Everyday at Medium HQ, we sit down at our computers and work on ways to improve your experience. We are still a relatively young company, and we’re continuing to develop and evolve who we are and how we’re doing it. I mean, if you look at it in a “history of the universe” sense, our lifespan isn’t even a billionth of a blip. Technically, we don’t exist. ☺

But that is not discouraging us from constantly striving to build a better product. Recently, we took a look at our collections and decided we could make them even more user-friendly.

We are going to be making a few changes in the process of submitting posts to collections, so that it is simpler for both the authors and the editors. Ultimately, we believe that these new features will strengthen collections, making them “must-visit” destinations for readers.

Part of this decision came from the new ability to follow individual users on Medium. Now a story can travel through our network on its own, and isn’t as reliant on being in a collection to reach a wide readership. We have even more features in the works that will take advantage of the network and help distribute stories to their maximum potential audience.

Here’s what is going to happen

There will be no more open submissions to collections, and stories can only belong to a single collection.

Collections will now have three types of participants: Owner, editor, and writer.

• The owner is the person who created the collection and has full editing power, the same as it is right now. The owner can also put any self-published story into their collection.
• The editor role is also the same as it is right now. Editors can review submissions and accept or reject them from collections, as well as add their own stories to the collection.
• This is where it gets different: Collections will have “writers.” Collection owners and editors can invite users to write for their collections, as part of their “staff.”

Only users that have been added as writers to a collection may submit their drafts or stories to that collection. The editors will then review the piece and, if it is still in draft form, will publish the story in the collection. If it is a story already published on Medium but not in a collection, they can accept it as it is or work with the author on edits.

You can be a writer for multiple collections but can only submit and publish each story to a single one. Writers will still have the power to edit or delete their story, remove it from a collection, or remove it from pending submission status. If you are removed from being a writer for a collection, you can bring your story with you and publish it in a different collection. You can also simply publish a story on its own, and it will appear on your Medium profile and broadcast to your network.

All stories that are currently in collections will stay in those collections, despite any current cross-posting status. All collections will start out with zero writers.

We feel these changes are going to improve the collections. Editors will no longer be flooded by a barrage of unsolicited stories and will be able to better define the personality of their collection by working with trusted authors.

Writers will no longer discover their stories living in multiple collections and will have more control over which collection is their story’s “home.”

And readers will find collections to be increasingly vibrant, with more unique and focused content, and a place they want to check on every day.