WRITING TIPS
4 Reasons You Should Write For Small Publications
A guide for beginners and unnoticed writers
As a member of the Medium Writer Program, one of your major objectives is to attract readers for your stories and get recognized by the community. Getting also paid for your work would not hurt either. But these two things come together.
Writing for publications and getting curated on topics by Medium are by far the best ways to get your work exposed and have people reading and appreciating your work. This is especially true when you are new to the platform or when your follower base is under 1k.
But getting your work published — assuming you get in — into big publications can be difficult, and might not be worth the effort.
Let’s face it. Only 7% of medium active writers earn more than 100 USD per month. Most of us, fall into the other 93%.
And no matter how big the publication is, your stories will not get viral overnight. Yes, you can get lucky and get thousands of views in just one day. Still, this doesn’t guarantee you’ll get paid over 2 USD for your story.
After one year in the Medium Program, I experiment a lot with my stories. I am a researcher, so experimenting is my thing. I have tried different topics, writing styles, SEO tactics, Social media sharing, and several publications.
After a few successes and a lot of failures, I’ve come to one main conclusion that goes against all the articles I’ve read about writing in Medium:
Small publications might be the right place for your stories, large publications might not.
And this is why:
- Fewer followers, but more engaged. Your addressable market is lower, but the actually serviceable market is higher.
- Committed writers. Competition is less rough, and it’s more like a co-opetition to grow the publication and increase their traffic.
- Reachable editors. They are more likely to give you feedback and help you on your journey as a writer.
- Niche markets. publishing on fewer topics but more targeted to readers’ actual interests.
Fewer followers, but more engaged
Most of Medium writers go for big publications because of the number of followers they have. It’s intuitive. The more followers the publication has, the more potential readers your article will have. Right?
Wrong!
Publications like The Startup, Personal Growth, or Better Humans have more than 350K followers, and while these are great publications, they might not get your story the traffic it deserves. And this is not because they don’t do their job in distributing and promoting your story. It’s just that they have so many followers with many interests and preferences that your story might go unobserved.
Many readers following big publications are so overwhelmed by the number of stories they are getting in their feed that they turn off notifications or even muted. Some of them just don’t get to read over 3 articles because it is so varied that is hard to follow.
Also, they are usually less engaged. Unless you are a top writer for the publication, most of the readers redirected by the publication to your stories are unlikely to read your story thoroughly, let alone clapping for it.
On the other side, smaller publications have way fewer followers, so your total addressable market is consequently smaller. But they are less saturated and more focused on specific niches or topics, so your serviceable market — people you can reach — is quite bigger, and so your chances of getting traffic and traction to your stories are higher.
People following smaller niche type publications are usually more engaged when reading stories because they are looking for those kinds of content. This means they are likely to spend more time reading your story and giving recognition to your work by clapping, which benefits your stats and income on Medium.
For example, I wrote this story about decision-making and cognitive biases in The Startup, with more than 600k followers, months ago.
My lifetime views are at 270, and it has a 24% read ratio.
When I published this story about engaging online courses in The Faculty, a small publication I started a few days ago, with only 30 followers I got over 600 views in less than a day and is flourishing.
Both stories got selected by Medium curators and were distributed on the topics I tagged, so it is not about quality. I didn’t run any ads on my social networks; I did nothing different to market or self-promote my work. But I know that those few followers of my publication are all interested in Education, and many of them showed engagement.
Committed Writers
Like you, many other writers have signed up to contribute to the big publications you want to write for.
Many of those publications are difficult to reach out for getting on board as a contributor or are closed. Those that are still open for contributors have thousands of writers on their list, and only a few of them are getting the recognition they deserve.
Why?
Because they publish at least 150 stories per day. And followers are getting their feed updated constantly and have the time to click only on 3 or 5 stories per day.
So, unless you constantly write articles for those publications, your stories will be crushed by the many other great stories there.
Large publications are like saturated markets. Only a few of their writers are getting a slice of the pie, while the vast majority are fighting for the leftovers.
You need to be either a top writer for a specific topic or a frequent writer to the same publication. Only then followers will notice your work.
Meanwhile, smaller publications have only a few active and more committed writers. Thus, the competition is less rough, and it’s more like a co-opetition between writers. Everyone works toward growing the publication and increasing the overall traffic. Committed writers are more likely to share content from the publication and from other contributors in their social networks, recognizing the work from peers.
Your story is more likely to stay on the latest stories or main screen for much longer, compared to big publications. Readers will notice your work more easily. And if they like it, they will visit your profile, read your other stuff, follow you, and get notifications directly from you when everytime you publish something.
Reachable Editors
Editors for smaller publications have fewer writers to handle and are looking to grow their publication organically. They care about the quality of the content they published, but they also care a lot about the writers they publish with.
They are more likely to reach out to you when they think one of your unpublished stories fits their publication. Something rare for large publications.
They are also willing to help you out and give you feedback on your stories to improve them so they fit better their publication. Or, they take the time to explain the reasons your story was not accepted.
This, let me tell you, is a treasure for writers. Because nothing is worse than getting your piece rejected on a publication, but getting rejected and not knowing exactly why. Feedback from editors can be precious because it allows you to improve your work or find fresh opportunities. Unfortunately, editor feedback is rare when submitting to large publications.
Niche Topics
Finally, large publications cover a vast number of topics. From tags like self, satire to startup. Many large publications try to attract a wider audience by publishing stories on a great variety of topics.
This is great for the publications, as they can see their audience grow Exponentially and increase their average views and visits to their core top stories.
Unfortunately, it’s not that great for writers. Because it means that your story is not only out there trying to make it in your core topic, but it has also to compete with the other hundred topics the publication targets.
Smaller publications usually focus on niche markets. That means they concentrate their efforts on publishing about fewer topics but more targeted to followers’ interests and sometimes even of better quality.
So, the chances of your story getting noticed in a publication build around a community that values stories on the topics tagged in your story are greater than catching the attention of random readers.
So, concentrate your efforts on readers that would love reading your work.
Final thoughts
Now, I’m not suggesting you should stop publishing your work on large publications. They help with traffic and profit. But sometimes is not the optimal option, and they are not the only option.
For a story to be successful on Medium, you need not a publication. Nor being in a publication means the story is good and worth reading.
Large publications are only one more means of distribution but are not the only one and it might not fit every kind of story or writer.
Finally, the success of a story does not depend solely on the publication, no matter its size and followers base, it depends mostly on the story itself and the writer’s ability to position it strategically in the marketplace.
Think about your story as any other consumable good. You could have been lucky enough to get your product showcased in the best store, but if the other products in the exhibit look better, potential customers will pass over yours. Similarly, if you are selling socks but display them in the dog’s food section, few buyers will stop, unless they realized they are not wearing socks.
But they need to find you first and know that you are writing to them.
Your stories need to be good.
But good is subjective. Only your readers can tell you if your stories are good. But before being good you need readers, and readers only come when they feel you have something valuable to tell them. But they need to find you first and know that you are writing to them.
Even then, your stories might not get the recognition they deserve. This doesn’t mean they are not good or that no one wants them. It might mean that you need to look for your readers, reach out, and help them find your stories.
And this is easier if they don’t have to scroll over thousands of other stories in the same place, that, like yours, are screaming for readers.
So if you are asking yourself where to submit your story, ask yourself first: Who is my best reader? Where that reader is? How do I want to be found? And How I can help my reader find me?
If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy also some of my other articles on writing.
