WEDNESDAY 9-20-23 - Excuse me, this is a PRIVATE CONVERSATION.

Keep it on the down-low.

How ‘bout them big Medium Publications?

How do I really feel?

I’m sure you know the story about the singer who worked for years to become an overnight success.

Well, the lure of rapid success calls to us all from time to time.

In my case, I write, and the number of people who read my stories is the primary gauge of my success. When I write something new, I usually get excited about it. I can’t wait to get it published and available to people who, in turn, will let me know by their read numbers whether or not they enjoyed it.

There are some other indicators such as subscribing to receive my stories in their inbox, following me, virtual clapping, and commenting, but none as good as the indication of the number of reads it gets.

So, what about Medium publications? The small ones with just a few followers are generally quicker to read and subsequently publish a story than a huge one which may have readers numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

An ocean of eyeballs.

The lure of the big pubs, obviously is that, once one publishes a story of yours, it is in front of an ocean of eyeballs. The trade-off is the time it takes to review your submission.

As I have said, I get excited and want to see immediate results, but in a big pub, there may be thousands of other submissions in the queue before mine.

Sometimes, I bite the bullet and submit to one, most recently at the beginning of last week. I tried to be patient and refrain from annoying them but this morning, when I looked for its progress, there was none. It was not even the pub’s queue.

It had been unceremoniously rejected, I suppose, without so much as a “don’t call us -we’ll call you.”

To me, ejection is one terrible thing. But trying to look as though I had never even been there at all, is rather like gas-lighting me. Sometimes, when I’m on an ambitious roll, this can have an even greater effect on me.

Last words.

I must add, at this point that there are publications with readership in the tens of thousands, that are wonderful to work with, even with writers like me who occasionally write more than one story a day. they are gold to find and work with.

I, personally am starting a couple of publications where I welcome new writers, HERE and HERE so check them out if you wish, and remember that your life will always be a learning curve.