List of the 20 Biggest Still-Active Medium Publications to Apply to Get Published in That Are Accepting Writers
The 3rd layer of the publication cake! A very useful list of 20 publications with followers, tags, and how to apply.
This is the third entry of a three-part series on applying to publications as a newbie on Medium.com. I have collected the top 20 biggest private publications on Medium and sorted them from large to small. I’ve also included tags, links, and methods to apply to be a writer on them.
The first two previous articles can be seen below and focus on smaller but newbie-friendly publications to apply to:
Layer 3 — Bigger is Better (Reach)
The third layer of the publication cake is focused on the largest publications on Medium. There are many to choose from, and there’s even a 3rd party company that keeps track of the 100 largest publications called Smedian. (Not an affiliate link.)
It’s a pretty useful service and you can try taking a look through that list to see the larger pubs out there. It can be tedious to check if they’re inactive or not, let alone if they accept new writers.
And that’s why I’m here to help!
Private Only
The below list are all privately owned publications, as in, they aren’t owned by Medium. You’ll often see a few articles on the front page of Medium from these publications, as they are quite well established.
Some of them are also suspected of having the ability to curate. There’s a lot of conjecture on Medium Facebook groups as to how this works or why it is, but many people feel that at least some of the AMI publications can curate your submissions if accepted.
What are the AMI Publications? It’s a third party company that created many blogs and publications on Medium over the years. Many of them are well established and some didn’t take off quite as well. Have you heard of Hackernoon? That’s one of theirs (the most successful one), but alas it no longer is active on Medium.
I’ve included their active ones on Medium that are likely accepting new writers in the list below. In total, the group owns 15 publications that are still on Medium, of varying sizes and niches.
Other Pubs
I’ve also included other large publications that are privately owned but accepting new writers and have a lot of reach. Be sure to keep a lookout for ones that specialize in your niches. Once you’ve identified a few ideal publications to target, do yourself a favor and read some of their articles.
Look at their front page, do the topics interest you? Read some of the featured ones and find out what writing style they prefer. Go to the ‘/archive’ and see what were their best-performing articles in years past. If you read through 10 to 20 of these articles, I’m sure you can get a good sense of what works well.
Then go put your creatives juices to work, adapt a bit to their preferred style (without selling your soul), and get down to business! The one last piece of advice on this, which I find the most difficult, is waiting a long time for responses.
Rules of Engagement
Some of the publications will say clear rules on how long to wait before a response, whereas others are a hopeful void lacking in rules — they could get back to you in 2 days or 20 or not at all.
These e-magazines can potentially help you a lot to reach a greater audience. But as such, they’re naturally much more difficult to get into. So please follow the usual advice of keeping things clean, respectable, and fun to read.
You’ll quickly learn that most publications only accept draft versions of your stories. Many of them don’t like more than 1 or 2 pictures. They’re also more strict on the organizational style of your story. Use only big ‘T’ fonts for titles. Page breaks in appropriate instances. Go light on bolding and italics. Don’t use the dropped first letter in a publication, sometimes.
Most of the below have over 100,000 followers or are one of the AMI publications that may have a better chance of getting curated. I have excluded all inactive publications (ex. 1 post in the last 3 months).
Quick List
- The Startup
- Better Humans
- Towards Data Science
- UX Collective
- UX Planet
- The Writing Cooperative
- Muzli Design Inspiration
- P.S. I Love You
- Be Yourself
- Prototypr.io
- Entrepreneur’s Handbook
- DailyJS
- Art + Marketing
- Better Programming
- Extra NewsFeed
- Better Marketing
- Festival Peak
Huge But Hard (to Get Into)
Long List:
1. The Startup
Followers: 542,000
Topics: Everything business and startup related.
Useful Tags: Startup, Tech, Growth, Entrepreneurship, Business
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: Fill out the form on the above page. Note that they state if you wait more than 36 hours that they’ve probably passed on your draft submission, so try again with another one later!
Owner: Ali Mese
Extra Info: One of the largest publications on Medium and posts several articles every day.
2. Better Humans
Followers: 350,000
Topics: Human potential and self-improvement.
Useful Tags: Self Improvement, Productivity, Life Lessons, Health, Personal Development
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: Fill out the form on the above page, there’s a link if you scroll down. I suggest reading all of the instructions as this is a paying publication (as stated) and are very specific about what they accept and how.
Owner: Coach Tony
Extra Info: One of the largest publications on Medium and is people have reported being curated when getting published there. Coach Tony also runs two other publications on Medium: Better Marketing and Better Programming.
3. Towards Data Science
Followers: 315,000
Topics: Everything machine learning, data science and ai related.
Useful Tags: Machine Learning, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Programming
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: Please read the guidelines on the link above. Note they want you to send them an email with your Medium username, draft, and your LinkedIn profile or resume to [email protected].
Owner: TDS Team
4. UX Collective
Followers: 310,000
Topics: Everything related to user experience and product design.
Useful Tags: UX, Design, Product Design, UI, Design Thinking
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: Review the submission post above and then send an email to [email protected]. Be sure to include your Medium username and draft. It seems like they also accept published articles for review too. They are also open to many different types of submissions like videos and pictures etc.
Owner: Fabricio Teixeira and Caio Braga
5. UX Planet
Followers: 232,000
Topics: Everything related to user experience.
Useful Tags: UX, Design, Product Design, UI, Design Thinking
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: Review the submission post above and then send an email to [email protected]. They state they’ll try to get back to you within 2 business days.
Owner: Nick Babich (*his medium username is ‘@101’, definitely the oddest one I’ve seen, cool!)
6. The Writing Cooperative
Followers: 180,000
Topics: Everything related to writing and blogging crafts.
Useful Tags: Writing, Writing Tips, Creativity, Self Improvement, Productivity
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: Wait until January and fill out the form on the above page that they should have by then. They’ll release updates for accepting new writers on the above link. Note they have a lot of requirements for posts so be sure to read their submission guidelines.
Owner: Justin Cox 🍩 and Sand Farnia
Extra Info: This publication is known for giving some feedback to submissions, they’ll usually point out one of their rules that it might violate if they don’t accept your submission. Many people have said they got curated after being posted here as well.
7. Muzli Design Inspiration
Followers: 170,000
Topics: Design inspiration in all forms.
Useful Tags: Design, UX, Inspiration, Creativity, Art
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: Review the submission post above and then send an email to [email protected]. They give some specific requirements about your email so be sure to read the post. They also say to only wait 3 business days before assuming a draft is passed on.
Owner: Ohad Aviv and Eyal Zuri
8. P.S. I Love You
Followers: 164,000
Topics: Anything related to being human and relationships.
Useful Tags: Love, Relationships, Poetry, Life Lessons, Life
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: They only accept new writers from the 1st to 7th of each month. Send an email with your draft, a brief description, your Medium username, and some past work to Dan Moore at [email protected].
Owner: AMI Publications and Dan Moore
Extra Info: One of the 15 AMI publications on Medium, but one of the 5 active pubs that are accepting new writers. People also say you can get curated by being published in this magazine.
9. Be Yourself
Followers: 157,000
Topics: Everything related to self-improvement and helpful articles.
Useful Tags: Life Lessons, Self Improvement, Life, Love, Inspiration
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: Send an email to [email protected] with your username, a brief note, and a draft submission.
Owner: Joel Mwakasege
10. Prototypr.io
Followers: 153,000
Topics: Prototypes, UX, and product design.
Useful Tags: Design, UX, Prototyping, UI, Tech
Submission Page: N/A
How to Apply: You can try emailing your draft, a note, and username to [email protected] and state that you’d like to be added as a writer.
Owner: Graeme and Prototypr.io
11. Entrepreneur’s Handbook
Followers: 115,000
Topics: Everything entrepreneurial.
Useful Tags: Entrepreneurship, Startup, Business, Marketing, Ideas
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: Fill out the form on the above page, note there’s also a style guide and some recommendations on what they’re looking to publish.
Owner: Dave Schools
12. DailyJS
Followers: 102,000
Topics: Everything related to JavaScript in any form.
Useful Tags: JavaScript, Programming, React, Web Development, Software Development
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: Review the submission post above and then send an email to [email protected]. Be sure to include your Medium username and draft. Note they are also okay with you sending them pitches instead of drafts.
Owner: Peter Cooper and Chris Brandrick
13. Art + Marketing
Followers: 89,000
Topics: Everything related to the art of creating.
Useful Tags: Marketing, Art, Creativity, Startup, Social Media
Submission Page: N/A
How to Apply: Their submission post doesn’t state how to apply. I found two ways to do so. You can try emailing your draft, a note, and username to [email protected] and state that you’re applying to Art + Marketing. Another method is on the AMI publication website where you can fill out a short application on the web form here. (Just scroll down to the ‘Contribute’ section).
Owner: AMI Publications and David Smooke
Extra Info: One of the 15 AMI publications on Medium, but one of the 5 active pubs that are likely accepting new writers. You may be able to get curated by being published in this magazine.
14. Better Programming
Followers: 79,000
Topics: Everything programming related.
Useful Tags: Programming, JavaScript, Software Development, iOS, Web Development
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: Fill out the form on the above page, there’s a link if you scroll down. They do state that if you don’t hear from them within 3 days, then you should consider the draft passed on.
Owner: Coach Tony and Zack Shapiro
Extra Info: One of the three publications owned by Coach Tony as stated on his LinkedIn profile. Also suspected to curate articles if your post is published there.
15. Extra NewsFeed
Followers: 40,000
Topics: Real and satirical news all mixed in together.
Useful Tags: Politics, Donald Trump, Satire, Humor, Election 2020
Submission Page: N/A
How to Apply: I found two ways to apply. You can try emailing your draft, a note, and username to [email protected] and state that you’re applying to ExtraNewsFeed. Another method is on the AMI publication website where you can fill out a short application on the web form here. (Just scroll down to the ‘Contribute’ section).
Owner: AMI Publications and David Smooke
Extra Info: One of the 15 AMI publications on Medium, but one of the 5 active pubs that are likely accepting new writers. It’s possible that you can get curated by being published in this magazine.
16. Better Marketing
Followers: 31,000
Topics: Business and marketing related articles.
Useful Tags: Marketing, Writing, Business, Social Media, Entrepreneurship
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: Fill out the form on the above page, there’s a link if you scroll down. They do state that if you don’t hear from them within 3 days, then you should consider the draft passed on.
Owner: Coach Tony and Niklas Göke
Extra Info: One of the three publications owned by Coach Tony as stated on his LinkedIn profile. Also suspected to curate articles if your post is published there.
17. Festival Peak
Followers: 18,000
Topics: All about music.
Useful Tags: Music, Jazz, Album Review, Hip Hop, Music Review
Submission Page: N/A
How to Apply: I found two ways to apply. You can try emailing your draft, a note, and username to [email protected] and state that you’re applying to Festival Peak. Another method is on the AMI publication website where you can fill out a short application on the web form here. (Just scroll down to the ‘Contribute’ section).
Owner: AMI Publications and David Smooke and Jay Zalowitz
Extra Info: One of the 15 AMI publications on Medium, but one of the 5 active pubs that are likely accepting new writers. You may be able to get curated by being published in this magazine.
Huge But Hard (to Get Into)
These three publications are very large, but it looks like they only publish seldom and may or may not be accepting new writers.
1. Mission.org
Followers: 538,000
Topics: Tech and business learnings.
Useful Tags: Life Lessons, Self Improvement, Entrepreneurship, Productivity, Startup
Submission Page: Submission Post
How to Apply: Fill out the form on the link above and hope for the best!
Owner: Chad Grills
Extra Info: This is one of Medium’s biggest publications and they have a lot of writers. There is little activity in the past few months, just a few posts each month. That being said, they may just be taking a vacation. Being published here could potentially get you in front of over half a million people, so it may be worth your effort.
2. Personal Growth
Followers: 452,000
Topics: Personal ideas and experiences.
Useful Tags: Personal Growth, Personal Development, Life Lessons, Self Improvement, Self-awareness
Submission Page: N/A
How to Apply: If you are lucky enough to be listed as a writer here, then you’ve pretty much made it on Medium. I believe the only way to get accepted as a writer is to try getting in touch with the owners below and send them with your top work while hoping for the best! They don’t list any formal method of contacting them via email or social media.
Owner: Dan Pedersen and Personal Growth
Extra Info: This magazine posts quite frequently and has a huge amount of readers. Just take a look at their list of writers, they are all quite Medium-famous. https://medium.com/personal-growth/about
3. Human Parts
Followers: 153,000
Topics: Personal ideas and experiences and people stories.
Useful Tags: Relationships, Self, Family, Mental Health, Love
Submission Page: Submission
How to Apply: Due to their popularity, this publication states they are not accepting new writers. However, they do say that they still add them via finding good writers through self-publishing. You could also randomly send them an email and hope for the best as well, [email protected].
Owner: Stephanie Georgopulos
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