ASK AN EDITOR
Once You’ve Published a Story on Medium Yourself, Can You Then Submit it to a Publication?
Sometimes. Here’s How it Works
I’m a writing coach and editor-for-hire. One question my Medium clients often ask is whether they can submit work that they’ve already self-published on Medium to a publication, either on or off Medium.
The quick answer?
That depends on the publication’s submission guidelines. And each pub’s guidelines are different.
Submitting Medium stories to off-Medium publications
When it comes to submitting work that you’ve published on Medium to an off-Medium publication? Most require that the work you submit to them be previously unpublished, which includes publication on Medium.
But a few don’t.
For instance, Chicken Soup for the Soul is happy to run previously published work as long as it hasn’t run in a large-circulation market. They’re published several stories of mine that first ran on Medium.
Another publication that is happy to accept work that has already appeared on Medium is The Funny Times. In fact, the work of popular Medium writer Bev Potter appears in almost every issue!
Readers Digest also uses work that has already appeared on Medium. They’re run several of my Medium humor pieces, including this one:
The bottom line? When it comes to publishing work that has run on Medium to a publication outside of Medium, you need to check the submission guidelines of each publication that you want to submit to and then follow their rules. (To find these guidelines, consult their website or Google the name of the pub along with “submission guidelines” or “writing guidelines.”)
Over time, you’ll develop a useful list of publications that are open to work you’ve already posted on Medium.
Even better? Think about submitting your work to paying publications off Medium first, and then posting it on Medium.
Submitting your published stories to a Medium publication
A slightly different question is whether you can self-publish a story on Medium and then submit it to a Medium publication.
Again, that depends on the publication. Some medium pubs are fine with taking on stories that you’ve published yourself, but most require that you submit work directly to them first, and refuse to consider it if you’ve already published it yourself. They do this mostly so that they have a chance to edit your work before it goes up. They might also want to control the flow of work that appears on their site.
Again, you need to consult the submission guidelines for each publication you want to submit your work to and follow them.
An exception to the rule
That being said, sometimes the editor of a Medium publication will like a story that you’ve published on the platform yourself so much that they’ll leave you a private note on the work (1) telling you that they’ve added you as a writer and (2) asking you to submit the story to their publication, even though you’ve already published it yourself.
That’s how this piece made it into Better Marketing:
My work also made it into both The Startup and An Injustice this way. It’s rare — but it does happen. Which means that the first few days after you’ve self-published a new story, it’s important to check back to make sure that an editor hasn’t asked you if they can run it.
Readers! I hope this answers any questions you might have about this topic. If there’s anything I haven’t covered, just ask me about it in the Comments section. And if you have anything to add to my advice or want to share your own experience with submitting work you’ve published on Medium to publications? I’d love to hear about it as a response to this piece.
Writing Coach and editor-for-hire Roz Warren, who writes for everyone from the Funny Times to the New York Times, can help you improve and publish your work. Drop her a line at [email protected]. (That’s Ros with an “s,” not a “z.”)
