Medium publications are collections of stories about a common theme or topic. They function as thriving editorial communities that connect writers with readers and to help great ideas find the audiences they deserve.
Please read the following guidelines for publications for tips on managing your publication.
Best practices for owners and editors
Adding editors and writers
Publications owners can add editors and writers to their staff; publications editors can add writers. This is a powerful tool for building your editorial community, but it should be used thoughtfully.
Medium offers an "open submissions" feature, which allows any writer to submit a story to your publication. We encourage you to use open submissions as your main way to bring in new writers.
Please do not add people in bulk or without a genuine editorial purpose, particularly to inflate a publication’s apparent size or reach. Adding people without additional communication is usually experienced as a form of spam.
Editing and collaboration
Publications are meant to be collaborative. Editors and writers have equal editing permissions, and we encourage them to use our private notes system to communicate. The best publications combine the strengths of writers and editors to improve every story.
Do not use editing permissions in ways that harm the writer's work. This includes: making major changes to a story without the writer's input, adding large footers or calls to action, removing a story from the paywall, or deleting a story without agreement from the writer.
Mentions and solicitation
At-mentions in a story are an effective way to communicate with your community of writers and highlight certain groups of contributors.
Responses and private notes are appropriate ways to reach out to writers whose work might be a good fit for your publication.
Please do not abuse mentions by mentioning uninvolved accounts or sharing at-mention lists. If someone asks you to stop mentioning them, respect that request. Do not use responses or private notes to contact writers in bulk or without a specific reason.
Friend Links
Publication owners and editors can create Friend Links for stories in their publications. Friend Links bypass the paywall and are meant to be shared with readers who don't have a Medium membership. They are a good way to grow your audience — readers who find great content this way may become members, which benefits both writers and publications.
Do not use Friend Links in ways that interfere with a writer's distribution choices or earnings—including posting them directly in the story itself.
Best practices for writers
Submitting to publications
Medium’s open submissions system makes it easy to find publications that are a good fit for your work and submit stories directly for consideration. Before submitting, take the time to find the publication that best matches the topic and tone of your story, and put your best work forward. Editors are more likely to accept stories that are a natural fit for their publication.
If a publication is closed to submissions, we ask that you respect that. Look for the publication’s guidelines and use the process they outline to ask to contribute.
Platform rules
Copyright and content licensing
As stated in our Terms of Service, Medium authors grant Medium a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid, and sublicensable license to display their content across Medium.com surfaces, including Publications on Medium. That license does not extend to Publication owners, editors, or any other staff.
If you move your publication to another website or platform, you may not republish, copy, or otherwise reproduce any stories from your publication there without the express permission of each story’s author. More broadly, you may not export, display, syndicate, or distribute content from your Publication on any non-Medium surface without clear permission from the copyright owner. You may not require authors to grant you any of these permissions in order to submit to or participate in your publication.
Third-party advertising
Medium does not allow you to include third-party advertising or sponsorships in stories. You may not advertise or promote third-party products, services, or brands through Medium posts, publications, or newsletters. This includes images that indicate brand sponsorship in a post, newsletter, or any element of your publication’s homepage, or as part of a publication name or logo. First-party advertising—that which is for your own product, brand, mailing list, event, or similar promotion—is allowed.
Additional Terms of Service or Policies
All Medium users accept the Medium Terms of Service. You may not require authors to agree to any additional Terms of Service to submit or participate in your publication. You may create submission criteria or content requirements that do not constitute Terms of Service.
Sale of Publication
You may not sell your publication. If you wish to transfer ownership of your publication to another Medium user, please contact our Support team.
Custom domains
Publication owners are able to attach a custom domain to their publication. Custom domains are intended to give your publication a distinct identity while remaining fully part of the Medium platform. If you point your custom domain away from your publication, we will disconnect it from Medium.
When operating a custom domain, you may not:
- Alter the look and feel or transform the content of the webpage, including by injecting ads, inserting tracking code, or altering the Medium look or feel;
- Use proxy servers or any other means to short-circuit our rules or circumvent user protections;
- Mislead users about what site they are on or what their actions will do; or
- Manipulate SEO or domain authority, including by altering or redirecting canonical URLs away from any URL generated by the author or medium.com.
Editor Partner Program
The Editor Partner Program allows editors of qualifying publications to earn from the stories they edit.
Editors may not earn by editing their own stories. This includes assigning stories to alternate accounts or any other account over which you have full or partial control. Creating additional writer accounts for the purpose of editing and claiming your own stories is a violation of the Editor Partner Program and Partner Program Policy.
For writers and editors both, purchasing external traffic and directing it at paywalled stories in your publication is not something we recommend. It won’t improve your earnings or distribution in any meaningful way, and low-quality traffic can actively harm your publication’s standing on Medium and in search.