5 innovative publishing platforms for aspiring writers

Gone are the days when the possibility of publishing and promoting your stories or poems was a herculean task. With the provision of free publishing platforms on the web, writers can come out of the shadows to showcase their work more openly and with minimal constraints.

Just about anyone these days is a writer. From something as common as a Tweet, to a Facebook status update, to blogging, people are writing. Be it the reviews of the latest tech, opinions on political events, or everybody’s personalised version of Bridget Jones’ diary, the internet has many writing and publishing platforms. Picking up on this writing habit, several websites were formed to cater to budding writers to share their work with the world.

Image : Shutterstock

Aside from the popular platforms like WordPress, Tumblr, or Google’s Blogger, here’s a list of five common, but innovative, websites that publish and promote content for aspiring writers.

Campus Diaries

Let’s start from the bottom. If you’re a student, you might be looking for ways to publish and promote your content. Campus Diaries is one such platform for student writers. “We are on a mission to connect 100 million students with each other, academia and companies across the world,” claims Campus Diaries on its website. Apart from the writing and publishing aspect, Campus Diaries has an interesting interface, featuring multimedia elements that give it quite a sophisticated look.

Medium

If you’re looking to publish content without being overwhelmed by the complicated functioning of websites like WordPress, Medium is a good option. Founded by Evan Williams, Co-founder of Twitter, Medium is a simple and viable platform if you want to build on your visibility. With its resemblance to Twitter’s microblogging, pint-sized content can be published quickly and with ease. Medium, like most of its counterparts, has a huge list of communities a user can join and follow. You can also personalise your content by editing the layout and applying headers. Medium is most appropriate for writers who are starting off and want to experiment with blogging.

Wix

Suppose you’ve come a long way and intend to get serious with publishing your work, Wix is one way to go. It is a very good option for writers who want their blogs to have the sophisticated look of a website without the professional know-how of web development. Writers can decorate their websites with various design options. It is a widely used by writers who want to create portfolios of their work. It is quite a promising platform to make connections with industry experts as well.

Squarespace

If you’ve progressed onto creating quality content, Squarespace can help make a difference in showcasing your work. It is also a huge bonus if you’re big on aesthetics. It features several options to design and edit layouts to adorn your content. Every icon or template used to embellish the content is responsive on both desktop and mobile devices. This makes a huge difference while sharing the blog or website. Like Wix, Squarespace doesn’t require you to have any working knowledge of website development and provides you with a website that looks professional.

Svbtle

It is not uncommon for a writer to suffer from writer’s block, having starting trouble or losing a brilliant idea that lasts for a fleeting moment. For such cases, Svbtle is a unique platform that helps you capture your ideas and curate them until you are ready to materialise them. The website claims that the dashboard is designed to work the same way your brain does. Its writing interface is very simple without the several tools that are present on most writing interfaces of other websites. Svbtle is a paid website with a 30-day trial period. But they have made a “risky promise” to keep all published content on the site indefinitely, which can be a huge perk for many writers.

We hope this list gives you the opportunities you need to fuel your writing ambitions.