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Let's Try Vocal Again, Shall We?

My official return to Vocal Media.

By Shamar MPublished about a year ago Updated about a year ago 3 min read
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Let's Try Vocal Again, Shall We?
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

I've just paid for a yearly membership for Vocal Media, there's no turning back now.

After leaving the platform numerous times in hissy fits, I've decided to make a come-back.

My story

I originally joined Vocal Media before anyone knew what it was. Before I joined, I thought it was a scam. Was it really possible to be paid only for blogging?

When it came to challenges, you would get on average 30-50 people participating.

Easy win. Impossible now.

Vocal Media administrators would contact me and ask me to participate in collaborations, I was one of the first asked to be a referral champion (or whatever they are called now).

There was such a small community of frequent writers on Vocal, we all either got along or didn't get along. You should see the number of arguments there used to be on Facebook groups around two years ago!

People knew my name.

But this was all back in 2019 when I first joined Vocal. It was a big and brave step for me, but it is the best one I've ever made as it was the start of my blogging journey.

After a short amount of time, I was blessed and talented enough to win three challenges which gave me a huge confidence (and ego) boost.

However, it all went downhill when Vocal started to cater their challenges to those who wrote fiction. To hell with fictional writing, bring back the personal stories!

It was clear nothing was going to change and it was becoming increasingly harder to win challenges, so I decided to put all my spare time and energy into Medium.

Last month, I took home four figures on Medium, so it was clearly a good decision. It's been a consistent three figures the back and front end of 2022.

Consistency pays off.

You can read about why I highly recommend Medium in the pin story on my profile.

But after some internal debating and snooping around other people's articles, I've made a return to Vocal.

What has changed

Wow, a lot has changed.

From what I remember, the last update Vocal made to the platform was implementing referral bonuses. Even when I left the platform, I was still publishing referral links here and there for an odd $25 or so.

Every penny helps.

After scouting around on the platform, the following has now been added:

  • Subscribing to individual people is now a thing, I have 15 subscribers despite being a ghost.
  • You can pledge $2.99 a month to people's accounts.
  • Vocal Edit is a thing and it's about time too!
  • Challenges are more regular and can be more than $1000.
  • You can pin stories to your profile (3 max).
  • You can comment on stories.
  • You can now heart stories.

All positive changes I can see. Thankfully you can still get paid by external views, I thought it was something Vocal would have removed as the platform expanded.

I'm excited to see how this plans out.

I might copy some of my most popular articles from Medium onto Vocal and see how they perform.

What I still hate

Although, I cannot stand the 600-word minimum limit. I tried to submit at just under 400 words but it would not allow me.

That really pissed me off.

Sometimes, I do not have enough to say for 600 words. I just want to come, type a little, rant a little, and get on with the next article.

Now I have to really rant and talk crap just to be able to publish what I really want to say.

Why is this in place? Vocal administrators are just increasing their workload by implementing this policy.

FYI, Medium doesn't have this policy. You can publish as short or as long as you want.

Anyway, you should interact with me on Vocal Media. I'm excited to meet all the new faces on the platform.

I have absolutely no niche here, so my next article always comes as a pleasant surprise!

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About the Creator

Shamar M

26. UK Based. Moans about everything (but in a fun way).

Follow me on Medium.

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Comments (1)

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  • Mariann Carroll4 months ago

    There is micro fiction where you can have 250 to 300 words. I stay on Vocal to practice my writing skills and hope to publish a book someday. The Challenges help harness my creativity. Thank you for subscribing. I hope to read more of your stories. Congratulations on winning three Challenges. You certainly have talent . Most of my Top Stories comes from interviews. I met a lot of amazing Vocal creators that way. I learn a lot from my interviews. I love people in general. 🥰Welcome back. Happy Thanksgiving 🦃

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