Medium writers, you can now try out a new custom footer option that lives at the bottom of your stories. Set it up once, and it appears on all your stories. It’s a great way to:

• Point to your latest blog post
• Direct readers to your blog, book, or newsletter
• Promote your other social platforms
• And more — we can’t wait to see the creative ways you use it!

We know there are writers on Medium who just want to share stories without worrying too much about anything else, but we also know there are writers who want to take advantage of Medium’s built-in audience and simple publishing tools to build their business more seriously. Writers have been adding footers, cramming links in their bios (at least 50k+ of you use Medium to direct readers to your newsletter!), and promoting courses, books, newsletters, websites, and more on Medium for a long time.

We plan to charge for the custom footer feature, but want to make it available for all writers to get a chance to hear your feedback. As we look for new ways to support all kinds of writers, we’re exploring tools like this one that would be part of a future set of paid features for writers. Try it out and let us know what you think.

How exactly does Medium’s custom footer work?

Using the custom footer, you can:

• Choose between “contrast” or “subtle” themes to make your footer card stand out or blend in.
• Customize your bio text, beyond what your standard bio has.
• Add up to four buttons directing readers wherever you want.
• Update your social links. We currently support Bluesky, LinkedIn, Substack, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Threads, and X.

Anytime you update it in your settings, it will automatically be updated on all your stories. The custom footer is visible to any and all readers.

You can turn on and update your custom footer by going to Settings > Publishing > Manage Story Footer, or use this link. Please note: You can only set it up on Medium web right now, not on the app.

Supporting pro writers more

We love that Medium is the simplest, easiest place to get started writing and reach readers. But it’s also true that writing is one of the most compelling professional pitches you can give, and that writers use Medium in more serious, professional ways, too.

We see and hear every day how writers use Medium as a portfolio to support their career goals, businesses, side gigs, and more. Many Medium employees were hired off the strength of our writing! We want to build more tools to help support writers who want to go beyond casual posting and use Medium as a real avenue for professional growth.

As always, let us know if you have any questions in the responses. We can’t wait to hear what you think.

FAQ

What is the custom footer?

A customizable block that appears at the bottom of every story you publish. Set it up once, and it applies to every story you’ve published on Medium. When you update it in your settings, it will automatically update on every story.

How do I turn it on?

Go to Settings > Publishing > Manage Story Footer, or use this link. Setup is web-only for now.

What can I put in it?

We expect writers to add custom bio text, promote their course, newsletter, product, meetup, book, consultations, and more. You can also add up to eight social links: Bluesky, LinkedIn, Substack, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Threads, and X.

Who sees it?

Any reader who lands on your story.

Is it free?

Yes, for now, but we will charge for it in the future. As we experiment with features that will be part of a future set of paid features for writers, we wanted to make this one available to all writers to get your feedback and hear what you think. When we begin to charge for it, we’ll let you know beforehand.

Why is Medium building this?

Writers have used Medium to support real careers and businesses for a long time. The custom footer is the first tool built for that kind of writer, with more coming.

Where do I send feedback?
Leave a response on this story, or send us a note of feedback through the support desk here.

Try out custom footers on your Medium stories was originally published in The Medium Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi writers,

Happy September! Here is your list of Medium updates. Remember — if you’re reading this on the web, you can use the Table of Contents on the right to easily navigate this newsletter to whatever sections interest you most!

Medium Day 2026 is September 18 — save your spot!

On Friday, September 18, join us for Medium Day: over 12 hours of free virtual sessions on writing, storytelling, and community, running 8 am to 8 pm ET. Register here.

This year, Friends of Medium get exclusive access to attend a special talk on the State of Writing 2026, presented by VP of Content Scott Lamb. We worked with Harris Polling to survey writers across the internet, and separately polled our own Medium writers, so expect data-backed answers on what motivates people to write, how they feel about where writing is headed, and what they’re actually trying to get out of it.

Partner Program enrollment is instant now

We’ve streamlined the Partner Program enrollment flow. Instead of applying and waiting to hear back, you go through the flow and get a yes or no immediately, along with what’s missing if you don’t yet qualify. No more waiting in the dark.

If you’ve been putting off applying because you weren’t sure how, or if you’ve applied before but either didn’t hear back or weren’t sure why you didn’t get accepted, now’s the time to take another look. Here’s the link to enroll.

New on Medium: Making Topics more discoverable

Topic badges now show up at the top of stories, not just the bottom, so readers can tell what a piece is about at a glance; we’ve already seen reads pick up across Medium since making that change. Read more about that change here.

This isn’t the only change we’re making to topics: Look out for a newly designed topic page coming out shortly.

When writers on Medium think of discovery, they often think about their story getting “picked up” by our recommendation system and shown to readers Medium’s system thinks will be most interested in that story, either on the home feed or in the personalized Digest emails we send out.

Not many think of topic pages. This is a big blind spot! Your story is added to a topic page when you add a topic to that story. You can add up to five. Over half a million readers scan the topic pages (e.g. Medium.com/tag/writing) every month, looking for the latest stories to read. We hear from readers, especially those who read on Medium for professional reasons, that this is the best way to read cutting edge developments in their field.

We want to add an extra dimension to that utility — not just the most recent stories, but the best, regardless of how old they are.

In general, social media has a recency bias. It’s easy to find what people are engaging with right now but it’s harder to dig through the archives to find something great from 2019 or whenever. But just because your story was published months or years ago doesn’t mean it’s not worth discovering and reading today.

We’re launching the early redesign soon, but we’re planning to make more changes to the topic pages to make them into more of a catalogue, archive, and deep dive resource in addition to a place to see the latest writing on any topic.

September 2026 writing prompts

Need an idea for what to write about? Editors on Medium have been burning the midnight oil to bring you prompts. Here’s the full list of September prompts.

Thanks to everyone who sent one in this month. Find or participate in a prompt I missed? Reply to this email to let me know — I’d love to include as many prompts, across as many topics, as possible!

Spooky Storytime: October 29, 2026

On October 1 and October 15, we’ll put out some spooky Halloween-themed prompts for anyone who attends The Writers Circle. On October 29th, six lucky entrants will have the opportunity to read their story aloud at our first-ever Spooky Storytime event on October 29th.

How to enter:

1. Sign up and attend either the Oct 1st or October 15th session of The Writers Circle
2. Respond to one of the Spooky Storytime prompts
3. Publish your spooky story with the topic tag “Spooky Storytime”

We’ll look through all qualifying stories (less than 5 minutes long and meet our Distribution Guidelines) and notify selected writers on October 23. The reading happens on Zoom during Spooky Storytime and is open to all.

Look out for more details coming soon! For now, register for The Writers Circle and start getting into the spooky mood.

Upcoming events

• Medium Day — Friday, September 18, 8 am — 8 pm ET. From early light until it gets dark! Register here.
• The Writers Circle — Oct 1, 12 pm ET. Prompts, writing time, and a chance to connect with other writers and editors.
• Writing Hour — Every Thursday, 10 am ET. Cameras off, relaxing music, just write.
• Medium 101 Webinar — Wednesdays and Fridays. Send your newer writers! We cover formatting, tags, images, and all the basics.
• TK 101 webinar — Monthly demo of what our social writing app TK is all about, with time for a live Q&A at the end. Next one is October 13th at 1 pm ET.

As always, reply to this email with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in future issues.

Happy writing, no matter what time of day or night you open your draft.

– Zulie @ Medium

Writer Newsletter: What’s the value in an older but still great story? was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi editors,

Happy September! Here’s your monthly Medium update.

(As a reminder, you can easily navigate this story on the web using the Table of Contents feature on the right of your screen.)

Editor Partner Program: what’s changing, and why

As of September 1, we’re updating two of the criteria that determine Editor Partner Program eligibility. Read more in our blog post here.

We removed the “healthy distribution” requirement across your last six months. We’re also lowering the published-story cap from 300 to 100 stories a month, but only going forward, starting September 1. If you published over 100 stories in the past six months, that won’t affect your eligibility.

A few questions we’ve been hearing:

Q: Why remove the healthy distribution requirement?

Several of you told us it was confusing and frustrating to not get healthy distribution on stories, but without knowing what you could do to improve that. Our goal with the Editor Partner Program requirements is to reward the publications that help Medium thrive and grow, and to help publications that don’t yet qualify to get there. The Healthy Distribution qualification didn’t give editors useful information, and was pretty confusing to many of you, so we decided to scrap it.

Q: Why reduce the story cap?

This change came as a result of more data and reader feedback. Readers have told us that some higher-volume publications feel less curated, and we saw that reflected in our internal data.

Q: Will a publication’s newsletter count toward the story limit?

No, newsletters won’t count to the 100-story limit, only stories.

Read more in our blog post here.

Medium Day is September 18

Friday, September 18 is Medium Day, with Writing, Community, Platform, and Perspectives tracks. Come with an empty notebook and leave with something tangible to help you improve your life in some way, big or small.

New this year is our State of Writing 2026 report, presented by Scott Lamb. The talk is only available to Friends of Medium, but the report will be released publicly later that same day. It’s a good session to point your writers toward, especially anyone building an audience on Medium right now — consider sharing the registration link with your writers if you haven’t already. Expect data-backed answers to questions like:

• What motivates writers to write
• How writers feel about the outlook of writing
• What writers are aiming to accomplish through their writing
• And more: tools, audiences, money, reading, and beyond

We worked with Harris Polling to target writers from all over the country and internet, and separately polled our own Medium writers. It’s been very interesting to see how Medium writers differ from writers who primarily write elsewhere online!

New tools for managing your publication

A few editor improvements that reached your publication this month:

Check out your content calendar view. (Blog post here.) You can now choose to use a visual calendar that you set up and see your upcoming story schedule. When you schedule stories, they’ll show up on your calendar with the time they’re going live. You can also drag and drop those stories to another day.

Editors can now see and manage editors and writers more easily. You now have a new page to more easily see, add, and review all the editors and writers in your publication. Now, on the “Editors & writers” tab on your publication drop-down menu, you can not only add writers and co-editors, but also see their profile picture and bio in a searchable list. Plus, you can export them all via CSV.

We heard from editors with a lot of contributing writers and editors that the old way of doing it was a little unwieldy to manage — hard to see who was already there, no information beyond a handle like @zulie_at_medium, and if you wanted to remove a writer, you’d have to visually spot them first. Now, we hope it’s a bit simpler to manage your publication’s contributors.

Publications with just one editor now get that editor auto-assigned to new submissions instead of needing to manually claim them every time.

Submission inbox filters now persist, so if you find you always filter to approved writers or new writers, that’ll be your default view.

More of these improvements are in the pipeline.

New on Medium

In places other than your publication, we’re continuing to make Medium a better place for all your reading and writing needs. Here’s the list of this month’s improvements:

• Topic badges now show up at the top of stories, not just the bottom, so readers can tell what a piece is about at a glance. This resulted in an increase in reads across all of Medium!
• Medium Partner Program enrollment is now streamlined and gives you an instant yes or no. Basically, instead of needing to apply and wait, you can now go through the enrollment flow and get your answer immediately. This update is more for writers than editors, but I know editors often field questions about the Partner Program from writers, so I wanted to let you know.
• A sneak preview: look out for a newly designed topic page coming out this week!
• An even sneakier preview: rest your weary eyes on a long-awaited new feature, announced next month! 🌖

Call for your October prompts

If your publication is putting out writing prompts for October, tag me in the story (Zulie @ Medium), or reply to the Editor Newsletter email you received and I’ll include them in next month’s Writer Newsletter.

Thank you to all the editors who let me know about their September prompts! And if you don’t see your pub’s prompts in my September roundup, please reply to this email to let me know.

Need ideas? We’re planning on running a Spooky Storytime prompt for October through The Writers Circle, so feel free to get inspired by the spookiest month of the year! More details to come.

Upcoming events

• Medium Day — Friday, September 18, 8 am–8 pm ET. Register here.
• The Writers Circle — Oct 1, 12 pm ET. Prompts, writing time, and a chance to connect with other writers and editors.
• Writing Hour — Every Thursday, 10 am ET. Cameras off, relaxing music, just write.
• Medium 101 Webinar — Wednesdays and Fridays. Send your newer writers! We cover formatting, tags, images, and all the basics.
• TK 101 webinar — Monthly demo of what our social writing app TK is all about, with time for a live Q&A at the end. Next one is October 13th at 1 pm ET.

That’s it for September. As always, reply with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in a future newsletter.

Happy editing,

– Zulie @ Medium

Editor Newsletter: Have you checked out your publication’s new content calendar? was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When we launched our Editor Partner Program in July 2026, we knew there was a good chance there would be changes pretty early on, as we learned from the publications taking part in the program and heard from readers, writers, and editors about their experience.

That’s why in September, we are making two changes to the criteria for the Editor Partner Program:

• Removing the Healthy Distribution requirement
• Reducing the monthly story limit from 300 to 100

Starting in September, we’ll be onboarding publications that were previously disqualified in past months only for missing Healthy Distribution requirements. The 100-story limit will only apply going forward, starting in September 2026.

For example, if you published 101 stories in August, that won’t disqualify you for the month of August. If you did not meet the Healthy Distribution requirement in August 2026, that will not prevent you from qualifying for that month, either.

Why these changes?

Our goal with the Editor Partner Program is to encourage and reward the editors who bring value to Medium and the communities they build. When we launched the program in July, we wanted to hear from editors what worked, what didn’t, what could be improved. We also wanted to hear from readers about what publications they value and want to read more of, and find ways to reward those editors.

Editors told us the Healthy Distribution requirement was confusing and didn’t give them information that they could use to improve their publication. Again, we want the Editor Partner Program to reward and incentivize you, not be a source of frustration. So we decided to scrap this requirement.

We heard from readers — and corroborated with our own internal data — that publishing more than three stories a day from a publication was just overwhelming; readers stop reading that publication’s stories, or worse–unfollow it, mute it, and sometimes cancel their Medium membership.

What’s next?

We want to make the Editor Partner Program the best fit for as many publications as possible. Publications help make Medium work, bringing value to readers, writers, and the editors who build and work on publications. We’ve been investing in improving how publications work overall, for all editors, and we want to ensure that the Editor Partner Program serves the editors who are our partners in making Medium grow and succeed.

Thank you, again, for all you do to edit your publication. And thank you for the feedback you’ve already provided to help improve publications and our Editor Partner Program on Medium.

If you have any questions or feedback about the Editor Partner Program, please raise a ticket through our support desk here — we read and triage every ticket we get to make sure the right teams take the feedback into account! It’s part of how we came to these changes. And, as always, feel free to leave a response to this story.

We’re updating the Editor Partner Program qualifications in September 2026 was originally published in The Medium Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

See if you’re eligible right away, with no need to apply or wait.

Waiting is the worst part of applying for anything, and writers applying to join the Medium Partner Program told us the delay to find out if they’d been accepted was frustrating. They were right.

Now, if you’re interested in joining the Partner Program, you don’t need to fill out an application and wait for a response. Just go straight to the Partner Program enrollment page, and see right there whether you’re eligible, with no need to wait.

What makes you eligible to enroll in the Medium Partner Program:

• You’re a Medium member. You can become a member here, if you’re not already one.
• You’ve published at least one story.
• Your profile is complete, with a photo and a bio.
• Your bank is in a country eligible for payouts.
• You’re 18 or older.

You’ll also need to agree to two things: the Medium Partner Program Terms and the Content Eligible for the Paywall Policy.

Read the second one closely — paywalling a story that doesn’t qualify can put your enrollment at risk. Most common issues include paywalling fully AI-generated writing and stories about Medium.

Check your eligibility now.

If you qualify

You’ll see if you qualify immediately, and you can start paywalling for your stories from there, both new ones and stories you’ve already published. You’ll need to connect a Stripe account before Medium can pay you, but your stories start earning the moment they’re behind the paywall.

If you don’t qualify yet

If you don’t qualify, you’ll see what’s missing. Most requirements take a few minutes to fix — you might need to add a photo and write a bio, or publish the draft you’ve been sitting on. Then when you come back with all the requirements fulfilled, you’ll be able to enroll.

Not sure where to start? Here are our best practices for filling out your bio and publishing a story on Medium.

Looking for inspiration for your first post? Why not come to one of our Writers Circle events? You’ll get writing prompts, writing time, and space to connect with other Medium writers. Check out our Writers Circle topic page to see what attendees wrote after attending a Writers Circle.

Keep writing

Getting paid takes more than hitting publish. Successful writers in the Medium Partner Program share stories readers want to pay for.

Looking for resources? Our 10-step Writer Starter Kit walks you from your story idea to reaching readers, and beyond. Sign up and the first email lands in your inbox within a few hours. Unsubscribe any time.

See if you qualify to join the Partner Program.

The Medium Partner Program is open again, now with a faster and easier enrollment process was originally published in The Medium Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Our first annual State of Writing report. Friends of Medium get an exclusive first look.

8/27/26: The State of Writing 2026 Report will be available to all readers on the Medium Blog later on September 18. Friends of Medium will receive an exclusive first look during Scott Lamb’s live keynote at 10 am ET.

If you want to know what’s going on with writing in 2026, the best way to find out is to ask writers. We partnered with Harris Poll to survey nearly 1,000 U.S. writers, and combined those responses with a survey of Medium writers and our own internal data. The result is a first-of-its-kind report on how writing on the internet is changing right now, what writers are concerned about, excited about, and how they’re thinking about AI.

Medium’s Vice President of Content, Scott Lamb, will reveal the findings in a live keynote session only for Friends of Medium at Medium Day.

Register for Medium Day to access over 100 sessions. If you upgrade your membership to become a Friend of Medium, you’ll also get access to the Friend of Medium track, a downloadable copy of the full report, and our brand-new notes app, TK.

Upgrade your plan.

What’s in the report?

If you’re writing online in 2026, you’re contending with AI slop, a decline in Google search, and fewer places where your writing is welcome.

But on the other hand, it’s never been easier to write, publish, share your thoughts. There are more tools, apps, ideas, and platforms than ever before, all designed to help you write more. We’re excited about the writing revival we’re seeing here at Medium, and the survey results indicate there’s a lot of reason for optimism in the wider internet, too.

We polled writers about:

• What motivates writers to write
• How writers feel about the outlook of writing
• What writers are aiming to accomplish through their writing
• And more: tools, audiences, money, reading, and beyond

How can you access the report?

Friends of Medium will have an exclusive first look at the report. If you’re already a Friend of Medium, you’ll get the report on Medium Day, right after our keynote at 10 am ET.

Not a Friend yet? Upgrade your membership here.

Friends of Medium also are invited to a Friends-only track of interviews, workshops, and panels about writing in the age of AI, including getting to hear from experts like John Battelle on staying relevant in the AI-driven web, Gab Ferree on crafting an AI transparency note your readers will respect, and Ed Batista and Tarikh Korula on turning 20 years of writing into an AI coach, among others.

Register for Medium Day and upgrade now to join us for the full Friends of Medium track and more. We can’t wait to see you there.

We asked 1,000+ writers about the state of writing in 2026: AI, writing for profit, and more was originally published in The Medium Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi editors,

Happy August! Here’s what’s going on this month:

• Editors can now set controls on what stories can be submitted and share a reason when declining a submission
• Readers are now prompted to follow you when you share stories externally
• A clearer view into where your publication stands with the Editor Partner Program
• Nominate a fellow editor for an Editor Award
• Call for September writing prompts (and send me your August prompts)
• Upcoming events–Medium 101, The Writers Circle, and Writing Hour

Add controls to your submissions, and share why you declined a story

Medium publications make Medium go around. We hope these changes give editors more time to work on promising stories they’re excited about and give writers more insights into how to make their stories a great fit for their dream publication.

Two updates to your submission inbox this month:

• You can set optional controls on what stories writers can submit to your publication. For example, you can say, “the story must be at least a 5-minute read,” or “the story must include an image.” As the editor, you can choose to set some, all, or none of these controls. If you do set them, submissions have to clear those criteria before they can submit the story to you. Read more here.
• When you decline a submission, you can now choose an optional reason, like “quality concerns” or “not a topic fit,” and that reason gets sent along to the writer in the email letting them know you passed on their story. Read more here.

You can set up submission controls by going to your publication inbox and selecting “View settings.” Decline reasons will appear on any story you individually decline (that is, not with the bulk-decline action.)

Both of these improvements are geared towards helping editors more easily communicate with writers, and hopefully in the long run, end up with more better-fit stories for your publications.

As a writer, I hate the experience of getting a rejection with no context. (And I remember being a new writer trying to learn how to navigate the publication ecosystem — I got a lot of those back then!) As an editor, I remember getting flooded with submissions that just didn’t meet the criteria for the pub I helped edit, Better Marketing, but not having time to leave a private note on all of them (or not being sure if the writer would even read the private note).

With both of these improvements, writers will get much clearer feedback — sometimes before they’ve even submitted! — on what they can do to make their story a better fit for your publication.

• Do I have to provide a reason for declining the story? No, it’s totally optional. The default is no reason given, and you can leave it that way if you’d rather not say why you’re passing on a submission.
• Do I need to set controls on submissions? No, they are also fully optional. Pick and choose the ones that work for your publication.
• Does giving a reason work on bulk decline? No, you can only give a decline reason on individual story submissions.
• Why these reasons and controls? We spoke with editors about the most common reasons they decline stories from their publications. Think there’s one we missed, or have other thoughts you want to share? Send us your feedback here. Both the submission controls and reason for decline features are under active development as we learn from how editors use it.
• Where can I read more about these changes? Read our blog post on submission controls here. Here’s our blog post on the decline reason. For how-tos, the help desk is a great resource–here’s a link on setting your submission controls. If you’re interested in a behind-the-scenes look, Medium engineer Scott Batson wrote about his engineering process in a note on TK. TK is now open to Friends of Medium.
• What’s next? More ways to help editors manage their inbox! Anything specific you’d love? Raise a ticket with your feedback. The last few months of improvements have all been based on the feedback editors have shared with us. We’re excited to do more work to make submissions and publications better.

External readers are now prompted to follow you when you share stories

Now, when you share a story externally to another platform like Reddit or LinkedIn, logged-in readers will be prompted to follow you, as the tastemaker who shared the story.

Here’s how this works: I’m browsing Reddit, when I see someone shared a Medium link. I click on the link because it matches my interests, and I’m prompted to follow the person who shared the link. I do so.

Now when that person reposts, claps for, or highlights stories, those stories will also be recommended to me on Medium. My reading experience is better because I’m following not just great writers, but the people who discover and recommend new great writers, too.

Why prompt readers to follow the person sharing the story? Because readers value curation. Finding someone who can reliably recommend great stories is a huge benefit for many readers, so we wanted to give options to those readers to continue getting great recommendations when someone shares a valuable story.

Medium editors play a huge role in helping Medium recommend stories to readers, so we want to give readers more ways to stay up to date with what you’re reading, curating, and sharing from your publication and beyond on Medium.

A clearer view into your Editor Partner Program status

We heard from a lot of you that the Editor Partner Program qualification dashboard didn’t provide enough information about how to qualify for the Editor Partner Program. We’ve replaced it with a more detailed view that shows exactly where your publication stands against each qualifying criteria.

You can check it out anytime under Manage publication > Editor Partner Program.

Read more about that here.

Nominate a fellow editor for an Editor Award

Do you know an editor who takes a story to the next level, consistently uplifts newer writers, or champions voices that might otherwise go unheard?

Nominate them for an Editor Award here.

The categories are:

• Story Whisperer Award: For the editor whose notes consistently uncover hidden potential in a piece.
• Champion of Emerging Voices Award: For the editor who consistently uplifts newer or lesser-known writers.
• Community Builder Award: For the editor who cultivates a supportive, collaborative environment across the team.
• Editor’s Editor Award: For the editor other editors turn to for advice, second reads, or mentorship.
• Equity in Action Award: For the editor who intentionally supports and amplifies underrepresented writers, helping ensure a broader range of perspectives are seen and heard across Medium.

Nominations for this year’s Editor Awards are still open until August 28th. Winners will be celebrated as part of the closing ceremony at Medium Day on September 18. Read more on that below.

Medium Day 2026 is September 18

Registration is open for Medium Day, our free virtual event on Friday, September 18. This year’s lineup includes a session built specifically for you: Publication Tools for Editors, a demo of what’s new and what’s coming for managing your publication.

We’ll also be announcing this year’s Editor Award winners during the closing ceremony, so if you nominated someone (or you’re hoping to be surprised), tune in live.

Register here.

Call for September prompts

If your publication is running writing prompts for September, tag me in the story (Zulie @ Medium) or reply to this email, and I’ll include them in next month’s Writer Newsletter.

If you published an August prompt that’s not on the list, let me know and I’ll add it. Thakn you to all the editors who sent me theirs already!

Upcoming events

The Writers Circle: August 13th, 12pm ET. Prompts, writing time, and a chance to connect with other writers and editors.

Writing Hour: Every Thursday, 10am ET.

Medium 101 Webinar: Wednesdays at 12 pm ET and Fridays at 9 am ET. Send your newer writers to learn about formatting, topics, images, and all the basics.

That’s it for August. As always, reply with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in a future newsletter.

Happy editing,

– Zulie @ Medium

Editor Newsletter: Give a reason for declining, a clearer EPP dashboard, and Editor Awards was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi writers,

What’s new on Medium this month? We’ve been focusing on small improvements that make Medium better for reading, writing, and working on publications.

TL;DR version of this newsletter:

• We moved topic pills to the top of your story to give readers more control and increase reads — it worked!
• Add a note to your repost (plus exclusive stats for newsletter readers, basically readers are more likely to stay and read a story when it’s in their feed due to being reposted, versus any other reason)
• Stories now automatically include a Table of Contents
• Pub editors can now set controls on what stories can be submitted to their pubs (think needs a subtitle, image, minimum read time) and can optionally add a reason why they declined a story.
• Nominate an editor for an Editor Award
• The Medium Day 2026 schedule is live, and we have a new FoM-exclusive track, focused on writing in the age of AI. Read more here.
• Readers are now prompted to follow you when you share stories externally
• Get your August 2026 writing prompts here
• Upcoming events–Medium 101, The Writers Circle, and Writing Hour

Topics are now at the top of your story

We’re always working on getting better story recommendations to readers. We’ve been exploring more reader-focused control (like the topic muting we introduced earlier this year) to help make sure the right stories reach the readers most likely to read them.

You may have noticed that the topic buttons are now at the top of your stories, and are more obviously clickable for readers to follow. They used to be at the bottom of a story.

The theory was that by making them more prominent and follow-able, readers would take more control in following topics they liked, which would in turn improve their recommendations.

Friendly reminder: always add up to five good-fit topics to your stories! They help Medium recommend those stories to relevant readers. More info here.

The early experiment results were very promising, showing an increase in readers following topics and, more importantly, reading more of your stories on Medium. So we’re releasing it more widely.

It’s a small change, but just one of many we’re making to make the Medium reading experience better, and bring more readers to your stories.

Add context to your repost with a note

When we launched reposting earlier this year, the idea was simple: if you read something great, you could share it with your followers in one click. You all jumped on it, and have used the repost feature over 250,000 times!

Now, starting last month, you can add a note when you repost a story. Personally, I’ve been using them to add context on why I think it’s a great story for my followers to read. Kind of like the note librarians or book store employees leave on books!

I’ve loved seeing all the different ways readers and writers are using reposts. Some are just simple recommendations like, “Worth reading.” Others add extra context from their personal lived experience as to why it’s a great read. Some folks add their favorite quote from the piece as their repost note. Editors in particular are using reposts as a way to drive more readers to their pub’s stories.

My personal favorite reader response so far: “Great addition to my favorite new feature, thanks Medium.” (Thank you, @lindalockeca!)

Read the full announcement.

As newsletter readers, I wanted to share some exclusive fun stats with you:

• Viewers who come from clicking on a reposted story in their feed read a story about 28% more often than average, compared to other reasons for clicking on a story in their feed.
• Repost viewers tend to stay on a story about 36% less often than average readers.

Basically, when readers get that extra context about why to read a story, even if the extra context is just, “This person in your network recommends this story,” they are more likely to read a story. This hypothesis is a big reason why we invested time and resources into building reposting, so it’s great to see it confirmed. We’re continuing to work on making reposting better, so keep your eyes open for more to come.

All stories with headers and subheaders now have a built-in Table of Contents

Read the blog post here, read the behind-the-scenes engineering post here, and if you’re a TK user, read the behind-the-scenes-behind-the-scenes note here.

Basically, it’s been possible to make a Table of Contents for your stories with headers and subheaders as long as Medium has existed, but it was really hacky and a pain to do, or required a third-party Chrome extension.

Now, all stories with headers and subheaders have a Table of Contents automatically built into the story.

We got some great questions on the announcement blog post that I wanted to answer here:

1. Do I have to do anything to add this to my story? No! It’s built automatically using headers and subheaders from your story.
2. Will this affect my earnings? No. We looked into this extensively before and after launching since obviously that’s top of mind for many Medium writers. Read more in the engineering blog if you’re interested.
3. Will this work retroactively on older stories? If they have headers and subheaders, yes.
4. When is this coming on mobile? Right now this is web-only, but we’re planning on releasing a mobile version soon. The engineering blog has more details.
5. How can I see the table of contents in my draft before I publish? If you view it as a draft link, you’ll be able to get a preview. Go to the top three dots of the story you’re working on, click “Share draft link,” and paste that link into your browser window.

What’s new for publication submissions?

I am fanatical about the benefits of submitting to publications. It’s, hands down, the best and quickest way to get interested readers to your story, as well as a way to get feedback — positive and negative! — on your writing, and a place to join a community. I’ve written about the pros and cons of submitting to publications here, if you’re interested.

Side note: writers always ask, “Is it required?” No, definitely not! Many, many stories on Medium find their audience without publications. But it’s so much easier and a much nicer experience if you get your story accepted to a publication that has a pre-existing audience of followers who care about your story’s topic.

Back when I edited Better Marketing, in my pre-Medium employee days, we’d often get submissions that just didn’t even clear the lowest possible bar. But I also remember, as a new writer, having no idea what a publication was or how they worked and not understanding why I was getting rejected so much.

What’s the answer to both problems? More communication. Here’s what’s new:

New submission controls

Starting a week ago, editors are able to set controls on their submissions. For example, editors could say: your story needs to have a subtitle, be at least a certain length, include an image, before you can even submit. We chose these based on speaking with editors about the most common reasons they reject stories.

You’ll be able to see the checklist on the pre-publish page, just before you submit. Of course, I highly recommend you carefully read the submission guidelines first, but I know from experience that it’s sometimes easy to miss a particular requirement, or it gets changed and you don’t realize. Now you can easily meet the basic requirements editors want for stories in their pub.

Read more here.

New optional decline reasons

Second, and this is hot off the press, editors can now (optionally) give feedback to explain why they rejected your story. That reason, if editors choose to give one, is included in the email you get on your submission’s status.

Again, we hear frequently from writers how frustrating it is to get a “no” with no reason why. And we hear from editors that they just don’t have time to leave private notes on all stories that aren’t a great fit, or that writers don’t see the private notes.

Read more here.

Medium publications make Medium go around. We hope these changes give editors more time to work on promising stories they’re excited about and give writers more insights into how to make their stories a great fit for their dream publication.

Nominate an editor for an Editor Award

Do you know an editor who takes your story to the next level, consistently uplifts newer writers, or champions voices that might otherwise go unheard?

Nominate them for an Editor Award here.

The categories are:

• Story Whisperer Award: For the editor whose notes consistently uncover hidden potential in a piece.
• Champion of Emerging Voices Award: For the editor who consistently uplifts newer or lesser-known writers.
• Community Builder Award: For the editor who cultivates a supportive, collaborative environment across the team.
• Editor’s Editor Award: For the editor other editors turn to for advice, second reads, or mentorship.
• Equity in Action Award: For the editor who intentionally supports and amplifies underrepresented writers, helping ensure a broader range of perspectives are seen and heard across Medium.

Nominations for this year’s Editor Awards are still open until August 28th. Winners will be celebrated as part of the closing ceremony at Medium Day on September 18. Read more on that below.

Who’s speaking at Medium Day 2026?

The whole theme of Medium Day this year is discovery. This year’s speaker lineup will let you take that opportunity in a dozen different directions. Learn from scientists, founders, poets, and a few hundred years of combined Medium experience, all in one day.

On September 18, close to 100 writers, experts, and Medium staffers will lead sessions across four tracks: Craft, Perspectives, Platform, and Community. Here’s a first look at who’s speaking.

Register now!

We’re also launching a fifth track, exclusive to Friends of Medium, all about different perspectives on how to write in the era of AI. Hear from:

• Principal designer manager Ana Sofia Gonzalez on building an intentional AI design framework that helps you delegate and accelerate the ideas only you can bring
• Writer, entrepreneur and investor John Battelle on navigating the shift to an AI-driven web — how you get discovered, stay relevant, and why asking good questions is your edge
• Data scientist Dr. Chantel A. Perry on how developers can build AI systems reliable enough to take their name on
• Executive coach Ed Batista and coach and founder Tarikh Korula on how they turned 20 years of writing into an AI coach and what they learned in the process
• Writer Joan Westenberg on why caring is your competitive edge in the AI era and how to use it in practice.
• Principal software engineer Moishe Lettvin on how to use Skills in Medium’s new app TK to turn your messy to-dos into simple automated tasks that handle themselves

Read more here.

Readers are now prompted to follow you when you share stories

Now, when you share a story externally to another platform like Reddit or LinkedIn, logged-in readers will be prompted to follow you, as the tastemaker who shared the story.

Here’s how this works: I’m browsing Reddit, when I see someone shared a Medium link. I click on the link because it matches my interests, and I’m prompted to follow the person who shared the link. I do so.

Now when that person reposts, claps for, or highlights stories, those stories will also be recommended to me on Medium. My reading experience is better because I’m following not just great writers, but the people who discover and recommend new great writers, too.

Why prompt readers to follow the person sharing the story? Because readers value curation. Finding someone who can reliably recommend great stories is a huge benefit for many readers, so we wanted to give options to those readers to continue getting great recommendations when someone shares a valuable story.

We know many of you play a huge role in helping Medium recommend stories to readers, so we want to give readers more ways to stay up to date with what you’re reading.

August Writing Prompts

Thanks, as always, to the editors who pull these together! If there are any I missed, don’t hesitate to email me or tag me in your prompt story.

Here’s the list of August 2026 writing prompts from Medium editors.

Upcoming events

The Writers Circle: August 13th, 12pm ET. Prompts, writing time, and a chance to connect with other writers and editors.

Writing Hour: Every Thursday, 10am ET.

Medium 101 Webinar: Wednesdays at 12 pm ET and Fridays at 9 am ET. Send your newer writers to learn about formatting, topics, images, and all the basics.

That’s it this month.

Happy writing,

Zulie @ Medium

Writer Newsletter: This small design experiment increased reads on Medium was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You don’t need a plan. You don’t need a prompt. You don’t even need to turn your camera on. You just need an hour to write.

Writing Hour is Medium’s weekly, no-frills co-writing session on Zoom. Every Thursday, you can join a quiet Zoom full of writers, listen to some lo-fi music, and actually write.

How it works

• Show up. Join late or leave early, it’s your hour to use however you need.
• Cameras and mics off by default. This isn’t a meeting. Nobody’s watching you type.
• No prompts required. Work on your draft, your newsletter, your novel, your notes-to-self. Whatever you’re writing, this is the space for it.
• Share what you’re writing in the chat. Feeling chatty? Say hi to your fellow writers in the chat or focus on the page.

Register Now!

Bring your coffee, mute your notifications, and let’s write.

– Medium Team

P.S.: We’re also looking for writers like you to host one of future Medium Writing Hours! If that sounds like something you might be interested in, let us know.

Join Medium Writing Hour was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When’s the last time you got to hang out with a Medium writer?

The Writers Circle is Medium’s bi-weekly live community event, where you can write alongside other writers and actually talk about the craft together.

How it works

• Pick a prompt. You’ll get a few writing prompts to choose from. Choose one that speaks to you.
• Write for 20 minutes. Write what comes to mind. Keep it short and sweet or get your ideas flowing for later.
• Talk about writing in small groups. This is the heart of it. You’re not reading your work for critique, you’re talking through the experience of writing with people who get it.
• Meet editors and fellow writers. Publication editors lead small group discussions, so there are never any worries about breaking the ice first.

You don’t have to take our word for it. One first-timer showed up unsure she was even “a writer yet.” She left with this: “The session was very welcoming and inspiring. I wrote my first words for Medium using one of the Writer Prompts and selected Publish!”

Ready to meet Medium’s writer community? Sign up today.

– Medium Team

P.S.: Want to get involved further? We’re also looking for volunteers to co-host The Writers Circle with us and help make these welcoming, inspiring conversations happen!

Meet our community at The Writers Circle was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.