Results From 30 Days of Doing a Deep Dive Into Reading Publications

There is a lot of awesome writing out there if you know where to look

What happens when you take a month to focus on reading instead of just writing? Do your stats soar or sink? Is it a trial or a triumph? Was this a waste or a winner? Is Mary overly fond of alliteration or a poetic genius? Please don’t answer that last one.

All the cool kids were doing writing challenges so I decided to do a reading one. Hanging with the cool kids has always been outside my comfort zone. I’m more of a curl up with a good book and shut out the world kinda person.

Except when I’m writing or reading. Then I’m banging on the door of the cool kids club saying please let me in. Say that I’m good enough. Can you tell that someone didn’t even get an invite to apply to the Medium Creator’s Fellowship Program and is still a bit sad about it?

But I digress, the answer to the above questions are as follows:

• awesomeness
• stay stable
• triumph
• winner
• absolutely always adores alliteration

We are several days into August already and I’m just now getting around to posting results on my July challenge. But you know what? The cool thing about writing on Medium is I’m totally my own boss. I set myself these challenges, I modify them on the fly if necessary and I take my own sweet time to share them with you.

Let that be lesson number one. You can gain a lot by reading about other people’s journeys and even trying on their methods but ultimately you are the boss as a writer and you do what works for you.

I’ve been a heavy reader as well as a heavy writer on Medium in my ten months here. I love interacting with other readers and writers and consider it Medium’s best feature. So I knew a reader challenge would be a win-win scenario for me but there were a few surprises and lessons learned along the way.

The perfect plan

First the deets. You can read them all here, but the basic idea was to choose a different publication each week, read everything posted in it for that week, write up a profile of the pub with links to my favs, and finally write a story specifically for them and get it published. Cool beans, right?

Total aside here, awkward attempts to use lingo like deets, favs, and cool beans that I would never utter in person unless I was trying to embarrass and horrify my children might explain my exclusion from the cool kids club. I’m leaving it in here because it amuses me and I want to see if the only one of my children with a Medium membership happens to find it and call me out. I’m betting not. She only clicks on stories she thinks might mention her and she’ll never suspect this one.

Surprise #1

Finding four publications that fit my goldilocks criteria was much more challenging than I anticipated. The problem was my particularity. I had some firm criteria and I wanted it all: publishes between 5–15 stories a week, not too big or famous already, has firm editing standards, i.e. doesn’t just publish just anything, somewhere I could be happy as a writer, publishes stories I’m going to find value in reading, and not so specialized of a niche the average person couldn’t enjoy it.

These criteria knocked a bunch of excellent publications out of the running right off the bat. I adore Crow’s Feet, for example, but it publishes too frequently to fit my challenge and it features older writers. I think a lot of young people would benefit from reading this pub but they probably shouldn’t try to write for it.

Crow’s Feet is home to my best performing article to date, a humorous and informative piece about my colonoscopy and the unfairness of life. Maybe you haven’t read it yet because you are many years away from needing one. You really should check it out so you can exult in your youth and prepare for the years to come. Also, you should forward it to all your loved ones over fifty. We need to demystify this life-saving procedure.

Another fun publication I explored this month is Counter Arts. In their own words CA welcomes wacky thoughts,

We want to celebrate and give a home to those articles that might not be showered with money by the algorithm. We want to take your tired, your overlooked, your articles that might only make two cents but the ones that you know the world needs to read.

There are a wide variety of stories published here and a wonderful sense of community. Their publishing rate was too high for me to keep up with in my challenge but they are well worth your time to check out.

Surprise #2

Publications are like restaurants. Did you know 60% of restaurants fail within the first year and 80% don’t last beyond 5? I have no idea what the stats are for publications on Medium but I know the failure rate is similarly high.

For every P.S. I Love You which shut down when Medium funding was pulled to a flurry of “The world is ending,” and “We have to fight this,” posts and a sprinkle of “Eh, they weren’t all that” rebuttals, there are a bazillion pubs who hit hot and heavy for a time then one day stop publishing without a murmur.

I hoped to find publications I had never heard of for my challenge and I found tons of them but so many had ceased publishing a long time ago. Even recently active pubs can suddenly stop.

Anyone else here submit a story to a pub you’ve been in before and three weeks later go back to figure out why you haven’t heard anything and realize they don’t seem to be active anymore?

Here’s a useful trick to quickly check on the latest activity. Go to the home page of a pub. Add “latest” to the end of the URL in the search bar. For example https://medium.com/world-travelers-blog/latest. This quickly tells me that one of my favs is still very much in business, hooray!

Now try https://medium.com/modern-parent/latest. Dang it! Five stories were posted on June 13 and nada since. Best not submit here.

Surprise #3

Editors matter a lot! This wasn’t really a surprise but there is knowing something in your head and then truly experiencing it.

Editors are curating their publications. They are rejecting stories that don’t fit either because the quality isn’t high enough or the style or topic doesn’t match the publication. They are protecting their publication brand and this effort makes them trustworthy and readable.

Here’s what happened when I submitted a story to Fictions, the final publication I profiled in my challenge. Danielle Loewen gently let me know my story length didn’t fit the time length guidelines. Did I want to expand it or submit something different?

I was embarrassed to have missed this detail. I always read submissions guidelines carefully before submitting and still make mistakes like this regularly. I am grateful to the editors who refrain from cursing me to my face and instead gently point out my error.

My first thought was I had nothing more to say in that story. It was good as it was. But I wanted it in the pub so I could finish off my challenge on a high note. So I expanded it a bit and sent it back in. Danielle came back with a few more tweaks and suggestions.

We went back and forth on a few points as I tried to understand what she wanted and how to make it happen. In the end, I had a piece 1000 times better than I had started with.

Not every editor can or will take that time with every story but when it happens you will be amazed how much it elevates your writing.

Most publications on this platform will not offer that kind of editing, at least not regularly. We are volunteers for the most part. No one owes you editing so be grateful and not churlish when it occurs and don’t try to demand it when it doesn’t.

There are oodles of publications here that accept almost anything and offer no editing. Thank God for them. We need plenty of entry points for beginning and even seasoned writers who want to bypass gatekeepers for various reasons.

But as a reader, you can appreciate good editors who curate a publication you can come to trust which offers you quality reads time after time. As a writer, you should seek these publications too. Forcing yourself to write to someone else’s specifications hones and sharpens your skills.

Publications I profiled

I ended up reading four very different publications. You can read all my write-ups below.

Age of Empathy publishes personal essays. “Hit us in the feels,” says the submission guidelines.

Open Letters To is exactly what it sounds like. “Here we say what must be said, whether it is harsh, humorous, or even a teensy bit passive-aggressive.”

History of Women tells the stories of women throughout the ages. “Clipped from the history books to make room for men’s stories. We are here to collect and tell those stories.”

Fictions publishes quality fiction. “We want to be bowled over by thunderous prose; catapulted into foreign lands; hoodwinked into cavorting with gods and kings and peasants.”

All four of these publications have excellent, attentive editors, and are a joy to read and write for.

My Results

Here is where we dive into the numbers. Did this challenge move them? That wasn’t the point of the challenge but still, I find it interesting to look at the data.

I made about the same amount in July as in June. My followers grew at roughly the same pace as they have been lately after accounting for the great purge of early summer.

I read a boatload more and also wrote slightly more in July than in June.

I enjoyed myself as both a reader and a writer a bajillion times more.

I’m calling that a rip-roaring success.

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