3 Reasons I Don’t Like Publishing My Articles On Medium Publications
And maybe you should too
Medium publications aren’t for me!
This might shock you but hear me out: “I never published my articles on publications.” Not a single time. Now you may go…“What? WTF are you talking about????
“You almost got 5,000 followers but never published your articles on publications? Crazyyyyy! How did you do that, man? What’s your secret?
Calm down, my friend.”
First, let me be clear with this: I’m not saying publications are bad or you also shouldn’t publish on publications. Nope. That’s not what I’m saying.
You should publish on publications. At least you should try.
Publications can help you get eyeball especially if you’re starting on Medium. Because in the beginning, you don’t have any followers so if you publish your articles on publications you can get eyeballs because they DO have followers.
But guess what? Even when I started writing online on this platform in 2022 I didn’t do that despite knowing that it could be a great way to grow.
Now when I see my favorite writers on this platform are also self-publishing their articles — encourages me to “Always self-publish my articles.”
If you go to Darius Foroux, Nick Wignall, and Sean Kernan’s account — you’ll find that they now self-publish their articles.
However, they have got huge audience but “It doesn’t matter.”
What matters to me is “How I value my Medium articles.”
Enough talk, let’s come to the business.
3 Reasons I like to self-publish my Medium articles:
1. Independent Writer
For me, publications are like “Asking for Permission.”
I firmly believe that I’m an independent writer, I don’t need anyone's validation “To call myself a writer or my stories “Wow content.”
In Mark Manson's words, “I don’t give a fuck.”
I like to do things on my own.
I believe that when you publish your articles on a publication this directly indicates that you’re relying on the third-party “Customer Acquisition Channel.”
You beg “Hey can you publish my articles on your publication, if you don’t mind?”
At some level, I get it. But here is the real deal:
If you have enough followers (1k, 2k, 5k, 10k) why you don’t trust your audience? Why don’t you nurture your relationship with those followers? Because as far as I know “Going viral and getting more eyeballs is just a snowball effect.”
It starts small and goes bigger.
And to go viral you don’t need an audience of 100k people. Certainly not.
So leverage that 2k or 10k audience you have.
2. I Want Quality and Quantity
This is what I believe.
Most people think writing too much content is overwhelming and it can bore your audience if you publish “Too Much.”
Of course, it will. If all you do is write crappy content.
In order for the reader to read your content, you need to create quality content — content that your audience likes and loves to read.
But if you rely on publications, you hardly will be able to write and publish more content. Because I don’t know what “Submission Process” they follow — they’re never going to publish your article immediately (impossible) or within 24 hours.
They take time to publish or reject your stories. Some publication takes 2–3 days, other takes one week or so. I have precisely no idea though. But I do know it takes time to get published in the publications.
And this is what I don’t like.
3. Complete Control Over My Articles
I don’t let someone touch my work.
Imagine your article goes live at 5 PM EST on a publication to which you have submitted your article. But guess what? 90% of the audience are from India. This means it’s 2.30 a.m. in India. And because of that, your article will miss so many readers just because the time doesn’t match.
Now imagine if this happens again and again and again.
Don’t forget there is a huge volume of articles being published on Medium. Every. Single.Day. So you need to stay at the top of your reader’s eye.
However, your ideal reader will still read the content regardless of what time you publish it. But this is what I don’t like. I like to publish my articles whenever I want.
This is the first case.
Let’s talk about the second case: You just finished writing an article and submitted it to a publication to publish the article. 3 days later they rejected your article saying it doesn’t meet our rules and guidelines.
You wasted 3 days plus also got rejected!!!!!
How silly and time-wasting this can be?
And the rejection was because you just gave some call to action for buying your next book that is coming and the publication doesn’t like it.
This is like the publication saying “Hey we don’t value your work.”
Insane!
A lot of writers talk about how their article gets rejected — I’ve heard some of them. And to be honest, I don’t have real experience.
And I don’t want that experience too.
I’m ok self-publishing my article on Medium.
And don’t think, “Let me publish my articles in publications and I’ll grow 100x fast.” No. You don’t.
If that was the case, I wouldn’t have 4,800+ followers now.
Because self-publishing works.
There are a lot of things to talk about publications. But let’s not stretch it and end the debate here.
But remember you should always test things out before making any decision. If I don’t like publications doesn’t mean you should too.
You should try publishing in publications and if you don’t like then make your decision.
Does that make sense?
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