Why Illumination Grew So Quickly

Perspective from a writer

I don’t have any fancy stats for you. I haven’t done any interviews. I’m just a guy, just a regular writer on Medium. I’m not an Editor. I don’t have thousands and thousands of followers. I just write.

But sometimes, just writing is hard on Medium. It’s hard to get noticed. It’s hard to get your work shared and published.

I would spend hours crafting stories and articles and send them off only to have them be rejected over and over again. I would share them to my own faithful social circles, but they gained little traction on Medium.

I started studying Publications. I read not only the articles on the publications but articles about the publications. I studied theirs about pages, their FAQ’s, and any relevant info available.

I was determined to figure out Medium and find homes for my writing.

During this time, I had connected with several other writers on Medium. I noticed the same people liking and commenting on my articles as I was for theirs. It seemed we were all in a similar space of just trying to figure Medium out.

One of those people was Dr Mehmet Yildiz.

He sent me a message, want to join Illumination?

The thing is, I would have joined ANY publication. So when he messaged me, it was an easy yes.

And what I found there was a lot of the other writers I had connected with were showing up there too. And the main thing was… our work had found a home.

There weren’t a lot of tricks and hoops to jump through. You could write the way you wanted to. You could write stories and poetry and there would be no judgement. The editors would review your work quickly and give any necessary feedback.

Finally, if you weren’t quite sure where to share your work or if you were tired of finding rejections, you knew you had a home with Illumination.

I’ve grown by around 1,200 readers since joining Illumination. I have joined many other publications and even started a few niche ones of my own. But I know there is always a home at Illumination.

When people ask me about joining Medium and I give them the Medium 101 Basics. One of the things I tell them is to find publications that fit their writing and to join Illumination. It’s literally in Medium 101. Everyone is welcome, everyone new should join if they need a home.

The reason I wrote this article was that I was clicking through top posts in various categories and was finding Illumination writers at the top of them.

It reminded me just how much Illumination has grown. Not just in numbers but in quality of writing. We started with a small group who supported each other fiercely and have grown into a Megatron. There are pros and cons of both the small and large sizes but change and growth is a good thing. Especially for a welcoming and diverse publication.

So how did Illumination grow so fast?

Well, because of writers like you and me.

We needed a community and we needed a home for our stories.

And the rest… well, the rest, I’d say it’s history but, the rest is still to be written… by writers like you.