Recycled Submission Requirements

Recycled is a publication focused on sharing old stories made anew.

If you have been writing on Medium for a while, you know there are many stories that are undervalued, old, or the Medium algorithm has not been kind to. There also may be some of your stories which were published when you were a new writer and having no followers, they did not get much attention.

Maybe you want to republish an old story that is no longer being read and languishing in Medium land somewhere. Given the way our profiles are laid out, it is difficult to wade through comments to get to the real stories, especially if you’ve written a lot.

And since independent writers are now competing with large newspapers on Medium, we need a better way to share our best stories that have already been published and are being ignored.

Recycled is the answer to all those problems.

However, Recycled is not merely republishing old stories. It is about making old stories stand out by including new photos, editing for mistakes and clarity, and generally making the new story better than the original.

All genres are welcome including fiction, nonfiction, poetry and anything else which has been written on Medium previously. We want the best writers and stories so all submissions may not be accepted.

Do you want to submit your stories to Recycled? Read below to find out how.

Submission Guidelines

By submitting work to Recycled, you agree to all the following conditions:

• The original stories which are being recycled must be at least 3 months old.
• Submissions must be properly tagged with at least one of the following: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Writing, or Life. Other tags can be added at your discretion, but one of the above must be included.
• Submissions may be edited for spelling, grammar, and format. I do edit pieces regularly to align with the “style” on Medium as well as making it easier to read. We will never change the message of your content. If we have comments, we will send you a private note.
• Submissions must be made through Medium. For more information on the process, please read here
• All submissions must include a featured image with proper attribution. The easiest site to use is Unsplash. Other sites include Pixabay and Pexels.
• We reserve the right to add imagery, ads or information to the end of your submission. If what we add is removed after publication, we reserve the right to remove the work immediately.
• Once a story has been published in Recycled, we expect it to remain there. If a story is removed without prior notice, we reserve the right to remove you as a writer. If you want to remove the piece, just ask. It’s your work so we don’t want to hold it hostage, but it is common courtesy to let the publication know prior to removing it.
• We will publish only one piece per writer per day.
• We will accept only one submission per writer per day.
• I try to review submissions promptly, but there are no guarantees when your work will be published. Please allow up to 48 hours.
• Not all submissions may be accepted. If a submission is rejected, Medium will notify you if we didn’t accept the submission.
• You can now choose to lock articles written in publications and earn money for those articles based on engagement from members. Before submitting to Recycled, you have the option of locking your article for members. All money earned will go to the author. Please see here for the FAQ.
• Also, if a story is already in another publication, please check with that publication as to their rules for removing a story.
• Imported stories from another site will be backdated to the original post date. See here on how to import a story. If you import from another site without using the provided Medium link, there may be issues with SEO and duplicate content — Recycled is not responsible for any issues arising from not following the directions above.
• Also, and this may be the most important, but Medium does not allow duplicate content. Deleting a post and republishing it without substantive changes and improvements is against the rules and could possibly get you suspended from publishing on Medium.

Request to Submit to Recycled

We are an open community looking for writers who want to submit strong, meaningful work regularly. If you have stories you feel are undervalued or being ignored and are at least 3 months old, you are welcome to join us.

Please let me know in the comments if you want to be added as a writer. You can also add any questions you might have in the comments.

If you ever want to leave the publication, feel free. Please let me know why you are leaving if you want as I am always open to getting better and improving the publication. Feedback is always welcomed. However, it is not required.

The best way to recycle your old or undervalued story is to copy (not cut) it into a new story on Medium. You must edit the new story. Deleting a post and republishing it without substantive changes and improvements is against the rules and could possibly get you suspended from publishing on Medium. It needs to be new or else it will be rejected (unless it is imported from another site).

Once edited and submitted to Recycled, THE OLD STORY MUST BE DELETED. This is so there aren’t two versions of the same story and you won’t get penalized when it comes to SEO or be posting duplicate content. So when you submit, it is a brand new story and will show up on the submission date.

Also, please be aware once the old story is deleted, all stats for that story are deleted as well. It is an individual choice as to whether you want to recycle the story and lose the previous stats. There is no guarantee the new story will do better (in terms of stats) than the old one.