Monthly Updates from Illumination Editorial Team
Newsletter summarizing January 2022 achievements and plans
Writer Inquiries
Dear Subscribers,
We had a hectic and productive month publishing and promoting thousands of stories contributed by over 13,700 writers on Medium. Each day many more writers join Illumination Integrated Publications as we deliver value. As a result, our followers and subscribers significantly increase each month. We are grateful for the contributions of our writers and the support of valued readers.
Creating Daily Curated Collections
One of the best achievements in January is featuring great stories of our inspiring writers daily. We received valuable feedback from readers and writers on the value of featuring stories that create significant visibility to the content of our writers and provide curated content to our readers.
ILLUMINATION compiles approximately 20% of interesting stories published on ILLUMINATION out of hundreds of published pieces daily. Our purpose is to give avid readers a quick taste of these stories from diverse and inclusive writers on Medium. Our publications value writers as they support our valued readers. We created 38 curated collections up to today.
We compile all featured stories in a master collection to make it easy for readers. You can bookmark this valuable asset titled Meta Collection of Featured Stories: Easy access to daily selected stories from engaging writers of ILLUMINATION: Volume 3–2022.
Reducing Administrative Work
Administrative work takes significant time of our editors. As you may know, they are volunteers as our publications do not generate income on Medium. Creating new onboarding packs is tedious for editors, and we want to invest this time in reviewing, publishing, and featuring activities for the growth of our writers.
In order to reduce the administrative workload for over 13,700 writers with new additions each day, we add a small editorial bulletin in a daily curated list to introduce new writers joining our publications each day. To this end, we created a master copy of the onboarding pack and will not be creating these packs weekly. Instead, we add a master pack and tag new writers in the introduction of daily curated collections. We expect this change might save our editorial team significant time.
In addition, this new plan may allow better cross-pollinating our writers, which is one of the goals of our publications. We want our writers to gain more readers, subscribers, and reading times to generate desired income on Medium.
We advise new writers to review this onboarding pack, which is essential to understand our guidelines and approach to publishing. It includes frequently asked questions and covers guiding information to benefit from our publications. If new writers understand the requirements and submit stories meeting our guidelines, their stories can be published faster to start earning income quicker. Here is the link to Master Copy: Onboarding New Writers: Welcome and information pack for new contributors of ILLUMINATION Integrated Publications on Medium
Introduction to a New Publication
As one of our growth strategies in 2022 is creating visibility for the profiles and content of our writers, we established a unique publication called ILLUMINATION on YouTube. With the support of Dr Mehmet Yildiz, this new publication was established and owned by the Illumination YouTube Coordinator. We invited our writers and YouTubers via a post titled: Invitation to “ILLUMINATION on YouTube” Publication on Medium. This publication aims to create a bridge between YouTubers and Medium writers using Illumination’s YouTube channel and our prominent publications. Our goal is to become a catalyst for Medium writers and YouTube creators. The publication accepts both regular and short-form stories.
New Role of Illumination-Curated Publication
As you may know, experienced and accomplished writers have been contributing to Illumination-Curated publications and gaining several benefits. To create a better bridge among our publications, our chief editor assigned ILLUMINATION-Curated editors to select outstanding stories from daily curated collections and offer writers to transfer their stories to this unique publication. This approach allows content published in our other publications to find a new audience. We will post guidelines in an editorial bulletin soon featuring the role of ILLUMINATION-Curator.
Connecting Writers with Editors
Editors play a critical role in the success of our writers. They review content, publish them timely, and promote them to our readers using various methods. Editors are also writers, but they also understand the publishing process. Currently, 86 volunteer editors support our 13,700 writers using the Slack workspace. We thought that meeting our editors could be valuable for writers. Therefore, we started an initiative to introduce our editors’ backgrounds and writing styles. We add new editor profiles as our time allows. You can find the profiles we created so far from the following list. In addition, we added their Medium accounts to find them and connect with them easily. They usually use the same account on Slack, so you can contact them directly when needed.
We will add more editor profiles soon. You may also bookmark this collection managed by by ILLUMINATION-Curator so that you don’t miss when we add new profiles. Collection of Editor Bios: Meet Editors of Illumination Integrated Publications.
Writer Introductions
We feature profiles of our writers especially via Illumination YouTube channel and blog the transcripts. Here are some samples:
Meet Shashi Sastry: Author of the book “Philosophy of Life Instinct”. Featuring Shashi Sastry
Fresh Perspectives to Mindfulness and Spirituality: Reflecting ideas from a top writer featuring Marcus aka Gregory Maidman
We introduce top writer Sinem Günel in this story: Meet Sinem Gunel.
Meet Julius L. Evans on YouTube featuring Julius Evans
YouTube Initiative for 2022
A community member Illumination YouTube Coordinator coming from a media, design, and film-making background volunteered to coordinate our YouTube channel. He has joined Medium. He also participates in our Slack workspace offering free service to our contributors. His name is Aiden. You can contact him on our Slack workspace. His handle on Slack is also Illumination YouTube Coordinator. So you can find him easily to communicate. He is keen to help writers. He already created several introductory videos that we posted in our bulletins.
Illumination on YouTube: A video introduction to Illumination Integrated Publications on Medium
Improving the Quality of Writing Using an Editorial Checklist: Video presentation of Illumination’s editorial checklist
Invitation to My New Publication: Welcome to Illumination on YouTube
Would you like to increase the chance of writing viral articles and blogs in 2022?
Photo Handling Policy Update
As handling photos is one of the most problematic issues in our publications, we updated our image copyrights policy, adding clarity to the fair use issue. Our purpose is to protect our writers from breaching copyright rules on Medium articles. You may check our updated policy from this post titled: Why Image Copyrights Matter for Writers and Editors: Update to handling story photos policy for Illumination Integrated Publications on Medium.
New Look of Illumination Front Page
In January, improved the ILLUMINATION front page based on feedback from readers and writers. We remove publication-related articles and transfer them to the ILLUMINATION Blog pub. In addition, we created several featured pages for readers. Featured pages show stories to readers interested in specific topics. We continue improving our front page to create more visibility of stories to readers. We will add more featured pages. In the meantime, yYou may check these featured pages.
Keeping Writer Biographies in a Collection
Our readers asked to learn about writers’ backgrounds. We encouraged our writers submit a bio to Illumination. Editor of Technology Hits volunteered to maintain this collection titled Curated Writer Bios: Learn about contributing writers of ILLUMINATION written by their pen. Dr Mehmet Yildiz articulated why writers need bios in an article titled: Six Reasons Writers Need Bios The most compelling one is visibility.
Update on Progress of Writers
We are pleased that many new writers gained over 100 followers and became eligible for Medium Partner Program (MPP). If you are a new writer on Medium and want to increase your followers, readers, and subscribers, you may check these guiding articles to help you.
Subscribers Can Produce 50 Times Better Results Than Followers for Freelance Writers
Writing Challenges and Prompts
We are glad that some writers completed writing challenges. 100 Day Writing Challenge is a desired one among writers. Some writers attempted to 1000 short forms in 100 days too. Participating in these writing challenges for new MPP contributors might be valuable for progress. You may consider to share your story links, your concerns, and your aspirations in this unique challenge. And many readers enjoyed the Challenge called “The Proust Questionnaire”. These challenges might bring my readers to your stories. We look forward to reading your stories about these challenges.
Topic Collections
We create various collections including the following topics.
Featured Stories About “Writing” From The Top Writers of SYNERGY
NFT Story Collection on ILLUMINATION Integrated Publications
Technology, Business, Leadership, & Self-Improvement Stories
Sample Book Chapters: Discover 70+ published authors on ILLUMINATION Book Chapters
Essential Resources for New Writers
We created a collection including relevant articles to guide our writers. Please check and bookmark this article for writer guidance and publication related stories. Starter Kit for Writers of ILLUMINATION Integrated Publications One-stop-shop for beginners.
Helpful References for New Writers
Improving the Quality of Writing Using an Editorial Checklist
Copyright Matters: Zero tolerance to plagiarism on ILLUMINATION
The Joy of Selling 1,000+ Books In A Month With Minimal Investment
Access to onboarding packs for new writers
New writers want to connect with previous writers. To achieve this goal, we provide links to only recent onboarding packs to easily find registered writers, follow them, and explore their content. If you need, you may search for ILLUMINATION and Technology Hits accounts for older versions of onboarding packs. It is not possible to link them all here. Members can follow up to 150 accounts on Medium within 24 hours.
Guidance on Writing Viral Stories
Dr Mehmet Yildiz compiled a post with critical items for creating viral stories based on my experience, observations, and reviews of over 100 viral stories in 2021. We hope some of your stories go viral in 2022. This article provides valuable guidance to writers who desire to create viral stories. What I Learned by Reviewing 100+ Viral Articles in 2021: I introduce distinctive patterns of viral content gaining mass attraction, increasing your chance in 2022.
Summary of Our Publications
1 — ILLUMINATION
ILLUMINATION is visited by over 50,000 unique members daily and gained two million minutes of reading this month. Many stories went viral and brought many new readers. As a generic publication, we accept every ethical topic meeting Medium’s guidelines. Link to publication.
2 — ILLUMINATION’S MIRROR
It is for the requirements of prolific writers who need to submit multiple stories in a day. You can submit several stories to ILLUMINATION’S MIRROR within 24 hours. Please check this article for details: Balancing Load of ILLUMINATION. Link to publication.
3 — ILLUMINATION-Curated
This publication is for experienced and accomplished writers. Senior editors select the contributors for this publication using stringent criteria. If you are an experienced writer, we allow you to write for this publication upon your request directly. Please find details in this article. You can check some sample stories from this publication in this recent collection. Link to publication
4 — Technology Hits
We designed this publicaiton for writers and readers interested in technical topics, digital entrepreneurship, digital transformation, information technology, artificial intelligence, IoT (the Internet of Things), Cloud computing, quantum computing, tech news, digital economy, blockchain, bitcoin, Nun-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), and futuristic topics related to emerging technologies. You can submit science-fiction in this pub. More info about Technology Hits Value Propositions of Technology Hits. Introduction to Technology Hits. Inviting Storytellers From All Aspects of Technology. Here is a collection including some sample stories from this publication. Link to publication.
5 — SYNERGY
SYNERGY is a specialized publication serves freelance writers who want to share writing, blogging, and editing content. It connects writers, editors, and bloggers through their stories. We invite freelance writers from other platforms such as Vocal Media. Here is the purpose of Synergy. Besides, you may find a sample collection to get an idea for the type of stories we publish on Synergy: Engaging Stories on SYNERGY. Here is a collection of sample stories hosted on SYNERGY. Link to publication.
6 — ILLUMINATION Book Chapters
It is for published and indie authors. We help new writers to get published and become authors. Details about this publication are in this story: ILLUMINATION Book Chapters: A publication giving voice to published authors on Medium. The following articles provide additional information about ILLUMINATION Book Chapters: How Can Published Authors Create Visibility. Here is a sample editorial bulletin to promote ILLUMINATION Book Chapters to readers: ILLUMINATION Book Chapters: Editorial Bulletin #9 New resources. And here is the Index of Published Book Chapters. You can find some sample book chapters in this collection. Link to publication.
7 — Readers Hope
This new publication is for absolute beginners. You may submit raw content to this new pub. We don’t edit content submitted to Readers Hope. But, our editors provide valuable and helpful guidance via private notes or in our Slack workspace to members. Here is a story introducing the purpose of Readers Hope: What If We can Transform Readers into Micro-Writers. Editors introduced values of Readers Hope. We compiled their perspectives into a single story. Our editors are willing to support new writers to gain experience. Please check their stories. You may contact editors on Slack when you need support. They can help you learn and grow. Here is the Vision and Mission of “Readers Hope”. Link to publication.
8 — ILLUMINATION on YouTube
Our newest publication as introduced in this article. Link to publication:
ILLUMINATION Blog
In addition our chief editor keeps all publications related stories in a seperate publications called Illumination’s Blog. This publication can be helpful for new writers to find guiding articles. This publication is not for writers. It is for editorial purposes. Link to publication. Dr Mehmet Yildiz hosts his personal stories in his publication called Euphoria. If you enjoy health and fitness type of stories, you may check his personal publicaiton. Link to publication.
Invitation to Create Personal Publications
Dr Mehmet Yildiz helped several writers to create their own publications and gain visibility. Publication owners made significant progress in gaining loyal readers. In addition to Illumination Integrated publications, he started his own publication to host personal stories and manage his own publication called Euphoria. If you need help establishing your own publication, please contact him on our Slack workspace. He will be delighted to help. ILLUMINATION collected publications of our contributors in a post titled: Why Writers Need Personal Publications: Invitation to introduce your own publication to the audience of Illumination Integrated Publications.
Joining Vocal Media and Simily
We keep our writers up to date with new writing challenges introduced by Vocal Media. If you are not a writer with Vocal Media yet, you can join at the link in this article. In addition, repurposing your Medium articles on Vocal may bring additional income to freelance writers. Our latest post introduces a recent writing contest by Vocal Media: Four New Writing Challenges on Vocal. We also introduced a new writing platform called Simily. Here is our latest post titled What Is Simily and How Can Writers Benefit from This New Writing Platform? An interview with Dr Mehmet Yildiz to obtain his initial assessment of Simily, a new writing platform.
We Need More Volunteer Editors
As our publications grow rapidly, we need more volunteer editors to join our editorial team. Some of our volunteer editors get unwell and may need a break. Therefore, if you have time and are interested in supporting our publications as an editor, you may contact Dr Mehmet Yildiz on our Slack workspace. Our Slack group is open to all our contributors. We have more than 10,500 members. If you don’t have access to Slack or haven’t received the previous invitation, you can request via this online webform. You may find the eligibility criteria to serve as an editor for our publications outlined in this article.
Invitation to Potential Writers and Members
To join our vibrant publications, please send a request via this link. We will help you gain visibility and succeed as a writer on Medium. Please point out the publication name with your Medium account ID in the request. If you are new to Medium, you can join via this link. Readers can read thousands of stories, and writers can monetize self-published content.
Thank you for your support and contributions.
On behalf of editorial team, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, owner and chief editor of Illumination Integrated Publications and Euphoria on Medium.
