Smedian Closed Its Doors
It’s a bummer. Especially for new writers.
When I started my journey on Medium, I took a free email course by Top Writer Tom Kuegler.
In lesson 3 called ‘How to Contribute to Tons of Publications’ he introduced Smedian.
In his email, Tom shared that getting published in a bigger publication is an extension of your followers and that you get in front of a much bigger audience.
Made sense. But where to start?
Tom explained, that Smedian as a third-party Medium tool could help you to get featured in the publication of your dreams.
It followed and ranked pubs of all sizes.
In August 2021, when I promoted Smedian in one of my short form posts the platform said there were 1,478 Medium publications that were accepting contributors.
Smedian really helped to get published in a big publication
This tool really helped some of my students to contact the most important publications and get published in a bigger publication.
Not only has it helped them to find publications to write for, but also to find writers for their own publications.
Medium writer Lincoln shut down Smedian
Unfortunately, its founder, Medium writer, and software developer Lincoln W Daniel shared a few weeks ago that he’ll shut down Smedian:
“After six years, I have decided to shut down Smedian, the platform that made it incredibly easy for writers to request to contribute to Medium publications and for publications to grow their content teams.”
Why did Lincoln shut down Smedian?
Lincoln shared that he “did not have the bandwidth in (his) current personal and work life to carry that out…”.
“I had delayed this step for too long, and it was time to pull the plug on these projects that I loved and avidly used myself.”
Jesse Wilson for instance shared:
and Rui Alves also thanked Lincoln for his (unpaid) engagement:
Thanks so much for your energy, hard work, and time, Lincoln!
Is there an alternative to Smedian?
Unfortunately not.
Medium doesn’t offer a list of its open publications or an official place where you can ask to become a writer for a publication.
The only way is to visit the publication of your dreams. Check the Submission Guidelines, fill in the form and… pray to get accepted.
No clue?
Here’s my guide on how to get published in Medium’s Top 10 publications.
What about Signal?
Lincoln also ran the platform Signal.
“Signal — noun: a gesture, action, or sound that is used to convey information or instructions, typically by prearrangement between the parties concerned.”
The goal of Signal was to make it easier for creators to share their articles with their audiences on Twitter at schedules that work best for them.
I know from several Medium writers that they were fans of this wonderful service.
Unfortunately, Lincoln was forced to shut this service down “for operational reasons as Twitter’s policies would not allow me to scale it beyond its current feature set.”
