Writing and publishing your first story

As a publishing platform, Medium allows you to share your stories and ideas with the world. If you're new to Medium, you can learn here about features available in the editor and publish your first story. We can't wait to read it!

Creating a new draft

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Every story starts with a draft. When you create a draft, it's immediately saved on your Medium account. You can come back to your draft anytime to continue writing from your Stories page. Drafts save automatically as you write.

  1. On your homepage, click   Write to start a new draft.

Please note: You will need to be using a supported browser to be able to write.

Adding a title and subtitle

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At the beginning of your draft, you can optionally add a title and subtitle of your story into the appropriate fields.

Applying basic formatting

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To add some basic formatting to your story, highlight a word or phrase. This will bring up a text toolbar with available options.

To learn more about using all the formatting features in the Medium editor, check out this article.

Adding images

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  1. On your story, go to a new line and click the  plus button on the left side of the post to expand the menu.
  2. Click the Picture button to upload an image from your desktop.
    Click the Unsplash button to search and insert images directly from the third-party service Unsplash.

Check out this article to learn more about adding images to your stories.

Adding third-party media embeds

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Medium editor supports embedding content from third-party services, such as Github, YouTube and more. To add your embed:

  1. While editing your story, go to a new line and paste the URL of the content you want to embed.
  2. Press Enter to convert that link into an embed. Your embed will become interactive once you publish your story.

If the service you're embedding content from is supported on Medium, the link will change into an embed. If the service is not supported, the editor will convert the link into a preview card instead.

Embedding with the embed code is not supported. To embed content on Medium, all you need is the URL. Learn more about embedding.

Publishing your story

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  1. When you're ready to publish your story, click the Publish button in top-right corner to bring up the publish menu.
  2. From this menu, you can optionally add topics, customize your title and subtitle, schedule to publish your post later, and more.
  3. In the Story preview section, you can change the preview image on your story, and customize your title and subtitle. Please note that your image must be added to your post if you want to set it as your featured image. Learn more.
  4. If you're enrolled in the Medium Partner Program, you can also select your story to be eligible for revenue based on the engagement your story generates once it's published. To make sure your story will be monetized, select the Paywall your story checkbox.
  5. When you're done making changes, click Publish now to make the story immediately visible on Medium and available for anyone to read.

What happens when you publish your story?

  • Your story will be displayed on your public profile page, and will be available for anyone to read.
  • Your story will be displayed on the homepage of people who follow you. Additionally, it might also appear in their email digests.
  • If you have email subscribers and have chosen to email them, it will be sent to their inbox. A short preview and link to the story will be sent if the story is metered. Learn more.
  • If your story is published in a publication, it will appear in its "Latest stories" view. Depending on the publication settings, it might also appear on the publication homepage or on its feature pages.
  • Additionally, if you're part of the Medium Partner Program and you set your story as eligible to earn money, your story will earn money based on engagement from Medium members. Learn more.
  • Finally, your published story is eligible for algorithmic distribution to readers and may be selected for additional featuring by our curation team.
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