BTVU

"BTVU" stands for Before The Vocal Update. This seems like forever ago, but I am now in Vocal poverty, when I used to be awash with coffee money from my Vocal earnings and tips, but thanks to Vocal deliberately locking the door on me and many others my coffee money has to come from other sources.

Next week I get a payment of over £60 from Vocal Adsense on my blog, Seven Days In, which you can check and see all the pop up advertising that brings in my coffee money there.

So you can see I am not going to starve, and this has only picked up since Vocal, for me, effectively went down.

I think we all remember what we had on Vocal, but you had to be there to truly appreciate it. There were so many good things.

While the editor was basic, it was reliable, and you could present your stories, poetry and articles safely and easily, and it was easy to include pictures, videos and external links.

Stories were published almost immediately, sometimes ridiculously fast, almost published before you finished writing them

You can do it now, but to me, bringing up the options seems so cumbersome, especially if you want to do an embedded link.

We also had Creator Chats where we could exchange ideas and correspond in virtual real time with Vocal, but we haven't had one of those since 2024:

There were also Tips and Guides which regularly featured Vocal Creators (including me), but there has been nothing new added for three years. Most of the articles in there are still useful, but while I write a lot of guides and useful Vocal information, Vocal itself no longer acknowledges them, although most creators do.

We also used to be able to raise a helpdesk ticket, and Vocal has removed that, with no explanation. This was something many of us used to use, but now, if you weren't there, you will not know what I am talking about.

Now the only option we have is to email Vocal and Justin and hope that you get a response, but there is no certainty that it will be acknowledged. These are the only two email addresses that I have.

[email protected]

[email protected]

As I say, Vocal used to be a total joy to be on, the community were hugely supportive, as were Vocal themselves, but as Vocal seem to have withdrawn from connecting with us, the community seems to have withdrawn as well, with people just leaving, and not taking an interest in others' work.

Then the free members, whose work brings in readers to Vocal, have their 0.3c per read stopped, which means that a lot may just give up on sharing their work on the platforms. Vocal used to be a platform for everyone, but now it is just for those who pay for their subscriptions.

I know free users can be awarded Top Stories, but are you really going to write in the hope that you will get some coffee money because you were chosen as a Top Story? It used to be, for free users, a Top Story was a cherry on the cake, but now the cake has been taken away.

I am one of many who cannot be verified, and this week I discovered this:

Because I cannot get verified, I cannot request a withdrawal, and even tips that are sent to me are not being sent to my Stripe account, so they must be sitting in Vocal's account. The article includes screenshots.

I don't know if I will ever be verified, but I know it is Vocal that is the problem.

I remember when Vocal was damned near perfect, that was before this upgrade, before July 1st 2026, but I suppose you had to be there to really appreciate it.