Summarize

Medium Publications in 5 Minutes or so

Everything you need to know about them as an author 😎

Hola, amigos! 👨🏼‍🌾

I am Martynas Ki. (@strangecash) and I am trying to do my best to write pure, honest stories on Medium. But this article is not about me. 🧝🏻‍♂️☹️😁

It’s about Medium Publications! ✨

By the end of this article, you will know pretty much everything you need to know about them as an author.

So grab some popcorn and let’s go! 🍿🎬

Key moments

• Medium Publications (also known as Pubs) are like online magazines fulfilled with articles usually written by different authors. In other words, they are a collection of articles. I will give you some examples later.
• Usually (but not always ⚠️) Pubs are related to some specific niche. For example, one Pub can be filled with articles about programming, another with articles about poetry, and so on.
• Important! Pubs can’t add the articles themselves — only the article’s author can submit their stories to the pubs. It means if Publication Editors spot an awesome article, they can’t just add it to the Pub — only the author can do it.
• When you decide to publish any article on Medium, you can select Publication on which the article will appear. In order to do this you have to click on three dots icon when editing the story and click on “Add to publication”:

• If you are new to Medium, you will not see any Publications on your list. Don’t worry — I will explain to you how to “fix” this!
• You can also select the “No publication” option. In that case, your article will NOT be added to any publication, and this approach is called self-publishing.
• The main benefit of using Pubs — you should get more views and reads because your story will be distributed not only to your followers but also to the followers of the Pub.
• Either way, ~99.9% of the time, no matter if you chose the publication or not, all the rights and all the earnings from Medium Partner Program (MPP) belong to the author, not to the Pub.
• One article can be submitted only in one publication — you can’t submit the same article to several Pubs.
• At the very beginning, you won’t see any publications on your list. Only “No publication” option. Why? Because you have to get a “Writer” role in each Pub separately. This process can be tricky but after reading this article you will know how to “earn” it!
• Every Pub has 3 roles: Owner, Editors and Writers.
• Only Owner and Editors have superpowers to manage the pub: they can add/remove Writers and approve/reject/edit/delete stories that Writers have sent/submitted to them.
• But it’s not that simple! The author has to “earn” a Writer role at each pub he wants to submit his articles. This process is not standardized and each pub has its own method of how to become a Writer.
• And here the tricky part begins — every Pub has its own rules: sometimes they accept new writers, sometimes they don’t. If they do, most of the time, you have to read long and boring submission guidelines, fill-up some application form and then wait until the Owner or Editor approves you.
• Draft requirement. What is important to mention, that 99% of the Pubs accept only drafts. It means that you have to send the unpublished story to the Pub first and after the review, it becomes publicly available.

Give me some examples.

Sure! ✅

A few months ago I launched very simple and beginner-friendly Medium publications. Here they are:

My goal with them was to make everything as easy as possible:

• It’s super easy to get a “Writer” role there — just leave a comment on one of the articles I provided above. That’s it! ✅
• They are open to everyone — paid Medium membership is NOT a requirement. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦
• There is no DRAFT requirement. It means that you can self-publish the story first and only then add it to the Publication. It’s a huge advantage! I will provide more details about that later in this article. 📝

If you are totally new to Medium I strongly recommend you to start with these Pubs to see how Medium Publications work in general.

And if you are not happy with the results, then experiment, find some other Pubs and publish there. 👩🏻‍🔬

What are the drawbacks for the author?

If you decide to use Medium Publications then be prepared to fight with these things:

• Difficult joining process. You have to spend a lot of time reading each Pub’s submission guidelines and figuring out how to be accepted as a Writer. Believe me, it can take a lot of time and effort! 😮‍💨
• Draft format, no control and waiting time. If you submit a draft to the Publication all you have to do is wait and hope that it will be approved. You have absolutely no control when it’s gonna happen — it’s in the hands of Publication Editors. So with the draft, you don’t know WHEN the story actually will become publicly available and when you will be able to share it with the world. And, believe me, this thing can be really nerve-wrecking! 😬

Ho, ho, ho! 🎅 Just a quick reminder — both of these drawbacks are solved in my Publications. 😎

The Best Solutions When You Don’t Have a Lot Of Time

• Use self-publishing. Just ignore Medium Publications and the extra popularity that it might bring. You will save some time but lose some of the potential.
• Start your own pub. Creating one is really easy. Making it popular is a bit harder ( 😅 ), but here is a quick tutorial about that:

• Use Beginner-friendly pubs. Just like I said — only one comment and you’re a writer. 😎

Walk an Extra Mile 💪

This is almost it!

In this article, I tried to explain everything as deeply and briefly as I can.

If you want to “dig” deeper, take a look at these stories:

Almost The End.

And now it’s officially over! ✅

Congrats! 🥳 Now you know pretty much everything about Medium Publications. If I only could I would send you a certificate of completing this article. 😁

And if you liked what I wrote please (!) DO NOT buy me a coffee. 🚫☕

👏 Clap 50 times, read my other stories instead and don’t forget to subscribe!

Ačiū! 🙏