My Way — by Robert Ralph

The Heart and Soul of Medium

Thank you all for stopping by and taking the time to read my interview with Drashti Shroff.

Without taking much of your time, I would get straight to my conversation, and here it goes: —

Dear Robert, I am so pleased to be talking with you today. First of all, many congratulations to you for all the recent achievements, i.e. you earned a top writer badge in ‘writing’ and on starting another new publication called ‘What is Love To You’.

Your journey as an owner of two publications is interesting. In that regard, what was your biggest motivation to start and run a publication, above and beyond writing?

You are more than welcome. Thank you for your invite. It is great to have an interview with Coffee Times, and it is an excellent publication.

It has been a whirlwind of a start, better than I could have ever expected; I have been overwhelmed with the support I have received.

One night in bed, I was looking through YouTube and saw a video by Zulie Rane, she was talking about making money by writing and this platform called Medium; I scratched my head thinking to myself, how do you make money from writing? She convinced me that anyone could do it, so I continued to investigate some of her other video’s.

I then came across another YouTuber called Shelby Church; she wrote about making an incredible amount of money from just one story that took her around 30 minutes to write, which was enough to convince me to at least have a look.

If I am being frank, I had no desire to write; I have never read a novel, I did read an autobiography by Ulrika Jonsson many years ago, but that took me nearly three years to finish.

I am dyslexic and find it very hard to read, so this is unnatural to me.

The fact that I am a top writer in “writing” was a complete shock to me.

Your first pub, New Writers Welcome, grew popular among the new writers as one of its goals was to help and support new writers. What was your inspiration to start another publication?

“New Writers Welcome” was born out of pure frustration; I wrote articles that I thought were great; in reality, perhaps they were not so good after all. They kept getting knocked back from publications, and I knew it from the YouTube that it was easy, so it could not possibly be my writing, I thought. This is why I started my first publication; I wanted to help myself and others who got rejected from the major publications.

This brought issues though, I was an inexperienced writer, trying to help other new writers, my heart was in the right place, even if nothing else was. I met a few friends on Medium that started to help me develop, and I will be forever grateful to them.

I had the advice to bring on some more experienced editors, and they have done me proud; I have not told them this yet, but they have helped me and my writing from looking at the feedback they give others; I have also picked up some tips too.

I decided to launch another publication for a few reasons, “New Writers Welcome” has no niche, apart from we help new people on the Medium platform. As an old romantic at heart, I wanted to have love as the platforms niche. The closure of “P.S. I Love you” helped. Although other significant publications cater for this type of writing, none are as significant.

I make no apologies by saying that if I am in, then “I am balls in.” I do not do things by half measures, I am determined, and I have enough confidence for the whole room of people. I will always remain humble and will never bad mouth other people or publications, and we are all trying to achieve the same thing. I intend to be the best at what I do and hope others come along for the ride too, and our motto is #Strongertogether.

My vision for the two publications are “Heart and “Soul,” so of course, “What is love to you?” is the heart, and “New writers Welcome” is the soul of Medium.

How is your experience so far in running 2 publications on Medium?

I am not sure that they have been running for long enough to answer the question. However, I will try.

“New Writers Welcome” has been difficult; we are all new, raw, and there was maybe a lack of structure; in the beginning, this is, of course, the lack of experience that I had.

I have brought in my “A-Team” editors (Sally Prag, Francesca Dallaglio, Marilyn Glover, Andrey Pilipets, Dazzling Shene)who have been very supportive and constructive in their approach. We have a frank dialogue, and we don’t mind speaking the truth for the best of the publication.

We do not always agree with each other, and this is exactly what I want. We need to be objective and humble in our approach; every voice is heard, and we move forward together. I love having them with me; we are a band of brothers and sisters.

Running “What is love to you” has been very straightforward so far, we are a few weeks in, and I have brought the structure and experience from my first publication. I already have my first editor lined up, so I will let that publication know who it is when the time comes.

How does running publications affect your writing routine? With all the heavy timing that editing at a pub demands, are you able to write more or less? How would you like to change it?

A great question; it has to be said; hindsight is a beautiful thing. If I am being completely transparent, then I would have spent at least six months writing. It would have helped me gain some experience before diving into a massive workload.

It has been “sweet and sour” I have spent maybe seventy per cent of my time on the publications and thirty per cent of my time writing, so this is another reason that I have been delighted with my progress. I usually write my articles between 11:00 pm and 01:00 am, then off to bed I go for a 06:00 am alarm to go back to work, so this is why I usually write only five out of seven days.

What according to you is the best part about running a publication?

It may not surprise you, but my answer, control, I am the main character in my own story, and I would have it no other way. Putting my ego to one side, I love helping the underdog.

If someone is told they can’t do something, I will give them the support, encouragement and desire to prove the doubters, and most often, themselves wrong.

Do not let anyone tell you it is impossible or you do not have the ability. I was told that once and NEVER AGAIN.

What is your secret to managing time for not one but two publications?

Write my ideas down and start a draft article; you don’t have to finish it there and then.

I only accept writers once a day; I previously logged on to accept writers, and it was time-consuming.

Share the workload with people you trust and admire; editors are essential, it took me a while to figure that out. I had some great support from Carrie. A. Kelly and Nikki Waterson on this topic.

What according to you are the three skills or qualities which a writer must possess if they wish to start and run a publication and why?

Experience, learn from my mistake, time, dedication, determination and the ability to multitask.

It would help if you also were thick-skinned; people will hate, give you negative comments, find positive people to be around, be honest with yourself and self-assess now and then.

If you can seek counsel from an experienced writer, then this is a brilliant help. I have support from an established writer with over thirty thousand followers; she believes in me, which has helped me no end.

Have you come across any negative experiences on Medium? If yes, how have you dealt with them?

Yes, it was a very hurtful and unprovoked attack; I would have left Medium, but I was convicted to stay by my followers; I will forever be grateful to them.

I dealt with it by responding positively; that is my nature. So first, I looked at myself to see if what she had said was true, then looked to see if I could take positives from that experience.

I was more focused and determined after that and if she is reading this, thank you for making me a better person. I did write an article on it if people wanted to read it.

Are there any other publications on Medium that inspired you to write for them and also to start your own publication?

I have loyalties to a few publications; none inspired me to write for them, but the owners inspire me.

I love the strong bonds that I have formed on Medium, I genuinely feel I have some real connections, and if these owners, which I consider friends, ever need anything, I would not hesitate to help them. #Strongertogether.

For writers who are aspiring to start their own pub, what special message do you have?

I suggest they write for six months and edit for another publication first; this experience will help them start. Then, find a niche, like “Coffee Times” by Winston, “Writing 101” by Kristina God, “Evolve” by Carrie. A. Kelly, or “Pets and Animals.” by Nikki Waterson.

I want to thank “Coffee Times” for this interview and hope we can grow and complement each other along the way.

Message from Drashti Shroff: I would like to extend my deepest thanks to Robert Ralph for this amazing and insightful piece of interaction. It was a pleasure and an honor. I am sure our readers will gain a much needed information, context and direction out of it. Despite the heavy work load that pub owner works with, I appreciate Robert for taking out the time to collaborate with Coffee Times and contribute to the Coffee Times Interview Series.

You can read more from Robert Ralph here:

Thank you all once again for your claps and support :)