The Reason Why so Many Publications on Medium Are Inactive

They are fun to start, but a lot of work to maintain

You learn early on when you start writing on Medium that if you want to submit your story to a publication, you had better check the last published date. If you don’t, you may find yourself waiting for a response from a publication that hasn’t been active in years.

There are many of these dead publications on Medium. And while their stories still offer value, when you scroll through their contents, you get a feeling of walking through a ghost town. The owner has left the building. Nobody is watching the store. There will never be a new idea or piece of fresh content ever again on the pub.

Medium doesn’t archive inactive publications. I tend to think this is the way it should be. People might be less likely to click on and read an article labeled archived.

But articles on Medium don’t have a shelf life like other websites. Some stories here are newsy and trendy, but many are on topics that don’t have an expiration date. Writing tips, relationship advice, and personal stories don’t need to be recently published to have value.

Articles on Medium can get views and reads for months, even years beyond their publication date. There’s no reason to shelf all of those stories that may still have value.

But still, there are an awful lot of dead Medium publications. A new writer might hop on the website and wonder why.

Publications are easy to start, but hard to keep going

It’s not a big mystery. The short answer is, the Medium platform makes publications easy to start, and many Medium writing gurus recommend that everyone have one. But once you’ve begun, you quickly discover it’s a lot of unpaid work to maintain.

I wrote on Medium for a little over six months before I decided to create a publication in one of my niches, health and wellness. The entire time without a publication I felt a little inadequate for not having my own, as I read advice from expert Medium writers that extolled the many benefits of doing so.

There are lots of good reasons you may want your own publication, but I’m not going to get into all of those reasons here. Casey Botticello does a great job listing the pros and cons in 5 Reasons to Create Your Own Medium Publication (And 3 Reasons You Shouldn’t).

Personally, my favorite thing about owning a publication has nothing to do with followers, or writing newsletters, or any of the other reasons many people will give you. Casey lists it as his first pro: “Control The Visibility and Distribution of Your Own Content.”

No rejections when it’s your publication

Yes, that is exactly what I was looking for when I founded my publication. I love being able to publish an article without waiting for a response; without worrying if I’ll need to make revisions or be rejected. I can control when I publish, how my title looks, how to style my subtitles, and even what my topic is. No fear of rejection or revisions is a beautiful thing for a freelance writer.

My second favorite thing about owning a publication is connecting with other writers and publishing their work. It’s a way to meet new writers and read others’ work in a niche that I am interested in.

I also enjoyed the actual creation of the publication. Medium makes it easy to customize and create a beautiful blog without any knowledge required of setting up a website.

Then the work begins

But creating it is only the beginning. If you want anyone to see your publication, you’ve got to promote it and write for it. If you accept other writers, you need to create submission guidelines to let them know what you’re looking for.

You have to keep up on responding to new writer requests. You have to publish within a decent amount of time when writers submit a draft. I get stories from all levels of writers. Most are well written with few grammar mistakes. But some are full of errors and typos. I either need to fix all of those errors myself or return it to the writer with advice to do some editing before resubmitting.

And my publication is very tiny. Lately, I haven’t been spending much time writing for Medium, or my Medium publication. And I haven’t spent any time promoting it or working on attracting new writers. It’s just been sitting there, growing very, very slowly.

My plan at the start was to send out a regular newsletter (I’ve written exactly two) and to create a community of writers that support each other (honestly, that hasn’t happened yet.)

I know if I worked harder on it and experienced more growth, the amount of work would grow also.

Some people just walk away

That’s the funny thing about Medium publications. You want success and growth, but with that comes more work. All of it unpaid. You have choices when your publication takes off. You can continue to do the work on your own, you can ask a trusted writer or friend to help you edit, or you can walk away entirely from the publication.

Some choose to walk away from their publication while turning it over to someone else. Many choose to just walk away. The work has either grown too much to handle from the success. Or without spending the amount of time needed to help the publication grow, it slowly withers away. And a publication that nobody reads isn’t much fun to maintain.

Should you start a publication or keep your current one going? Sure, if you want to. There are many benefits. And if you like the idea of having a home to publish in where your stories are always welcome, there is nothing better than creating your own.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with trying out something new. If it doesn’t work out, you’ve lost nothing. Except maybe your time. But I can’t help but feel when I read the expert advice on how beneficial it is to start a publication on Medium, that the writing experts often leave out the work and the time that you need to spend to make a publication successful. This is time that you could be spending writing and it’s up to you if that time is worth it.

Will my publication end up one of the dead ones? It’s possible, although I have no intentions of ending it now. For now, it’s still there, slowly growing. I’ll have to wait and see where it ends up taking me.