Writing and Reading on Medium
Monthly Updates from ILLUMINATION Editorial Team: October 2023
Helpful information summarizing achievements and plans for writers and readers
Non-members can read this newsletter on our Substack site. Our publications are diverse and inclusive. New applications to join our publications are via the writer registration portal. Please add your Medium ID or a link to one of your stories. Details are on our master onboarding pack.
Dear Writers and Readers,
Happy November! October was a productive month for our publications, making many writers and readers happy. Our network further grew with the addition of 736 new writers. Now, 24,510 writers contribute to Illumination Integrated Publications. Our loyal readers always appreciate fresh voices, so we introduce new writers when they join us.
Our writers range from beginners to experts, around 10% beginners, 20% advanced, and 70% in between. We support absolute beginners via Readers Hope, most experience via ILLUMINATION-Curated, and the large group in ILLUMINATION and our specialized pubs. We have a good structure as every level of writers is important. You can learn the details in each updated guideline below.
Updated Submission Guidelines
ILLUMINATION Videos and Podcasts: Submission Guidelines 2023
Publishing and Conduct Guidelines for the Lampshade of ILLUMINATION
We also have a new publication called ILLUMINATION’s Nutrition, established by our editor, Surekha Chandrasekhar, who created initial guidelines. Our curators compiled relevant stories from ILLUMINATION, which can be transferred to this publication.
To ensure your content is published promptly, we kindly ask for your patience and request that you submit high-quality content and copyright-free images. We cannot stress enough how crucial quality is.
Boost Nomination
As of the first of October, our special publication, ILLUMINATION-Curated, was selected as a boost nominating pub. Several well-crafted stories were chosen for boost. We will compile them in another bulletin soon.
To inform our writers, we interviewed our chief editor Dr Mehmet Yildiz, on our boost nomination approach. We hope the script of this interview can guide you.
You may check a comprehensive checklist to increase the chance of boosting provided by Dr Yildiz earlier. This checklist will be helpful for new writers to enhance the quality of their stories.
Dr. Yildiz has also published an article addressing the most commonly asked question about increasing income from writing on Medium and other platforms.
New Communication and Collaboration Platform
As some writers cannot join Slack due to limitations, our editor and media coordinator, Aiden (Illumination Gaming), volunteered to set up a new Discord service as an alternative to our main Slack workspace. All registered writers are welcome to join this new platform. Aiden posted an article about it explaining the rules and the way to join it.
Update on ILLUMINATION Stats
All stats improved this month except the alleged earnings of writers.
Here are our 90-day stats covering reading times, visitors, and views.
Reading times
Reading times increased from 5.1 to 5.5 million minutes.
Views
Views also increased from 4.5 to 5.1 million.
The average of unique daily visitors
The average of unique visitors increased from 38K to 44K.
Followers
We are pleased to see 1174 new followers joined since last month.
Slack Members
We gained an extra 574+ members to our Slack workspace.
Writer Registration
Since last month, around 736 new writers have registered in our portal.
Volunteer Editors
Now, we have 145 volunteer publishing and consulting editors.
We will provide stats and updates on ILLUMINATION-Curated in another newsletter, as this publication is now growing rapidly like ILLUMINATION.
As we grow, quality and meaningful engagement are the most important factors for making our stories visible. Here are some key points to remember:
We prioritize well-written articles free of language errors or image issues. Stories with errors may take longer to be published.
To give every writer a fair chance, we accept only one story per writer within 24 hours. However, you can submit additional stories to our smaller publications tailored to different audiences.
If your story does not fit the Illumination scope, editors might ask you to move it to a more suitable publication to ensure our readers receive the best content.
Writers who don’t follow our publication rules may experience delays in publishing while issues are resolved via private messages. Due to timezone differences, this process may take several days. To expedite publishing, please consider using our complimentary Slack workspace.
If you have questions or need assistance, you can contact our chief editor, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, in private on Slack, and he will direct your inquiries to the relevant editors. It’s important to note that Dr. Yildiz volunteers their time like all our editors. None of our publications or resources generate any revenue from writers.
Some Concerns About Income Lost
In late September, we received numerous inquiries from our writers expressing concern about a notable decrease in earnings despite consistent stats. While some speculate it might be a system glitch or a depletion of Medium’s funds, the exact cause was finally identified.
One of our editors Mike Broadly documented the issue regarding income loss, giving us valuable perspectives on the situation.
We acknowledge the concerns raised by many writers regarding this drop. However, we want to emphasize that while monetary aspects are significant, Medium offers writers a range of benefits beyond just income.
In response to the situation, our editorial team has posted a story guiding writers through these changes. We encourage you to read this story, where we transparently share our position as editors.
We need more volunteer editors.
Our editorial team sometimes gets exhausted. Therefore, we need more volunteer editors as our publications keep growing. Some editors go on vacation, some need a break, or sometimes they get unwell.
If you have time and are interested in supporting our smaller publications as an editor, you may contact our chief editor Dr Mehmet Yildiz, on our Slack workspace. The eligibility criteria to serve as an editor for our publications are outlined in this article.
Our Slack group is open to all our contributors. We have 18K+ members on Slack. If you don’t have access to Slack or haven’t received the previous invitation, you can request it via this online web form.
Editors play a vital role in our writers’ success and our readers’ satisfaction. They review your content, publish it on time, and promote published stories to our readers using various methods.
These volunteer editors are also writers. Therefore, they understand the needs of writers. Currently, 145 volunteer editors support our 24K+ writers using the Slack workspace. This is a massive workload for them.
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. They usually use the same account on Slack so that you can contact them directly.
Writer Bios in a Collection — Introduce Yourself
If you are a new writer, introducing yourself to the community can bring many benefits to you, as we explained before. Dr Yildiz has shared six compelling reasons why every writer should create a bio on Medium in 2020.
From the beginning, we’ve encouraged our writers to share personal bios in their stories. These bios have been curated and shared with our subscribers, allowing readers to get to know the writers better. However, as the number of bios grew, it became challenging to manage them all.
To address this, Aiden (Illumination Gaming) has reorganized these bios into a shorter and more manageable format. We understand that our readers are keen to learn about the writers they follow, so you can explore these updated bios in our new collection.
If you are interested in earning some cash and increasing your email marketing skills, you may check an opportunity introduced by Aiden in step by step in a recent article. He also created a video about it with clear instructions.
Practical Guidance for Absolute Beginners
1 — How to submit your stories to publications
Now that you joined Medium and wrote your first story. Please follow these simple instructions. Once you do it a few times, it will be second nature. Not knowing this feature caused many new writers to wait for days.
When you draft your story, please click on the … (3 dots) on the top right side of your screen. Click on the add to publication, choose Illumination or other relevant pubs, and submit your story. When the story arrives in the publication queue, editors will review and publish it if your story qualifies. If not, they will leave a private message and return your story to fix, resubmit, or transfer to one of our other publications if it does not suit ILLUMINATION.
We no longer publish certain types of stories on ILLUMINATION and ILLUMINATION-Curated, so please review the new submission guidelines.
2 — Use Copyright-Free Images and Remember to Caption Them
A crucial issue is some new writers forget to add captions to photos and use copyrighted images. Violating copyright rules can lead to substantial penalties imposed by legal institutions.
Several writers got hefty fines; our editors don’t want this to happen to you. Therefore, our editors are diligently working to safeguard our writers. We kindly ask that you honor their requests, as they have your best interests at heart. You cannot use every image on stories behind the paywall.
If you are a new writer on Medium, please review the Photo Handling Policy before starting, as it is the most time-consuming issue for our editors and causes delays in publishing. Writers failing to meet our photo handling policy will be removed from publications.
3 — We don’t accept AI-generated content per Medium’s new strategy except for one dedicated publication [the Lampshade of ILLUMINATION]
Our publications do not accept content written by artificial intelligence tools, but we have a viable solution to make writers and readers happy.
Those writers who use generative AI tools like Jasper or ChatGPT can send their stories to our new publication, the Lampshade of ILLUMINATION. Details are attached.
AI-Generated Content Policy for ILLUMINATION Integrated Publications
Essential Resources for New Writers
We compiled essential guides for new writers in a post titled Starter Kit for Writers of ILLUMINATION Integrated Publications. This collection might be a one-stop shop for new writers to learn more about writing on this platform.
Please also review these guiding policies before submitting their stories. We are tolerant, but the following are non-negotiable rules and Medium’s content hosting and distribution policy.
Publishing and Conduct Guidelines for the Lampshade of ILLUMINATION
Helpful Resources for Beginners
You may find more helpful stories from the content management collection of Dr Mehmet Yildiz typically written to help new writers joining Medium.
Writer Introductions, Featuring, and Interviews
We introduce writers by creating profiles or interviewing them to create visibility for their profiles and content. Recently, Dr. Yildiz interviewed several writers. You can read these exciting interviews from the attached links.
We also started a new initiative titled “Make invisible stories visible “to increase our contributors’ views and read times. Here are some samples:
Meet Psychologist Cedric Johnson, Ph.D. on ILLUMINATION Cedric Johnson, PhD
Chosen Stories from Melinda Blau’s Unique Collection Melinda Blau
Chosen Stories from Sufyan Maan’s Collection Sufyan Maan, M.Eng
We introduced a few writers that you may explore their work from the introductions.
Writer Introduction
We recently introduced a few more writers like Thomas Allen Moon , Omni Essence, Sneha Nagre, Sridhar Pai Tonse — Leadgen Coach- Tech Startups, Zondra Dos Anjos, and Ani Vals
You might also check recent editorial introductions from our team.
You can learn about our other editors’ backgrounds from this collection curated by ILLUMINATION-Curators.
We feature our writers’ profiles via the Illumination YouTube channel and blog the transcripts. For example, our volunteer YouTube coordinator Aiden (Illumination Gaming), features writers on our channel. Contact him on our Slack workspace if you want to be featured.
You might find some sample YouTube videos featuring our top writers in this collection titled Meet Top Writers of Medium on YouTube.
Curating and Amplifying Stories for More Visibility
Due to the hectic workload, our editors couldn’t create a new curated collection, but last month they did several. We link them here. We have changed our curation strategy. We now select nominated stories by our publication curators and compile them in shorter volumes.
Here is our first volume explaining our approach.
Previously, we curated and distributed thousands of well-written pieces to our readers via blogs and social media. Our repository reached around a million published stories on Illumination and sister publications.
Hand-Picked Articles — 2023 #47: Chosen by the content curators of ILLUMINATION Integrated Publications on Medium for avid readers
ILLUMINATION-Curators also started a new initiative called Reading Club. Here is the latest version.: ILLUMINATION Reading Club #7
ILLUMINATION Amplifiers started to feature book chapters submitted by our published author. Here is the latest version. Hand-Picked Book Chapters #02
Last year, we posted 280 collections from the ILLUMINATION Amplifier account. The Illumination team published 138 collections, and ILLUMINATION-Curator posted around ten collections featuring outstanding stories from experienced writers.
The latest collection from ILLUMINATION: Curated Collection #188
Writing Challenges and Prompts
Several writers completed writing challenges. The 100-Day Writing Challenge is popular. A few writers attempted to 1000 short forms in 100 days, too. If you are into short forms, you can submit one to each publication. However, our focus is not on quantity but quality now.
You may consider sharing your story links, concerns, and aspirations in this unique challenge. And many readers enjoyed the Challenge called “The Proust Questionnaire.”
These challenges might bring new readers to your stories. We look forward to reading your stories about these challenges. We also feature those who complete challenges in our curated collections.
Publications Created by Our Writers
Dr. Yildiz helped several writers to create their publications and gain visibility. Publication owners made significant progress in getting loyal readers. Here is a guiding story: Compelling Benefits of Personal Publications on Medium.
ILLUMINATION collected the 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.
Sample Topic Collections
We create collections selecting exciting stories from many writers who write on popular topics. Here are some examples compiled by our chief editor.
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
Let’s Welcome New Writers Joining Us Recently
Thank you for joining our publications. Let’s explore the profiles and stories of these writers who joined our publications recently.
Mehrnoosh Mana, Zephyr Zambrano, Rubbasmehboob, Shardul Deshpande, Jaspreet Singh, Content Sage, Swetha vennapusa, Huzaifa Irfan, Daniel Kang, The amazing Jen, Janier Chua, Vidhya Ahilan, Adelaide Girl’s Garden, ZZ Meditations, Zeel Kinkhabwala, Alp Arslan, Travis Hannah, Christine, Durgesh Pratap, Waseem Baloch, Rama Krishna Rao, Harshal Ranglani, Sabin Rai, Avi Kotzer, Barbara Perrupato, Content Sage, Tangerine, Sana S, Nikita Avlani, Rajib Patra, Brahmareddy, The Data Engineer., Don’t look for Meaning, Create Meaning, Mindy Insights, Jarep, Daniel Woodward, Jo Lovatt — (KryptaKitty), Bernie’s Poetry, Nidhi Jain, Jannick Olsson, Dr Anthony Thompson — Psychologist, Zayn_Blogger, Kevin Wong, Kumari Rashmi, Kapil Bhatia, Be The Ignite, Muhammad Writes, Helen Nomura, Manreet Kaur Maan, Manreet Kaur Maan, A, Ozz, Katrina Hel, Itihasas, Shayla Obourn, Shoaib Shahid, Beth Riungu, hurea, Techstark, Larissa Lim, Richard Scionti, Josh Hinton, Mark Tey, Gabriella Anne, Luke Deep 🍀, Sharon Singh Sidhu, Daily Health Info, Your Health Master., Simply Sophia, dawn Wright, Juanima Hiatt, Kyenna, Bakii, Jennifer@Gealth, — Lani Domaloy, Andrew David, JY Tan, Shalise S. Ayromloo, PhD, The Galactic Skull, Dee, Lavleen Singh, Vanesha, Mike Knittel, Tiffany D, Orbital Escape, TJ Wild, Emily S., Alexander Velinxs, Kevin Reed, Simply Sophia, Bharat Nagda, Dr. D. Bernard, Arieda Muço, Tisha Dee, Gabriel Botsie, Alessandor Earnest, Buen Ravov, Jason M. Pittman, Mich Chow, Aby JOSEPH, Nabila Mella Garip, Harvey Richards, Nikki Abelson, Parin Waljee, Sanjam Singh, Queen of Swords, Fabian, Julie Cunningham, MPH, RDN, CDCES, IBCLC, Dr.Ramesh Chaurasiya — Jared Gibson, Poulami Sinhamahapatra, Kurt Dillon, Naeem Nadir, Steve, Taimooreducates, Dr. Barbara Christie, Laura Ann, Thomas Morison, Manuel E. de Paz Carmona, Orbital Escape, Alain A, Devon Allary, Dennis litner-Johansen, ASAD EDUCATE, Erica Cramer, Sana Fayyaz, Emerzi, Nikita Singh, Scout Barrett, Zsuzsanna Agocs, Rose Smith, Ifeoma Ahuna, A X I X A, Divya Iyer, HyaenaDad, Chloe G, AILMS, Daniel Andrew Boyd, Sangeeta Kalsi, Courtney Cloud, Nujood K Almulla, Dan Kadlec, Alexandra, Francis Everett, Cecilia Hollmerus, Doc Dream Bigger, Karolina L, The Pearl, Amine Mankai, Wayne Ince, Kevinn Chan, Kevinn Chan, Shana Young, Jodes Wiltshire, Niklas Föltz, Kat Davis, Clair Maison, Happy life is good, Kathy Stephanides, christina hughes babb, Tricia, Nidarshana Sharma, , Fiona Lim | UX Designer 🇸🇬, Chrysa stergiou, & her ocean, Arsh, — Ashi Sharma, Mahnoor shafiq, Melissa the Health Coach, Rachel Beyer, Helemon Zhao, Lindsy Wheaton, Shortcast over Coffee, Aaliyah Kissick, Ilya B. Reznik, Cory Fister, Xeones the Polar Bear, Nicole Bray, Charles E., Nicole Bray, Henrique Centieiro & Bee Lee, Fabrizia Scapinello, Somil Gupta, Lisa Bage, Nayla Mitha, Adarsh Tiwari, — David Tighe, Xine Segalas, Shweta Bharti, Marko Eickholt, Bianco DaVinci, Tim KD, Nick Lucking, Lillian G Lippold, Katie F, Leo Inthapichai, Ivy 🌱, Dante Ramos, Sarah Rahimi, Renata Eschiletti, Jeremiah Vega, Lena Hadi, Penpont Writer, Javad Oftadeh, Pyrros Mathios, Rohitesh Gupta|ScienceWriter| Blogger|Photographer, Merzeal, Mika Damianos, Jacob Damian, Anonymous, Girl vs Time, duosman.philosophy, Manish Dangi, — Nicole Kinkade, Gayatri singh, Hive 42, Ben Rosenthal, Darius Lim, Mona | ManagerHacks, Zoe Lambourne, Vikash Hanwat, Stefan Glover, Jo Buckman, Dan Carlson, Darian, Niz, Jijo George, jack friks, Awais Khalid, The Insightful Economist, Quantum Thinker, Damien Pierlot, Pernoste & Dahl, — Shyam Suma Francis, Sajid Sherif, Bigdreamsstudios, Juneorenji, Christina Daniels, Ali Evelyn, ChrisCrutch, izzibella Beau, Robert Cormack, Curated Perspective, Edward Reid — Writer, Historian, and Philosopher, Alice Lam, Stephen Trevarthen, 𝑨𝒌𝒉𝒕𝒂𝒓 𝑨𝒍𝒊, Liz Mroz, — Kashi Writes, Valentine Diai, Dean. B, Nomi Diaries, Body Mind and Soul, Guilherme Borges, jack deignan, AI Agenda, Jd Baggans, Wooyoung Yoon, Hajira Shaikh, Vicky Markolefa, Article Sphere, Marilie Martel, lorijeancreative, Fowsi Mohamoud Dayib, Aline S., Akumbe, Raja Bhai, Benedict Then, The Urban Tales, Jamie Watts, izzibella Beau, Veronica Percy, Abhiram Nair, Osita Iroegbu, Raja Bhai, Dani Writes, Imran Nazir, Bryan Kent Swepston, — Tef John, Tania Lynne, Dalila Silva, Sowmini, Diana Gold, Vihaan Sondhi, Marco Moscatelli, Hemant arora, GCodeTech, Zivah Avraham, Karissa Morello, Eszter Brhlik, Sarah Moore, Sankari, DataPsyLife 🚀, Anna Soldenhoff, Mayank Jain, Ryan Pierce, John Hua Technology 🍉☕️🎾, Wordsmith Diaries, Gayatri Suri, Hajar Adam, Zacc Rowlands, Sana Uqaili, The Writrix, Martha Warriner Jarrett, IZZABELLA, J.L. Combellick, Daniel Catena, Chaithra Mailankody, Leo Mirage, Conor Cartmell, Longpok lkr, Dan G., Kruthi Venkatesh, Diana Leon, Saint Egoist, Vince Park, Nomadic Odyssey, Bichar, Benedict Then, Darshi A., Christine A., — Esme Raine Harlow, Joshua Dean, Jennifer Fox, George M Pantazis, Nivari, Mary Morton, Erinç Büyükaşık, Laurece West, The Crypto Archives, Artist Richie Spicer, Sana Eman, Longpok lkr, Patricia Ross, Dumindu Patabandi, DaBoyNewz, Akhil Kumar, Holding the Middle Ground, Anthony De iudicibus, The FI Adventure, Jasdev Bhakar, Minhal Nawaz, Depride, Laura Román Crespo, Alec Zarenkiewicz, JASHAN SINGH PAWAR, mmg, Auguste Byiringiro, Yong Kim, Dustin Lietha, Biolifehacks, Eric Williams, Karissa Morello, Pete J Johnson, Kyle Erik, JD | Essayist, speaker, pencil advocate, Daniel Harrison — Yoni Gebru, Ernest Samuels, Kurtis Pykes, Niamh Bray, JASHAN SINGH PAWAR, Eugenio Ambrosi, Staney Joseph 🎖️, Raveen, Technology Trend Curious, Zubia zulfiqar, Timothy James, Scarlet Ibis James 🦩, Omar Alsh, Freddie Kift, Meg Rose, Ankush k Singal, Matthew Joe Leatherwood, — Rebecca Jenkins, 🇱🇰 Tania Mc Mullen, Shoumya Chowdhury, J.R. Heimbigner, Ryan Ueda Teo, Bob Phillips, TzeLin Sam, Dr. Alexander Williams, Jamel Hendley/Greenviool/PawProfits, Idzard, SereniTea Soul, Gulshan, River’s Writings, 🌬️Mitch, Eszter Czirjak | Author, Martin Potter, Me and My Muse, Ryan Ueda Teo, Xandre, Suzanne Berger, Anna Juhász, Aliya🦋, ALEX KIRKLAND, Jacquelyn Lynn, David B. Grinberg, Stories by Shannon, Fernando Martín, Numerology by Ava Marie, Officer’s Notes — Divyanshi Mishra, Selvin Furtado, Sara Mahendran, Dr. Christine Chuckle, Shakti Pattanaik, Sára Tóth, Keith Mossey, Simone Cieraad, Lakshmi Nanduri, Story World, shalini priyadarshini, Aliya🦋, ميش (Mykhailo), Kamel Badar, Justin Marsh, CJ Johnson,
Access to archived onboarding packs for new writers
Last month, we started creating short onboarding packs, introducing new writers, and allowing the previous writers to explore their content to increase collaboration, improve the visibility of stories, and support the growth of new writers. You may access the welcome packs from the following links. We encourage collaboration and meaningful engagements. We will add these welcome packs to a collection soon.
Invitation to New Writers
Our doors are open to all ethical writers. You can join or leave anytime with no obligation. Our goal is to give you a platform to showcase your stories.
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 mention 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.
ILLUMINATION Integrated Publications include:
ILLUMINATION, ILLUMINATION-Curated, ILLUMINATION’ S MIRROR, ILLUMINATION Book Chapters, Technology Hits, SYNERGY, Readers Hope, Illumination on YouTube, Illumination Gaming, the Lampshade of Illumination, ILLUMINATION’s Blog, and the personal publication of our chief editor EUPHORIA.
Remember, supporting your peers as writers is important for mutual growth. Collaboration and meaningful engagement are key success factors on writing platforms. Here’s some guidance to beginners.
How Peer-to-Peer Recognition Improves Writers’ Lives
Our chief editor, Dr Yildiz, wrote many stories guiding new writers. You may find some valuable stories from his writing collection.
Thank you for sharing this newsletter with other writers interested in joining our publications, Slack/Discord workspace for collaboration. Our publications are diverse and inclusive.
