Summary

The website provides a comprehensive guide for new and existing writers on how to contribute to "Invisible Illness," Medium's largest mental health publication, including submission processes, writer guidelines, and the importance of proper image attribution.

Abstract

"Invisible Illness" is a Medium publication dedicated to mental health topics, seeking to support writers who wish to share their experiences and insights. New writers are directed to submit their interest via a Google Form, where they must provide a Medium user profile link and a mental health writing sample. Acceptance into the publication is confirmed through an email response from the editors, typically within two weeks. Established writers are reminded of the process for submitting stories directly to the publication through Medium's interface. The guide emphasizes the necessity of securing rights for images used in articles, with instructions on proper attribution for personal, stock, and copyrighted photos. The publication currently only accepts draft submissions, and writers are encouraged to review the provided writer guidelines and common mistake lists to ensure their work aligns with the publication's standards.

Opinions

The publication values quality contributions and has a structured process for writer submissions.
The editors prioritize efficiency but acknowledge the volume of submissions may delay responses.
Proper image attribution is a significant concern, reflecting a commitment to copyright compliance and ethical writing practices.
The publication is selective, preferring writers with experience in mental health topics.
The team behind "Invisible Illness" is presented as approachable and supportive, providing resources to help writers succeed.

How to Write for Invisible Illness

A step-by-step guide to getting started

Hello new writers!

What follows is a step-by-step guide of how to join Invisible Illness, Medium’s largest mental health publication. We are always working to demystify the process, and make it easier. Hope this helps.

If you’ve never written for Invisible Illness before…

If you are a writer who has never written for Invisible Illness before, please use this Google Form to submit yourself as a writer for the publication.

This form exists only to be added as a writer. You’ll still have to submit your essay if you are accepted to Invisible Illness.

In the form, you will be asked to share a link to your user profile. Here is what that links look like: https://medium.com/@mudaba

You will also be asked for a mental health writing sample in draft or published form on Medium. If you’ve never written about mental health, you probably won’t be accepted into our writing community.

How you’ll know if you’re accepted as a writer at Invisible Illness…

You will hear back from this form via email from one of our publication editors if you are accepted as a writer. If you hear nothing back after two weeks or more, assume you have not been chosen to be a writer on the publication. We would love to write you all back, but we are a busy crew and don’t have extra time to spare, sadly!

If you’re already an Invisible Illness writer, but you’ve forgotten how to submit a story…

If you’ve been accepted as a writer for Invisible Illness, your next step is to:

Hit the three little buttons at the top of your screen.

Choose “add to publication” for your post.
When you do, you’ll see this screen:

Choose Invisible Illness from the list and hit “Add draft”
Once you’ve chosen Invisible Illness, one of us will get notified about your submission and we can take a look at it. Again, it could take up to a week for us to review your story, depending on how backed up we are. We get many, many submissions every day, so we do our best to stay on top of the queue!

Remember to properly attribute all artwork and photography

To properly attribute a photo, you have to make sure you have the rights to a photo. If it is a copyrighted image, ask the photographer or company for permission, and document the fact that you were granted permission.

If it is your personal photo, you have the rights. Caption under your photo “photo by the author” to claim the rights to your photo.

Some stock photos are free to use — the most common sites are Unsplash, Pixabay, Pexels, and Wikipedia Commons (there are also paid stock sites if you’re looking for more options). In the caption, cite the author and the site and hyperlink where you found the photo. The magnifying glass option on Medium does this for you for Unsplash photos. Your attribution should look like this:

And remember that you can only submit drafts to Invisible Illness

Unfortunately, we are only accepting draft submissions at this time.

Important links for all Invisible Illness writers

Thank you everyone!

The Invisible Illness team aka Ryan Fan, Marie Raven, Juliette Roanoke, and me, Meredith Arthur