15 Days on Vocal: What I've Learned

On February 18th, 2021, I became an active member on Vocal. I was lured in by an Instagram add that featured one of the challenges that was available for writers to enter in.

$20,000 dollars for a short story about a little black book? Yeah, I’ll give it a shot. I’ve never been interested in being a writer before, but I am two things. A book reader and an overthinker. Those two together means that I have a lot of thoughts in my head, and a desire to see them written on a page to decipher.

So with Ernest Hemmingway's quote, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed,” in mind I signed up for Vocal. I have now been a member for two weeks ( woo-hoo!) and I have learned a few things that might be helpful to share.

#1

Views update slowly.

No hate or criticism toward the platform, it's just what I’ve noticed. I have found that each night, around 8:00pm or later, the views on my published stories jump up ‘drastically’. When I first started writing, I was immediately discouraged by seeing that not a single person looked at my story after a full day. I would check every hour or two and still nothing. Then on the second night of having the story posted I jumped to 10 views from one hour to the next.

So keep in mind the stats are not always accurate and not to be discouraged.

#2

They give you cash prizes.

Vocal has a ‘bonus’ system in which you get milestone prizes as incentives to continue using the platform. No one told me this! After my fifth published story, I got a $5 prize. After my 10th published story, I again got a prize, this time $10. I looked into the bonus system and, to my suspicion, they have more prizes for me to win.

Apparently, you can get rewarded by tipping other writers *hint-hint, wink-wink*, like stories and sharing them to other platforms. If you are selected as a ‘Top Story’, which I haven't a clue as to how that happens, you also are rewarded. What a brilliant system to incentivize users to continue using the platform as well share it to others.

Gold star for the marketing/business team that came up with it.

#3

The platform is extremely new.

Vocal was founded in 2016, if my research is correct, and they just hit their 20,000 member mark. (Congrats!) Not to belittle that achievement, because that really is exciting, but there are close to 90 million users on Wattpad. I am aware that these two platforms are not truly comparable but, it helps to put into perspective how new the platform really is. This is actually great news for the current members. Jeremy Frommer recently made the statement,

“I have previously projected that we would reach 100,000 Vocal+ creators on our platform before year end 2021. Today, that vision seems clearer than ever. “

He feels that they will have five times the users by the end of the year. One would assume that would mean writers could expect to see five times the views or interactions on their stories.

This also means that Vocal has a large amount of time and resources budgeted to achieve this goal. I am not a business expert but, I do have common sense.

To make more money, you need more customers. To get more customers, you have to have good marketing. Which brings me to my next point.

#4

Marketing is key.

If you write a good story, they will want to use it for marketing. This could be on the app itself or anywhere else. Since signing up, I have seen a new writer or story featured on Vocal's Instagram account every single day. They post to their story often, as well as to their feed page. Also, I see an advertisement for them almost everywhere now thanks to google selling my information.

For the company to advertise, it is simply more relatable for them to post stories created by those who use their platform. I’ve yet to be fortunate enough to be featured in this way, but I’m going to make some fair assumptions as to how people get featured.

They write a good story, obviously.

Posting a story that is about current events that are getting a lot of attention.

Stories that help explain how to use the platform.

Stories that won a challenge.

Try to keep this in mind when writing if your goal is to be featured by Vocal.

#5

Publish with intent.

When you are finished writing your story, keep in mind you can tag numerous categories to your post. Once you’ve picked a community, you can choose as many subcategories as you would like for your story. Not only that, but you can post the story to a challenge for even more exposure. Also, stories that are submitted to challenges, often do better in views. You can even submit more than one story to a single challenge.

The more ways you can get exposure for your posts, the better.

I am still new to the platform and am learning something new everyday. These are just a few things that I have picked up on in my past two weeks. I hope this helps!