Rethinking Publications And Starting New Adventures
By: Jim Woods
Tags: Ｍedium, Writing, Writer, Marketing, Content Strategy

Rethinking Publications And Starting New Adventures

Here’s a better way to handle this problem

Photo by Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash

Gotten rejected a lot lately by publications here on Medium? Like A LOT?

It’s likely not just you. It’s because Medium has clamped down on curation for publications.

Here’s the thing no one tells you: A publication can follow some really specific rules and get their posts to be automatically curated.

A knowledgeable friend confirmed this with me. This writer said, “Some publications have the ability to curate under several tags without Medium curators — it happens automatically. But the process to get that and keep it is very strict. A publication can get “suspended” and then the content is not automatically curated.”

Recently, I had a piece rejected for the “structure and depth” of a post. But after 6 years on Medium, I knew the structure of the post was fine. That made me scratch my head. Then I read that this publication prefers at least 5 sentences per paragraph. That’s really specific, don’t you think?

A month or so ago, another post was rejected because I didn’t have statistical figures backing up a productivity method. Then it all came together: these are very likely some of the rules that Medium requires for certain publications to have automatic curation.

So, if you’re a serious writer who wants to get your work out in front of a larger audience via most Medium publications, you’ve probably noticed that things just got a lot more difficult.

I recently said I’m not writing for most publications in the following post.

I’m actually changing this approach even more. I’m NOW only writing for publications where I have control of publishing. Why? Because as writers and content creators, we need to focus on the things we can control, not the things we don’t control.

I’m not going to include irrelevant statistics into a post just for the sake of automatic curation. I’m not going to write 5 sentence paragraphs just for the fun of it. I know these will suck the joy out of writing in record time. I believe in writing what you want to write.

The funny thing is, Medium actually agrees with me.

“As Medium places a greater emphasis on the connections between readers and writers, we don’t want curation to be a bottleneck to those connections. Instead of focusing or waiting on curation, creators are free to focus on creating — doing their best work for themselves and their audience.” More on this here.

I guess the real question is whether or not you focus on the rules of curation or not. I know Medium wants quality articles to be the ones that are curated. Of course. That makes sense. But here’s the problem: if an article is curated or not because of some rules, it doesn’t mean the article is worth reading. It just means the article followed a bunch of rules.

So What Can We Do?

The choice is simple: you can either comply with the rules of curation — which are always changing — or do your own thing.

Personally, I’m opting to do my own thing. I’m not mad at the publications that want the automatic curation: their hands are tied. I just wish this would have come to light a long time ago. It’s a shame that things have not been much more transparent from the get-go. And it’s possible they have been transparent. I’ve never heard of automatic curation before on Medium.

Enter Blue Ocean Strategy

The one alternative to doing what the major publications are doing is something I’ve mentioned before called “Blue Ocean Strategy.” Blue Ocean Strategy is doing things your own way, not like everyone else. Not competing in the same space. Doing something different.

Photo by Thomas Vimare on Unsplash

As you know, fiction and poetry are not featured prominently on Medium. The focus is on personal development. Personal development is fine, but I know that’s not all people want to read about.

I believe in an abundance mindset. There are more than enough fiction readers (and writers) out there on Medium. Same with poetry. Or whatever else it is you would like to write about.

People want to read new ideas and new stories. Experimentation is the key to creativity. Otherwise, what are we doing with our writing? We all want more than the status quo.

If we are not trying new things, the content on Medium becomes more like a widget factory than a place to find new stories.

I personally refuse to believe that this great platform has become a widget factory. No way!

This platform offers a great way to share ideas and stories. It is a great place to start amazing conversations. On that note, I’m starting a new publication called the B.O.S.S. publication. (Special thanks and credit to Audrey Dixon for the super cool name!)

Photo by Author

This is a publication where you’re the boss. Any content you’d like to post you can post (as long as it does comply with Medium’s guidelines).

Best of all, you control when the content publishes too. No waiting around for weeks to hear that something was rejected because your title wasn’t in title case or something like that.

Curation is not the goal. Putting out great content that connects with readers is the goal. If it’s curated, well, that’s great. I’d consider that the cherry on the sundae.

I hope this publication can feature writers from all over the world. Writers who have stories to share using their own voice and personality. Right now is still the best time ever in human history to be a writer. We just have more work to do.

If you’d like to write for B.O.S.S., just respond to this post with your Medium handle using the @ symbol. But I’m not going to add everyone; I’ll be adding the first five people personally as editors to the publication.

Then just mention the person who commented last to please add you to the publication as an editor. (Directions on how to do this at the VERY bottom of th post.) I love the idea of writers helping other writers in small but very important ways. If we work together, through collaboration, we can do so much more than we do on our own.

Feel free to tag a writer you know as well in the comments or share this post with them directly. I’m not in charge of the BOSS publication: you are. We can have an entire community of bosses that work together.

I can’t wait to see what awesome content you create and share with the world.