it easy to access this critical resource. Even though it is a critical resource, it is often overlooked by new writers. And sometimes, the rules are forgotten by experienced writers.
I want to point out the essential rules that you need to know regarding what Medium does not allow in the policy for content creation, sharing, and distribution.
Understanding what Medium does NOT allow can make it easy to understand what to include in your content. The other way can be too complex.
Learn what Medium does not allow
I identified 14 essential points that you need to know regarding what Medium does not allow in the policy regarding your content.
I want to present them in a summary format so that you can easily digest them. You can read the document of rules to understand the details.
1- Medium does not allow “content or actions that threaten, encourage, or incite violence against anyone, directly or indirectly”.
2- Medium does not allow “content that promotes violence or hatred against people based on characteristics like race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, disease, age, sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity”.
3- Medium does not tolerate harassment in the form of “bullying, threatening, or shaming someone”.
4- Medium does not allow breaching privacy rules, primarily aiming to ruin the reputation of people.
5- Medium does not allow content for the promotion of harmful conspiracies, gambling, bullying, illegal sexual services, and facilitation of copyright violation.
6- Medium does not allow duplicate content.
7- Medium does not allow spam.
8- Medium does not allow using services, applications, and arrangements that offer you more follow claps or other interactions on your Medium account or content.
9- Medium does not allow copyright and trademark infringement.
10- Medium does not allow posting content impersonating a person or organization in a way likely to deceive people.
11- Medium does not allow product and service advertisements and promotions. Affiliate links in posts are allowed, but they need to be pointed out clearly.
12- Medium does not allow “gratuitously graphic or disturbing media, even if it’s not pornographic”.
13- Medium does not allow content, including the exploitation of minors.
14- Medium does not allow the promotion and glorification of self-harm.
Bottom line:
The publication I lead, ILLUMINATION, allows writers to cover a wide variety of content without censorship; however, if your stories include the items listed above, we have to reject your story. These items are NOT negotiable.
2. How to Thrive as an Experienced Writer
To thrive as writers, we need to focus on the quality and quantity of our posts. Quality is a subjective term. People can define quality using their thoughts and sentiments. It is not possible to agree upon quality.
However, in this context and within the scope of this story, it can be defined as producing acceptable content for your readers.
Quantity is an individual preference based on your writing goals. There are no hard rules about the amount of writing. However, to thrive as a writer, you must regularly publish valuable content to keep your readers happy.
The best resource for maintaining quality is to read Medium Curation Guidelines.
I highly recommend new writers read the curation guidelines.
I summarized the essential points extracted from the curation guidelines.
1- You story must meet a high editorial standard.
2- Your story must be written for the reader and add value to the reader.
3- Your story must be a complete piece of work.
4- You story must be written with rigor substantiated with facts.
5- Your story must offer a good reading experience with acceptable formatting.
6- Your story must be free from typos, spelling, and grammar errors.
7- Your story should include appropriate, relevant, and captioned photos.
I provided an extended checklist covering these critical items and other important points for new writers.
These simple yet effective rules can guide you to increase the quality of your stories. They are not advanced rules however can help you produce reasonable material acceptable to a majority of your readers.
To extend these points, you should also consider whether the messages you convey matter and are essential for the readers.
As Medium is designed on collaboration principles, you cannot live in a vacuum. You need to engage with your readers and other writers meaningfully.
Collaborative efforts can help you thrive by creating visibility for your content and keeping you motivated to write.
You also need to consider submitting your stories to relevant publications. Similar to platform rules, publications also have their rules. You need to understand the rules of publications before submitting your material.
For example, ILLUMINATION does not restrict topics. As long as your content complies with Medium rules, our publication does not discriminate against content. However, we have a few rules to keep the platform safe and enjoyable. You might check our policies.
Zero tolerance to plagiarism on ILLUMINATION
No Defamation, Discrimination, and Hate Speech Published
Why Image Copyrights Matter for Writers and Editors
We embrace diversity and variety. We want our aspiring, experienced, and accomplished writers to find their voices. Our readers enjoy and demand a variety of reading options.
However, keep in mind that some publications are specialized in topics and styles. You cannot expect a publication specializing in technology to accept your content about a romantic relationship.
Conclusion
Even if you do everything right, there will always be criticism, judgment, and rejection. Criticism, judgment, and rejections are parts of human nature and are inevitable.
You cannot make everyone happy and shouldn’t even try it. If you attempt to make everyone happy, you risk losing your identity. It is not worth it.
People have different goals, expectations, aspirations, and political agendas. Simply let them express their opinions. In the big schema of things, opinions don’t matter.
However, beware of toxic behavior. You cannot ignore intentional harm. They can sabotage your legitimate and excellent work. For example, beware of fake accounts.
Medium provides two functional mechanisms to protect writers and readers. They are called blocking and reporting.
If an account is harassing you, you have to take two actions. The immediate action is to block the account. The next option is to report the account. Blocking abusive accounts can protect you.
Reporting abusive accounts and content can protect you and others. Both approaches are essential to survive and thrive.
As a new writer, the best approach is to focus on your work, ignore the noise, stay away from politics, and strive to make your readers happy.
Your ultimate goal as a writer is to express yourself and share your thoughts with your readers. Refrain from perfection but focus on excellence with iterative progress. Without making mistakes, it is not possible to learn.
If you follow Medium Rules, as a writer, you can survive on this platform. If you follow Medium Curation Guidelines, as a creative writer, you can thrive on this platform.
It is that simple. The rest is just fluff and noise. You have more important goals than making critics happy. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Keep thinking big. Your words matter.
Here is a guiding story for you to Write Content Guaranteed to Get Views and Reads. You also need to learn to write viral stories. Here’s What I Learned by Reviewing 100+ Viral Articles in 2021
I hope you have a joyful writing career on Medium.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
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Besides aiming to increase the hormonal intelligence of my readers and writing about neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, and norepinephrine, one of my goals as a writer is to raise awareness about the causes and risk factors of prevalent diseases that can lead to suffering and death for a large portion of the population.
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To raise awareness about health issues, I have written several articles that present my holistic health findings from research, personal observations, and unique experiences. Below are links to these articles for easy access.
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Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, PQQ, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, zinc, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine, and other nutrients to improve metabolism and mental health.
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