How to Add Your Story to Japonica
A Step-by-Step Guide to Publishing in Japonica on Medium
This article is a step-by-step guide for new writers to get set up as a Japonica writer and publish a story on the publication.
The process is simple and fast, but it can be difficult to people new to Medium to know what to do. This process is the same for most other publications.
Unlike traditional print media or a blog, Medium publications cannot post materials ourselves. Writers have to add their stories themselves, then publications can add it to their publication, publish it on the publication’s site, and promote it to our followers.
This is the basic process:
- Set up a personal Medium profile
- Get added as Japonica writer
- Write article draft
- Submit draft article to Japonica
- Get published
1. Set Up Your Personal Medium Profile
- Go to medium.com
- Click the Get Started button on the top right
- Create a username
- Click on profile picture on the top right.
- Go to settings from the profile menu
Set your profile name, add a short bio, and upload a photo or image.
Near the bottom of the page, optionally connect to Twitter and turn on “Show Your Twitter Account on Your Profile Page” so readers can find you.
Make sure “allow private notes” is on so the editors of Japonica can communicate with you.
2. Get Added as a Japonica Writer
Leave a comment to this article by clicking on the comment mark at the bottom and add a message that you’d like to be a writer.
The editors of Japonica will be notified and can add you to Japonica as a writer.
3. Add Your Article
Once you’ve been added as a Japonica writer, add your first article.
Click on your profile photo and select Write a Story.
You can either write directly in the Medium editor, or cut and paste your text.
Add a title at the top.
Add a subtitle by adding a line of text under the title, double-clicking any text on the line, and selecting the smaller T.
Add a relevant, non-copyrighted image below the subtitle. This will be the image Medium will use on title pages and links to Twitter and other social media. Please refer to our policy on images that can be used. Only free-to-use images or the writer’s own photos are allowed on Medium.
Click the + and either click “add an image” or “add an image from Unsplash.”
Add the text.
Add additional images if desired.
Add links where appropriate.
To create an embed to other sites like a personal blog or book page, simply enter the link as text and hit enter. If that doesn’t work, delete and try again.
4. Submit Draft to Japonica
DO NOT CLICK PUBLISH. That will publish the article to your own page and make it impossible for Japonica to schedule it.
Click the 3 dots at the top and select “Add to Publication” from the drop down menu.
If Japonica Publication does not appear as a choice, you have not yet been added as a writer.
Click the submit and continue button.
Add 5 tags. These will make the article show up in the feed for readers across all of Medium who are interested in those topics. It’s generally best to stick to broad topics with a large amount of interest.
Typical topics for Japonica articles include: Japan, Japanese, Japanese Culture, Japanese Language, 日本, 日本語
Click “Submit to publication.”
The editors will be notified and will either schedule the article for publication or leave notes for changes.
Note that the editors are able to edit the article and may make changes to fix typos, change the image, or make other changes we find necessary for publication.
5. You’re Published!
Congratulations. Once accepted, your article will be scheduled for publication.
Once published, the article will be featured on the Japonica site, but will also be distributed to the nearly 1 million Medium subscribers and 100 million active monthly readers. We will tweet it to our Twitter followers.
6. Join the Japonica Community
Japonica is more than just a bunch of articles about Japan on Medium. It’s a community of people who love Japan and want to read or write about Japanese culture, both the good and the frustrating.
Beyond just submitting articles to the publication, we’d like you to join the Japonica community.
Please follow Japonica here and on Twitter (@JaponicaPub).
Read the stories by other writers on Japonica, clap and leave comments. You can add up to 50 claps per article. Follow the other writers, both here and on Twitter, and retweet their articles.
Promote your article to you own followers on Twitter and other social media. Join the conversation on Twitter around your article and those of other Japonica writers.
It’s not required, but we hope you’ll subscribe to Medium. It’s only $5/month and gives you unlimited access to all the articles. Writers get paid a portion of the subscription fees based on reading time, so subscribing supports all Japonica writers.
If you subscribe and use one of the following referral links, half your subscription fees will go to the editors of Japonica to help support the publication.
Yuko Tamura referral: https://medium.com/@yutranslates/membership
DC Palter referral: https://dcpalter.medium.com/membership
Lastly, while writers get paid by Medium, publications do not. This is a volunteer operation and we have full-time jobs and families, so please be patient with us.
7. Get Paid. Yah!!!
The part you’re waiting for — how to get paid for your writing.
There’s a billion articles on Medium on how to make millions writing on Medium. We won’t repeat them here. This is the basics you need to know:
Once you have 100 Medium followers, you can join the Medium partner program. Medium then pays you based on total subscriber reading time. It also pays for new subscriber referrals.
Japonica will promote your articles here and on our Twitter page to bring you readers. But we are a niche community, so please have modest expectations.
Questions?
If you have any questions, please add them as comments to this article.
