THE FRESHIE WRITER BASICS (SERIES)
The Freshie Writer Basics: How to Know Whether a Publication Has Accepted or Rejected Your Story
You have submitted your story to a publication, now what?
Hi freshie writer,
Congratulations on submitting your story to a publication!
Now as you wait for the publication’s editor to review your submitted story, there are three ways that editor’s can inform you about the status of your submission.
No. 1 — Private Note in Medium
Editors can leave a private note on your story.
- Letting you know your story is scheduled to be published
- Telling you any changes needed before publishing
- Informing you that your story is rejected/offering encouragement to submit again
For a private note you will have an unread message in your notifications that says “the editor’s name” left a note on “your story’s title” preview snippet. When you click on the message, you will be redirected to your story (shown above). Look for any visible notation, such as an asterisk mark * to the right of your story’s intro sentence or a highlight somewhere in your story’s title or beginning text.
My experience: I have received private notes on my past story submissions. The notes have been about when my story is scheduled to be published, fixing my grammar, and adding a tag if I accidently missed a publication’s required tag. Also, editors have left feedback a few times explaining the reason why my story was rejected (not the right fit).
No. 2 — Message Notification in Medium
If the editor does not leave you a private note, then the editor has likely already published your story. You can confirm this by looking for the following in your unread message from the publication’s editor: “the editor’s name” published “your story’s title” in “publication’s name”.
My experience: For the three days after I submit my story to a publication, when I login to my Medium account and before logging out, I usually look at my notification bell to see if it has the green number in the corner. If it does, I open my messages and check if there is a message from the publication’s editor for my story I submitted.
No. 3 — Email
Lastly, publication editors can have an email sent to your email address that is linked to your Medium account to let you know that your story has been accepted or rejected. This is an automated email from Medium on behalf of the publication’s editor.
My experience: Most of the time, I have received an automated email from the publications I regularly submit to. So if I did not see any communication from the other two ways I also check my email.
In Closing,
Editors try their best to notify writers who submit to their publications.
But depending on the size of the publication, they may not always send you a direct response. Some publications express this in their submission guidelines, “if you do not receive a communication back within 3 days assume your story is not accepted”.
These are the three ways I have received notice from publication editors on the status of my submitted stories. You are likely to receive communication via one or all of these methods as well.
Thank you for reading and I hope I delivered helpful information in this story!
I would love to know any thoughts or questions you have! You can get in contact with me by public commenting, private noting me, or emailing me lifenotabrupt@gmail.com. :)
Are you new to reading this series about writing on Medium? Glad you’re here and welcome! Or are you a returning reader who’ve missed reading some story in this series? No worries, they are below!
My latest story. ⬇
All the stories in the series. ⬇
