Publish Your Medium Article Early To Get Results Early

If money and engagement matters, then yes, time of publishing matters.

I’ll do anything to hack Medium, including getting up at the crack of dawn to publish my story.

I don’t know if early birds get the worms, but early publishers get the perks here on Medium.

At least, this early riser does.

It took me a while to figure out a strategy regarding the optimal time to hit the publish button. It‘s a tricky question because readers can write in 24 time zones (some might write from their yachts in the middle of the ocean, for all you quibblers).

While my friends in Sydney, Australia, are getting their Zs, I’m collecting views and reads. But not from them. Where does that leave the down under writers?

When they wake up are the U.S. publications, curators, and readers asleep? Are down under articles published when I’m sleeping, then buried under other content by the time I wake up and want something to read with my morning coffee?

Do U.S. writers have an advantage because of time zones closer to pubs and curators?

These questions dogged me after I kept getting inconsistent numbers on my dashboard. So here are some answers and the strategy I came up with after testing various publishing times.

1. Medium sends reading suggestions to greet you in the morning: that’s your target time.

Publish your articles to hit in the morning when possible. If you publish more than one article a day, though, publish your main story first, then place them several hours apart, but give readers time to see them before the cutoff for the earnings report.

2. Publish according to your editor/curator/readership morning routine.

Unless you’re on a first-name basis with curators, this may be a guess. Are curators huddled in the same building or working remotely around the globe? I have no idea. However, since Medium is a US-based company, I’d use U.S./Pacific Coast time. Just my guess. Feel free to theorize differently. For pubs and readers, do some research. If you aim for a publication, see if you can find the home town/country of the editor.

If your primary readership is in one time zone, based on followers and fans who leave comments and or claps aim, to publish so that your work greets them in their morning.

3. Strategy for hitting the morning inboxes.

a) When you have an article targeted for a specific publication with a home base that gets to work in the middle of your downtime/unavailability to publish due to work, etc., schedule a publish time.

How? Go to the publish screen. You can pick a time for any time zone, and go back and change or delete it if you need to edit your story. Then you can go to sleep/work/party and know your article will wend it’s way to the correct inbox at the optimal time you’ve set.

b) Plan ahead. If you finish an article that you hope will do well, but it’s ready to publish late in the day when your editors/readers have closed up shop, you have two choices. You can hit publish and take diminished reads. Or, hold the article until the next morning and send it out first thing when it will have a better chance of getting eyes on it, including the curators’.

I have a goal of publishing daily. However, this month I don’t always finish my Medium work until later in the day. My client work takes precedence. and so I have to make a choice. Publish late in the day for fewer reads or hold it until the next day.

If I’m aiming for a big publication (which boosts chances for curation) and they accept it, it’s always better to wait. Because I won’t get accepted late in the day to my favorite pubs. They will always hold it for the next day, anyway. I will usually get more views and reads going with the preferred publishing schedule of a big publication (should the piece be accepted), with a better chance for curation than hitting publishing when it’s ready, just to meet my goal of daily articles.

4. I publish according to my earnings report deadline.

On days when I have more than one article ready to publish, I schedule them so that both come out well ahead of my earnings report cutoff time.

Figure out your cutoff time with the following calculation. The cutoff is midnight, UTC/GMT. Use a World Clock or time zone calculation to figure out your corresponding time zone. For me, in San Francisco, it is an eight-nine hour difference, factoring in daylight savings time. So if the cutoff is midnight GMT, I try to publish my last (or only) piece well before either 4 or 5 o’clock, depending upon the time of year.

I hope these tips help.

I’m an editor and writer on Medium with Top Writer status in several categories. I’m also an editor for the publication, Rogues Gallery. I’ve published 55 titles on Amazon and edit for private clients. If you’d like to hire me as your editor for fiction, non-fiction, or business writing, please contact me here. If you’d like to read more of my work on Medium, click here to sign up for my newsletter. I’ll make sure you don’t miss a word. Thank you for reading.