The Big Secret I Learned on My First Day as an Editor — Behind the Scenes
In the busiest publication on Medium, you have to move fast
If you have ever visited the office of a big publication in real life, or seen one in a movie, you feel just like that when you take a peek behind the scenes at Illumination.
People are moving fast. Drafts are loaded into a queue. Not a single minute passes when a draft is not submitted for review.
It was my day 1. I was a bit nervous as I was in a new place. Some people knew me, and some didn’t.
Dr. Mehmet Yildiz, the chief editor — the owner of Illumination — said in his style, “Team, focus on the queue, it is getting longer. Please, I have to attend to some important stuff, you know we are going to make a big announcement soon. Please, handle the queue with care. Some writers are complaining why their stories are not getting published.”
I was lurking around, listening carefully to everything. What was the big secret? I had no idea.
“Doc,” said Tree Langdon, “This guy is sending his seventh draft. You were talking about a policy shift of no more than three drafts per day. Can you clarify.”
“Not now, Tree. I’ll get back to you. Please focus on clearing the queue. We’ll discuss it later.” Then he was gone.
I didn’t say anything. Taking my cue from the discussion, I headed to the draft queue.
Lanu Pitan, Geetika Sethi, and Joe Luca were doing their work smoothly. They were moving around like they knew everything already. I was prowling around like a cat, trying to grasp things before I made an appearance.
Britni Pepper was feeling lost too. She told me later, “Yours were my exact thoughts on my first day. What do I do, how do I not tread on any toes? Luckily everyone had their head down hard at work and didn’t notice unless I yelled out for help. “What does TK mean on an article, How am I supposed to move it from all the way over here?”
As I moved from one room to another, I heard rumors that a new publication that was going to be launched soon. This new publication was intended for higher quality stories.
Quantity vs. quality is an old debate in online blogging and publishing platforms. ILLUMINATION warmly welcomes all new writers— serving the needs of writers who believe that more articles can bring greater rewards than quality. But Illumination-Curated is to serve those writers who strongly believe in quality over quantity.
In a discussion, Arthur G. Hernandez explained how Illumination started with excitement and hope. Dr Mehmet Yildiz shared the values on which he wanted to build the publication. He wanted all the writers to enjoy the synergistic effects of collaboration — based on reciprocity and mutual respect.
Then I focused on my draft queue. After a few minutes of publishing drafts, written by my favorite writers, I felt pretty confident. But it was only beginner’s luck.
I was about to make a mistake.
A new writer submitted a draft for review. I read the story, corrected some spellings, and checked it for plagiarism. It was okay, and then I hit the ‘Publish’ button. I didn’t notice the image sources. There were seven images in the story — and the writer had not provided the source of any of the images.
I started panicking because it was my first day, and I was not supposed to screw things up.
I quickly jumped back to the Slack channel for editors and asked for help. But everybody was busy and I could not find any advice. If a story is published, the editors cannot unpublish it. I asked the writer to provide the sources of the images she had used — through a private note. She did not know the image sources. I had to think and act fast.
At that time, I thanked my knowledge of IT because I could search the sources of images using Google Image search. I did exactly that. Luckily all the images were from Unsplash. In the next ten minutes or so, I found the sources of all the images and pasted them in the story. I saved myself from the embarrassment of making a mistake on my first day.
But even when I was panicking, I had this thought in my mind that if Dr Mehmet Yildiz, Tree Langdon, Britni Pepper, Joe Luca, or Geetika Sethi were not busy, they would have tried their best to help me. The team spirit of Illumination editors was a valuable new experience on my first day as an editor.
Illumination is celebrating six months of success
Within six months, Illumination has become the 12th most popular publication on Medium.
After six months, Dr Mehmet Yildiz has launched Illumination-Curated. He wishes that this new publication will become the home of curated stories — written by writers who focus on writing well.
My first assignment as an editor
When Dr Mehmet Yildiz, Tree Langdon, and Joe Luca were discussing the possibility of increasing the curation rate of Illumination writers, I felt that I could be of help in the effort.
“Doc,” I said, “I have been working on a detailed curation guide for a month now. Can I show you the draft?”
Dr Mehmet Yildiz read my draft and told me to finalize it. He said it was an excellent starting point to help the writers who had a low curation rate.
It was my first assignment as an editor, and I worked hard to complete the draft before the deadline. It ended up becoming a 16-minute read. It is thorough and complete with detailed examples. All the editors helped me on various points and the draft became a story. Dr Mehmet Yildiz published it with a great comment:
Thousands of writers have viewed these guidelines and most of them have left positive comments. After writing these guidelines, I have been tasked to write curation methods, submission process steps & FAQs, and the procedure to transfer articles from Illumination to Illumination-Curated.
The big secret I learned
When I wrote the first draft, the big secret was the launch of the new publication — ILLUMINATION-CURATED.
But when I was writing the second draft, I realized that the big secret was not the launch of a new publication but how ILLUMINATION moved from the bottom 1% to the top 1% of Medium publications in only six months.
Do you want to know how this publication rose to its position despite opposition and controversy?
The secret to its success is our need to stick together in hard times. When someone like Dr Mehmet Yildiz assumes the role of a leader and encourages us to write when we are tired of rejections, and we wish to share our ideas, we intuitively know that we need to help each other.
The editors don’t get any salary yet. Everybody is a volunteer, and the worst thing about volunteers is that you cannot fire them if they don’t perform. But the need to stick together and grow together is so strong that everybody is doing their best to clear the mighty draft queue.
Conclusion
As I have shared my first day at job and a big secret with you, please share your experiences about writing on Illumination and Illumination-Curated.
It is your love and support that is going to help Illumination reach — or hope to reach — that elusive number one slot.