Strategic Direction

It’s a Catch — 22 in the Middle of a Perfect Storm

What’s a young publication to do?

Ever heard of Medium? It is a platform for writers, built by writers, to showcase the fact that anyone can, and often do, have great ideas to share.

On the platform there are many of these things called “Publications” which serve to collate the many stories and promote them to varied audiences. The writers on the platform simultaneously love and despise publications.

The former is because publications do a great job promoting stories in a collective manner that a single author couldn’t manage if publishing on their own. The publications bring a readership, and the idea promises more exposure for the writers that submit to the publications.

The latter — the despising — comes from how selective, and sometimes nit-picky, publications can be when choosing whose work to accept. The is particularly true of the Medium-owned publications. On a platform where “everyone has a voice”, only the ordained and holiest of the select few will have articles accepted to the Medium publications.

That leaves the other publications scrambling to leverage their membership and size to attract the best writing to their publications in order to build reads and additional exposure for their writers.

You might say it is a bit of a rat race.

That is why publications are the boon and bane of every writer on the platform. Everyone is looking for more reads and exposure. The most effective way to achieve this is through cooperation and synergy with other writers and publications, but even with that in mind, there is a spirit of competition.

The publication ILLUMINATION came on the scene in March of this year, with a heady goal to have a million followers in 12 months’ time. Promising a rapid turn-around time on publishing articles and promoting an, “Any and all welcome” atmosphere, the publication has grown astoundingly fast.

But success comes with headaches. Growing pains you might call them.

Behind the scenes in the editing ranks is the perpetual discussion of if and when the publication will decide to reject articles based on quality measures alone. Right now, anything that doesn’t break the Medium rules is fair game — no matter how bad the writing.

And there is some bad; and some ugly. As an editor for the publication, I can attest to that. However, one of the aspects of a “come one, come all” mentality is that you attract folks that may not have classically excellent writing. But that is not not because they don’t want to be great writers, rather they have some hurdle that challenges them more than the “average Joe” pounding out words at their computer.

Language can be a huge barrier, as many don’t use English as a native or primary language. And there are certainly other obstacles many have to overcome to get their words out of their brains and onto the page.

If a quality barrier is erected at ILLUMINATION, many people in those categories may lose an opportunity to publish in a publication. Which brings up another important point, just what is quality writing?

Can you think of a more subjective concept than “quality writing”? Come on, I dare you. Name something more controversial and subjective than that. What I think is great writing may be pathetic trash to you. Which of us gets to judge what gets accepted where?

The counter point to this argument, of course, is that a busy and rapidly growing publication can potentially get overrun by volume. And if much of that volume turns out to be stuff that no one really wants to read, isn’t that counter-productive for all involved?

Wouldn’t the majority be better served by some sort of quality assessment net for the writing that comes through the publication?

So then, too, you must consider what makes ILLUMINATION popular. Is it the quality of the writing, or the fact that it is all-welcoming, and with a lightning-fast turnaround to publish writers’ work?

Would assessing work for quality be a good strategic move, or would it eliminate some of the serendipity that has made the publication such a phenomenon over the last five months?

There really isn’t a good answer to that question. The naysayers are waiting for the decision to screen to be made so they can point and shout, “See, they are just like everyone else. I knew they would start rejecting articles at some point!”

Meanwhile the stalwarts, the writers that truly care for their craft, are wondering how long they can continue to put out great work, only to have it buried in the maelstrom of mediocrity within the publication.

I will say it again, there is no good answer. I do know this though; something will eventually happen. The seams; they are a burstin’.

However things turn out, it will be fine. There is more to the ILLUMINATION publication than rapid growth and questions about whether to screen articles or not. Irrespective of direction on that decision, it is still a great place to interact with others in a positive environment.

And, if you care at all about the decision, you don’t have to stand idly by. There are things you can do: First, be preemptive; flood the publication with your most excellent work. Drown the mediocrity in a sea of quality. That will make the question a moot one.

Two, be persistent. The people dumping trash articles to make a quick buck are a flash in the pan. They won’t be there in a month. Medium is a long game to establish followers and a library of work. Most dumpers won’t have the perseverance to wait that out only to make $5.00.

As ILLUMINATION continues to grow, the core group of writers will solidify and become the heart of the publication, effectively muting, or at least rendering inconsequential, the dumpers and their wasted words.

And, good or bad, inertia plays a huge role in organizational dynamics. Choosing not to decide is still making a choice.

Maybe things will change in the editorial room at ILLUMINATION; perhaps they won’t. Either direction isn’t inherently a bad one. They are just different paths. I, for one, will be very interested to see which one is taken.

Thanks for entertaining my musings and Write On!

If you like this, you might like some of my other writing:

Timothy Key spent over 26 years in the fire service as a firefighter/paramedic and various fire chief management roles. He firmly believes that bad managers destroy more than companies, and good managers create a passion that is contagious. Compassion, grace and gratitude drive the world; or at least they should. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and join the mail list.