A Proposal for Vocal to Consider
MVGA!
A Proposal for Vocal to Consider
In the spirit of Misty Rae’s Make Vocal Great Again (MVGA) campaign. As a long-time member of the platform, I would also like to see it succeed. This is my brainstorm looking for input. Do you have additions?
The concept = reward readers!
Recognizing readers, in turn, will provide greater rewards for creators, especially those creating quality content consistently, which, in turn, brings more members to Vocal, which, in the end, creates unlimited potential for Vocal to increase the value of its “bottom line.”
Vocal has done some great things in an effort to improve the platform over the last couple of years, but in other areas, they have failed and appear to be losing ground. One of those areas in which they desperately need to improve, seems to be in attracting enough readers to make creating content – especially “quality” content – worthwhile for creators. For many of us, it’s an unbalanced effort to create content and still work to promote our own creations, while intending to also support fellow creators. The effort greatly outweighs the reward at this time.
Now, I am no numbers person, but I am a creator looking for a reliable audience, as are the majority of the creators here. I am also a reader and would love to feel more inclined to send financial reward to creators I appreciate. Being financially rewarded as a reader would help me feel inspired do so. Offering simple financial reward to readers, would also attract a greater reader-based audience for whom to create. That’s inspiring as a creator! More eyes on my words, and a greater opportunity for reward.
Not a concept like the ridiculous Leaderboard. Not anything like that, which encourages divisiveness and shallow intentions, instead of a supportive community. Personally, I am not a competitive person (except with myself.) Yes, I like to win, but its never been at the expense of camaraderie. Although, it seems turning most things into a game or competition is trending now, I can’t feel good about it. Do something different.
My thoughts on how this might work:
- Reward readers a nominal financial incentive for reading and engaging completely and intelligently and comprehensively. Somehow, the Vocal platform would encourage an audience to actually read and not skim works.
- Encourage readers to subscribe, share, comment or “like” the creators they wish to support. Support doesn’t have to cost a thing! But is welcome encouragement for a creator to create more reliable, quality content. This type of non-direct ask for support would help readers feel more inclined to tip their favorite creators.
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This is my idea toward Misty’s campaign to “Make Vocal Great Again!” which she put forth in this article:
ETA: And here's a link to Thavien Yliaster's article explaining an option for how this might work:
I have been a writer on the Vocal+ platform for three years. In that time, my writing has improved drastically, my subscriber number has grown considerably, yet my number of reads has declined drastically with the growth of the platform. Is this a relatable experience? It doesn’t seem to make much sense. I’d like to remedy that in place of finding another option, hence my idea for Vocal to consider for attracting a readership for its creators, beyond the limits of appealing only to its internal creators/readers.
Here is the link to my profile:
Thank you for reading! Add your own insights to the comments below! Do you think rewarding readers would be helpful to the platform, and to creators? In what ways would you like to see this incorporated?
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About the Creator
KJ Aartila
A writer of words in northern WI with a small family and a large menagerie.
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Comments (17)
Great ideas from everyone. Not meaning to be stupid, but can writers still be in the readers forum.
I suggest we also need to market our writings ourselves. No fee to the reader. That would not work. But tips on how to market ourselves to the public on social media. I actually had cards made up from Vista Print promoting myself with a link in the card to Vocal and my profile. I handed out five cards yesterday. Another wag is to connect a personal website to your page on Vocal. I like to go with the flow with my art or writing. Sometimes I personally have to conceptualize a story, write down my ideas then create. Yes the trend is games and compitation today more than back in the day. But not really it's just we are in the age of AI and computers. I remember the rat race in Hollywood working there. Competition was everywhere. Our society has changed. There are people who love games and competitions. For me at 74 I personally love to write and create. I have a focus to write about. So perhaps tips on marketing. Just sayin. Nice to meet you. You are wonderful
We need some way to attract readers who are not also writers, in other words! An audience of other creatives might benefit from reading through Vocal for ideas. Painters, filmmakers, musicians, performers, all are inspired by literature and literature by them. Food for thought!
Reward readers a fee. I'm so sorry Keila but I don't quite understand that 😅 Fee is usually something that we have to pay, no? Did you mean an incentive? If yes, how would that be rewarded if it isn't like the Leaderboard? If no, then did you mean like what Misty mentioned below? Like how it's done over at Medium where we have to pay to read? I'm truly very sorry for all my questions, I just wanna make sure I understand what you mean. As for the Leaderboard, I do appear often under Most Supportive Commenter but that is mainly due to me having a lot of time to read. I've been reading everyone's stuff ever since I joined in February 2022, but the Leaderboard was only introduced in June/July 2023. What I'm trying to say is, I'm not reading because I want to be on the Leaderboard but simply because love reading. I would still be reading everyone's stuff even if the Leaderboard didn't exist. As for the reads, yes, it all depends on how much we promote our stuff. And sometimes it's just so exhausting. I wish Vocal would do some SEO magic or something, lol. But before that, I would really love them to get rid of all the frauds who are posting AI-Generated content. But I digress. I'm so sorry, I don't have any suggestions but please know that I'm on your side! So glad you wrote this! 🥰🥰🥰 Also, I was so happy to see you're accepting comments on this piece! I've missed talking to you!
Interesting thought. What would it mean simply to sacrifice a portion of our earnings (e.g., making it 0.5 cents per read for Vocal+ members rather than 0.6 cents) & shift it to the reader (e.g., earning them 0.1 cent per story read) or perhaps making it a percentage shift depending upon time spent, interactions, etc. (otherwise we're going to have a lot of folks wanting to read nothing but Haikus & Senryus).
Interesting!!! I am not going to play the Monday night quarterback. Reads come from writers on the platform. Some writers read more than others. (1) Writers are recognized and rewarded by winning a challenge - competive! (2) Writers are recognized and rewarded by the Top Story. - competitive. (3) Writers are recognized and rewarded by Leaderboard - competitive Of the three, Leaderboard is the only one that recognizes readers. I have seen Vocal posts promoting. stories. Am I the only one?
Totally agree. The way it is now I’m lucky to get one person to read my posts.Not likely to encourage people to join the platform!
My issue with the Leaderboard is that introducing monetary incentives will almost always incentivize people to do things for the wrong reasons. Given how little Vocal appears to be able to police content and comments these days, I highly doubt there'd be much enforcement to ensure folks are "engaging completely and intelligently and comprehensively." But, if it means more money for us and, by extension, me, I might just forget this counterpoint ;) Either way, if you really want to get their attention, a little rebranding might go a long way. Borrowing just a smidge of inspiration from Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report era, it's now "Vocal Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't." Jeremy and Justin would eat that up
Unless Vocal is the economy of scale (read a big publishing house), I don't see how rewarding readers with a small fee will help their current business model. This is what I've noticed in my 3 years here, too: it's mostly writers reading other writers. I think Vocal should take a little more of the burden off our shoulders of promoting our own work and start acting as a real publisher. They don't have to become Penguin overnight, but they can start with something small like putting together an annual anthology of Vocal authors' best work and publishing it on Amazon and promoting it on GoodReads and other reader platforms. Because honestly, as a writer with a full time job I don't have time to promote my work outside of Facebook and my family and friends. But Vocal now has enough brand recognition to start doing that.
Definitely agree with this -Great idea to offer Vocal as a reader only option. Its hard becasue I love writing and would like a gew more readers but don't feel comfortable throwing links everywhere.I also genuinely love reading so balancing all is difficult. I despise I just skim read your stuff comments. Rather you just ddn't bother to be honest, not like the reads are going to count towards half a cent any way x
I'm relatively new to the platform, yet these seem like good suggestions to me. Having the app is good for readers. Getting paid for the reads, we forget we may get dozens of views and only one or two reads. How to get more people to read long-form, good question, maybe a very small reward would work. Readers may then be more superficial, yet it would grow the platform.
I hear ya, I wish I had something useful to suggest. 🤷🏼♀️
Thank you for the mention, glad to see someone picking up the torch. I like the rewarding readers idea. I'm not sure what that would look like, but my mind is percolating. The first one I have is sort of stealing from Medium's model a bit, but tweaking it, maybe having a separate membership tier for readers who just want to read, not create. Still offer free reads, but only a limited number, like 10, before the paywall kicks in. A Vocal Reader's Club, it could be cheap, like $4 a month or something, and the money from that could a) be an additional stream of revenue for the company and b) some of it could be put back into creators in the form of a higher per read payment, because let's face it, we get peanuts. I HATE the leaderboard. I know what they were trying to do, but it's a big clique, and well...yawn....Hell, if I want to get most supportive, what stops me from going in pretending to read a ton of stories and making generic comments, you know aside from me not being an asshole? Anyway, those are my initial thoughts. Maybe something better will come to mind after I've given it some deeper consideration.
This is a great idea (also yes that has been my experience my reads are way down compared to just a year ago.) I hope they take your feedback!
A small fee to read is a great idea. The leaderboard "most supportive" only works for people who have time, and yes, creates competitiveness. As for subscriptions, I don't pay much heed to those numbers. I have over 700 but only a miniscule number of them actually read my work.
The focus on building a community that appreciates and values content is crucial. Your suggestions aim to create a positive and encouraging atmosphere, moving away from competitive elements like the Leaderboard.
Readers do get awarded on the leaderboard. Join discord and Instagram they help me promote my stories for more reads. Certain of the year there are low reads. The people I know who get a lot of read promote their stories.