Why I Never Submit to a Publication with Less than 1K followers

And 5 reasons why you shouldn’t either

My heart goes out to publication editors. Yours is a labor of love with little to no reward. So, I hope you’ll forgive me when I say…

Writers should never submit to a publication with less than 1K followers.

The Purpose of Publications

While there are a bunch of good reasons for writers to start publications, the purpose of publishing with one that is not your own is to increase readership, plain and simple. In fact, publishing on excellent high-distribution publications is really the only method to go from “newbie” to “successful” on Medium.

If the purpose of submitting to a publication is broad distribution, then definitionally, if a publication does not offer broad distribution, there is virtually no reason for a writer to submit to it.

What is more, opting against self-publishing on Medium has real negative consequences.

5 Reasons You Should Self-Publish, Rather Than Publish on a Small Publication

1. Immediacy Writing to the moment has tremendous value on Medium. In the fast-paced 24/7 news cycle of 2020, readers want information NOW about NOW. Publishing on Medium makes responding to that need possible, but only if you, the writer, can control when a story goes live. Unless you’re in Ecosystem #1 or #2, the only way to meet that demand is to self-publish. Don’t wait around for a publication with less than 1k followers to publish your story.
2. Style Grammar is grammar and taste is taste, but there is no denying that success on Medium depends on a writer refining her voice and finding followers for whom that voice is resonant. When publishing with a publication, writers must take into account both the cultural tone and the actual style guides of the pub, balancing those factors with his personal style and voice. Such balancing is a double-edged sword, and it’s worth it only when a publication offers a writer editing support and broad distribution.
3. ??Curation?? In light of the October 2020 changes, it’s hard to say anything about the process by which Medium is now increasing the distribution of stories. However, in the past, self-published pieces did seem to sometimes fair better. In that it is AI that controls the order by which curators review stories, and in that pieces published in big and/or Medium-run publications received priority status, it seemed that the algorithm did give self-published pieces higher review priority, perhaps to balance the benefits given to pieces that are already being seen by trusted editors on the platform (some of whom are no doubt curators).
4. Your Own Pub: Especially with the October 2020 changes to Medium, there are real reasons for writers to consider creating personal publications to feature our work. The publication interface offers more versatility (ie. tags) and significant perks (ie. newsletters). Most importantly, housing your work in your own publication is one method to gain followers. It is far more advantages for writers to create a personal publication than publish to one that has less than 1k followers.
5. Diamond in the Rough Every once in awhile, self-published story gets plucked out as a diamond in the rough, to be added to a Medium publication. In that I write primarily about life, love and relationships, my flagship home on Medium once would have been “Human Parts.” However, since I joined the platform in November 2019, Human Parts has had a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” policy for all new writers. Though it’s frustrating, it does rarely happen that a publication like Human Parts will reach out to writers of self-published stories with an invitation to be added to a major and/or Medium-run publication.

Didn’t All Big Pubs Start Small Once?

What should publications do while working to go from 0–1K followers?

Accept Previously Published Drafts

Previously published drafts are the ugly duckling of Medium. While their content might be gold, the Medium algorithm so profoundly prioritizes “new” (though, not exclusively…), that stories with old publication dates almost never display on home pages of any kind (based on Sept 2020 settings…).

And, I don’t think that there is a writer on Medium who has not mistakenly published a draft before successfully submitting it to their publication of choice.

Great new pub editors know that the key to building a new publication is accepting previously published drafts.

The incentive for giving previously published drafts a home on a publication, even a new and fledgling one, is totally different than the motivations explored above. Writers are happy to do it.

Accepting previously published drafts enables publications to offer a rich bank of work on their homepage while making the long slog from 0–1,000 followers.

Do you have a suggestion for Medium? Drop it in the box! Click here for submission guidelines. Let’s support one another by reading and writing suggestions for how to improve the platform.