Start Your Own Publication
The larger pubs are getting crowded.
Writing for Medium is a discovery process. The whole point is to build readership. One way to do this is to submit your work to large publications and wait. And wait. The benefit of publishing in larger publications on Medium is their large follower count and with it the possibility of more eyeballs on your work — more potential readers.
Another way is to start your own publication.
In a relatively short time, I have nearly 1,000 followers to my two publications (noted below) combined, and for the next month will only post to the two, plus, The Partnered Pen and Illumination.
Lately, larger publications don’t seem to know what they want. Increased submissions from writers have them breaking their guidelines, and many send out mixed signals. They’re human, I realize. And in the end, good writing is subjective.
I’m not referring to Medium’s in-house pubs located at the top of Medium’s homepage.
But others are not consistent in their content. Some days one type of content is fine, and the next it isn’t. Some have changed the titles of my posts when I’m 100 percent sure the title I choose was much better than the title used for publication.
An editor responds to me, “This type of post doesn’t do well on Medium anymore,” Then, I post the same post, no revisions, and it gets thousands of reads and claps.
I’m not sure what is going; some seem to have lost their initial “why” they started a publication. Maybe because Medium is attracting more writers, publications are also experiencing growing pain and change.
About rejection
A short word on rejection. Rejection is good for us, failing leads to growth. As Seth Godin recently wrote in a newsletter,
They didn’t reject you. They rejected an application. They rejected a business plan. They rejected a piece of paper. They don’t know you.
Those five sentences made up the entire newsletter. True words.
Experiment
I’m experimenting for the next 30 days; I won’t be submitting to any larger pubs to see if my earnings drop drastically. If you see writing by me published in a larger pub in the next few days, it’s because it’s been sitting in their queue for a while.
What makes a good publication?
First off, be specific.
What do you want your publication to represent?
I think it best to niche down in the title of your publication, like The Write Path. The title is a clear indication of the content a reader will find within the publication.
I mainly focus on writing.
Even if you niche down in your publication title, you can get more specific and branch out a bit to related topics reflected in your subcategories — these are the categories just under the image of your choosing.
For The Write Path, my subcategories are; Medium, Writing, Life Hacking, Systems, Blogging, and Money.
A publication acts like a WordPress blog, without the technical learning curve and issues that come with coding and SEO.
It is super simple to set one up.
Build a publication you can be proud of and will attract readers. So, be intentional when you set up a publication. Think about it for a few days. Write it on a piece of paper.
The same is true for creating great blog content within your publication.
Be intentional.
Think more about the process than doing something from a surge of inspiration.
Becoming a professional writer — one who makes money — is about planning, learning, and executing.
If you are writing from inspiration alone, you most likely won’t post regular content, and for a publication to be successful, you need to write and post regular content your readers can rely on.
Or open your publication up to submissions from other writers.
I haven’t done this yet, but giving it serious thought.
How to find the right topic for your publication
If you have no idea what to write about some good questions to ask yourself follow.
#1. What are people — your readers — asking you about constantly?
If you don’t have readers yet, then, what topics do your family and friends ask you about all the time or often?
The answers to these questions indicate your area of expertise — your area to niche down and write about extensively.
Even if you don’t feel like an expert, it’s an indication of your expertise. If someone is asking you something repeatedly, that is an area in which you know.
Write about that
#2. What kind of content do you want to create?
What kind of content is essential to your Medium success?
You could work backward to find your publication’s niche and ask yourself first; what kind of content will be necessary to my Medium success and will be successful in my publication?
#3. What do you love talking about? Another way to frame the first question is, What do you love to talk about? What can I not stop talking about? What would you talk about if no one was paying you?
Your answer indicates passion.
The stuff you love to talk about is what you will continue to talk about; this is what you want to reference and write about.
Your passion will give your writing confidence. Good writing shines with confidence when you have a strong opinion about something one way or another.
#4. What turn of phrase do you reference often?
For example, the very popular blog copyblogger.com uses the phrase content marketing a lot.
Content marketing is a phrase that builds out most of copyblogger’s cornerstone content. It built the platform.
There are hundreds of ideas you can write about that touch on content marketing.
There are at least five constants about content marketing those interested in content marketing should know.
Those five ideas are considered cornerstone content for a blog or publication.
Cornerstone content is content that you often reference and represent what your blog or publication does well. Come up with five cornerstone pieces for your publication that you link back to in future posts.
#5. Don’t sell yourself short.
The content you write that comes easily to you may seem obvious to you, but may not to your readers. The ideas that may be obvious and routine to you may be amazing to others.
Everyone has something to bring to the table.
Even if a subject has been written about a lot, it hasn’t been written about by you — in your words, style and voice. There is a lot of repeat content on Medium, that doesn’t mean you can’t write about the same thing, just put your spin on it.
The ideas that may be obvious and route to you may be amazing to others.
Your interests might only be evident to you because they are the interests that you’ve been drilling down on for years. Your readers will love what you have to say about a subject you’ve been interested in for a while because you’ll most likely have a ton to say about it.
To you it might seem like old hat, to them, it might be a brand new idea.
#6. Once you have readers, let them guide the way.
Your readers will tell you what they are interested in by their questions and highlights.
Pay attention to the type of content that is garnering the most engagement, and write more of that.
I look at my highlights and comments daily, then I will often expand on these bits of text in other stories — even going so far as to use them as future titles or subtitles. If something is getting a lot of attention, you can be sure other readers will be interested.
In summary
- Create a publication.
- Be intentional.
- Think about it for a few days.
- Get out a sheet of paper and brainstorm.
- Ask friends and family what it is you talk about often.
- Pick a clever title that reflects the content you’ll be writing.
- Write three to five subcategories you’re an expert in or are curious about.
- Start writing content.
- Publish often.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering Type A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.