The Simple 8-Step Guide to Getting Into Awesome Publications on Medium

An effective battle plan for increasing your acceptance rate as a writer

Publications aren’t everything on Medium. But they sure can help a hell of a lot. And equally important — you can help them just as much.

Most major publications on Medium have a huge amount of writers already added, hundreds more applying every week, and potentially thousands of stories to sift through in the same time period.

In short, they’re incredibly busy trying to make the best publication they can.

And while editors are almost surely keeping an eye out for the next up-and-coming Tim Denning, it’s exponentially difficult the more volume of new writers and articles they get.

So help yourself get an editor’s attention by following some of these simple and actionable pieces of advice.

The 8 Steps to Applying to Publications

I know most of you are busy, so here’s the TLDR short version.

1. If your writing isn’t truly amazing — work on improving it
2. Use listicles, Smedian, or search on Google for potential publications
3. Try to find 2–5 target publications for each niche you write in, then make a note of them
4. Check to make sure a publication is still active AND accepting new writers
5. Find a publication’s “Submissions” page. Read it thoroughly. Twice.
6. Find the “Editor’s Picks” page, the “About” page, or the “/Archive” page to see the most popular articles on a publication.
7. Read 10–20 popular articles and note down as many aspects of style as possible.
8. Go through your list of 2–5 publications and start applying one at a time. Do not send drafts to multiple publications at the same time! If you fail, try, try, try again.
9. Profit!

1. Get Ready for Battle

On the writer’s side of things, it can be incredibly frustrating trying to get your work in front of more and more people.

This is especially true if you feel like your writing has improved enough to deserve it.

But we all know better. Or at least we should, anyway.

The only person that deserves to see our writing is our worst enemy, at least on the bad days. And maybe our significant others, because they knew what they were getting into when they signed up for a relationship.

This point shouldn’t stop you from trying, though.

If you want to make it in this game, you have to be here for the long haul. And that means waking up every day and showing up to write, not showing up for results.

Your primary job as a serious writer, first and foremost, is to battle the need for stats.

Readability. Voice. Flow. Emotions. These are the principles (among many more) that you should be practicing every day.

Reading the views on your statistics page for the 11th time today won’t help you get any more views, will it?

Go read, write, review, and repeat instead.

Tip: If you’re constantly getting rejected from publications, work on improving the quality of your writing as much as possible.

2. Choose the Battlefield

Now comes the important part — which publication should you apply to?

There are a lot of choices, even within specific niches.

You also need to consider how big a publication’s audience is, how often they publish, are they particularly discerning or do they publish everything?

A good starting point is to find lists of active publications that can help you narrow down your target:

• The Ultimate Guide to 43 Active Publications on Medium
• The 53 Fastest-Growing Medium Publications Still Accepting New Writers

Of course, there are many more out there. So feel free to use Medium’s search function or even Google, and try something like “Medium publications for (XYZ Niche)” as a good start.

Tip: Find listicles, use Smedian, or search on Google for potential publications.

3. Choose Your Weapons

In the interest of saving time, you’ll want to know what kind of publication you’re aiming for.

There are over 12,000 publications on Medium according to Smedian, many of them inactive, many of them exclusive to the owner, and many of them just a short-term experiment.

But within that list, there are hundreds of beautifully constructed publications that would be more than happy to host your work — if it’s the right fit.

At this preliminary point, you should pick one of your favorite topics to write about and start from there.

For myself, I write in too many subjects these days — history, politics, psychology, fitness, Mediuming, and the occasional wacky pseudo-truthful humor story.

But for each one of those niches, I have a list written down in an Excel file with potential publications. If one of them rejects it, I can just delete any comments (after thanking the editor for their time) and apply to another one.

While this strategy can take a while, and you do need to keep track of where you’ve applied, my stories will almost always end up in one publication or another.

“One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” — Yotam Ottolenghi

Tip: Try to find 2–5 target publications for each niche you write in then write them down.

4. Prepping the Battlefield

When looking at a potential publication for our work, we want to make sure two things are true before moving to the next step:

1. The publication is still active
2. The publication is still accepting writers

Fortunately, this is easy enough to check.

First, go to a publication’s main page. (ex. https://bettermarketing.pub)

Assuming you’re using a browser on a PC/Mac, you now go to the URL address bar and type “/latest” directly after the publication’s web address. (ex. https://bettermarketing.pub/latest)

You’ll now be able to see the latest articles they’ve published.

If anything is more than a month old, they might not be the most active pub around and you might want to consider scratching them off your list.

The second point can be a bit trickier.

Not all publications are actively accepting writers as they’re too busy and need to control the total volume. Others keep the application information relatively hidden, perhaps weeding out the writers who don’t want to really really really write there.

Fortunately, there are a few quick ways to find the information 90% of the time:

1. Go to the publication’s main page and look for something like “Write for us,” “Submit,” “Submissions,” etc
2. Or, go to the publication’s “About” page — If it’s not listed, you can just add “/about” to the web address
3. Or, search in Google for something like “Write for Better Marketing” and a relevant page will sometimes pop up

Now that you have the target publications set and aligned with your niches, here comes the hard part.

Tip: Check to make sure a publication is still active AND accepting new writers.

5. Declare War

I’m not going to get into the issue of writing quality here — you’ll have to be the judge of that for yourself. (Or better yet, ask your family and friends for feedback on your posts.)

Some publications on Medium are extremely picky about which articles they accept. And that can be a great thing — these publications often have dozens of viral articles because they do just that.

If you ever manage to get accepted into one of these publications, pat yourself on the back. It couldn’t have been easy.

But more likely, for most of us, your first one or two attempts won’t hit the nail on the head.

More and more of the larger publications these days have some sort of web form on their “Write for us” pages.

On there, you usually have to fill in some basic information about why you want to write for them, and submit a draft of your text (AKA an unpublished but finished piece of writing).

Sometimes you get to write a little blurb at the end. Don’t leave this one blank! It’s an opportunity to showcase your uniqueness and personality in 1–2 sentences and make a small impression on the editor.

When you’re bombarded with hundreds of entries every week, every little impression that stands out can be memorable!

Tip: Find a publication’s “Submissions” page. Sometimes it’s titled “Write For Us”, “Submit”, “Join Us”, etc.

6. Know your enemy

If you want to head into battle and fight on the side of a big publication, you need to know what you’re up against.

While I don’t like to refer to other writers as enemies here, it fits the analogy, so…let’s go with it.

You need to know how the popular writers on a publication actually write. And for that — you need to do your homework.

Many top writers will talk about the inherent benefits of ‘writing in a flow state.’ Well, for this purpose, you need to get into the research equivalent.

Go to the publication’s main page and check to see if they have an “Editor’s Picks” page. This is a great resource to see what style, voice, and format the editors particularly like.

Another alternative is to find the archive function of the page, where you can see the most popular works. If it's not listed as a link in the header section, just go to the publication’s web address and add “/archive” to the end.

Finally, if you’re looking at the “About” page, you can see who the editors of any publication are. It might be worth your time to go look at a few of them to see what their own writing looks like to get an idea of their preferences.

Next comes the flow state — make sure you have a few hours to spare if you really want to do this right.

Tip: Find the “Editor’s Picks” page, the “About” page, or the “/Archive” page to see the most popular articles on a publication.

7. Shine your armor

Set aside your amazingly written article for a moment. Open up a new draft, a Notepad, or an Excel and write the target publication’s name at the top.

Now it's time to read 10–20 of the best-performing articles on that publication — preferably from as many different writers as possible. Jot down as many quick notes as you can when going through the articles.

Keep an eye out for these points while reading the articles:

1. Titles: Note the style of the headline. Do they mostly have numbers, are they personal, what kind of patterns can you notice? etc
2. Subtitles: Do the same for the subtitle and try to jot down some notes on how they should be written
3. Images: Are the images using particular colors? Do they always have a person in them? Are they cartoons? Note the general theme of imagery.
4. First sentence: Review the opening lines of each article. This is often one of the strongest sentences writers focus on — what style does the publication look for?
5. Paragraphs: Authors often make white space their best friend on Medium. But not all of the publications are fans of this. Try to see what range of sentences the publication prefers and note it.
6. Subheaders: Are subheaders always capitalized? Are they full sentences, statements, or usually questions? Do they only use 1 or 2 words?
7. Breaks: Note if the publication deleted/allowed the three-dot breaks that some writers use.
8. Quotes: Do the authors use any or a lot of quotations in the best pieces? If so, this might be a good sign to try including some in yours.
9. Takeaway: Do the articles all have a takeaway section where the points are reiterated in a shortened version? If so, be sure to include your own.
10. Length: How long does Medium estimate the article will take to read? Most publications have a stated minimum (ie. more than 500 words) but not all of them state their preference for a maximum length. Try to see what the average is for these most popular articles.
11. Formality: Do the authors talk to the reader? Do they use the word “I”, “My”, or “We”? Try to note the perspective of the writer to see what the publication prefers.
12. References: How many references do they use in each article? I assure you, most top articles have at least one proper source for claims as they tend to do well on this platform. Do they have a “References” section at the end of an article? If so, include one in yours as well.
13. Bylines and CTA: Not all publications want an author writing their name or leaving a ‘call to action’ at the end of a piece. I usually try to leave one anyway, and they often get deleted. But if I can remember when a publication doesn’t allow them, I’ll remove it in advance.

This might sound like a lot of work to you —and you’d be right. But it will be worth it, I promise you.

Not only will these things help your chances of being accepted as a writer in the publication — but they can go a long way to helping improve your writing in general.

Tip: Read 10–20 popular articles and jot down as many aspects of style as possible.

8. Charge into battle!

Now comes the simple part — applying. By now you’ve probably already found the different publications’ “Submit” pages and have figured out if you need to email a draft, write a comment, or fill out a form to apply to be a writer.

If you feel your draft matches the style, niche, and prerequisites of a publication — then apply away!

If you have the option to write a blurb — do so — but keep it short, super polite, and succinct (unlike this article).

Most of the publications will state a time range for how long you have to wait to hear a reply. In my own experience, this usually takes 1–2 weeks. So please be patient, jot down where you applied, and wait.

If the article ends up being rejected — just apply to one of the other 2–5 publications you jotted down for the niche.

Then the next time you have an amazing piece of writing, refresh your memory a bit with the style and preferences of that publication — and try again!

Tip: Go through your list of 2–5 publications and start applying one at a time. (Do not send drafts to multiple publications simultaneously!)If you get rejected, re-apply when you have another article.

Takeaway

Remember, writing on platforms like Medium is a long-term game.

Persistence is everything.

Show up, write your best, and apply to as many great publications as you can think of. And don’t mind the occasional rejections — it even happens to Tim Denning from time to time.

If one of the top writers on Medium can handle rejections, so can you.