My experience as a Vocal+ member and why it's worth it

This has been a question I have seen over and over in the Vocal Facebook groups: "Is Vocal+ really worth the money?"

I have been on Vocal since February this year, 2021. I know that doesn't seem like a very long time, and that there are a lot of people who have been here longer than me who have more experience.

Regardless, I wanted to share my own experience with Vocal.media so far, and with Vocal+ as a membership plan. I also want to give my two cents about whether or not I believe Vocal+ is worth the money.

Joining Vocal

Like a lot of other members, I joined Vocal once I saw an ad for the "Little Black Book" challenge.

I have loved writing since after high school graduation. Before that, I was always a reader, but never a writer.

The library was my home, and Barnes & Noble my sweet escape from life. Every second that I wasn't at Tae Kwon Do was spent with a book in one hand and a coffee in the other.

At age eighteen I found a love for writing as well.

I started writing a fiction story of my own and worked on it constantly for about a year. But I didn't know much about writing or story structure, and it eventually fell by the wayside.

In college, I started writing again. I had so much fun with my creative writing class and started my own portfolio of new works.

When I saw the ad for the Little Black book contest, I immediately wanted to know what Vocal was all about.

The prize money for the challenge was obviously enticing, but since this was my first time really writing since college I didn't expect to place. I just wanted the outlet, the community, and the challenge of writing new stories.

For this challenge, I wrote my story "Opportunity is a Gift" pictured above. The title here shows it as Something in Between, the original working title.

Challenges and being Challenged

Since the Little Black Book challenge a few months back, I have entered a ton of others.

Including a few playlist challenges, the Dream Date challenge, Spring Forward, Fair Sails, Create your Happiness challenge, Members Only challenge, and the True Colors poetry challenge.

These challenges have produced some really great works of mine and of others. And while there can only usually be three winners, I believe creating a new and beautiful story is always worth the prompt.

I wrote the story above, How I'm starting over after three years as a professional Blogger, for the Members Only challenge.

Writing this has helped me to outline what my new business is about, and explain to others and myself why I'm starting over.

Learning to cope with disappointment

Rejection happens as a professional in any field, but especially in writing. Harry Potter was rejected by 12 publishers before J.K. Rowling actually got it published. Anne of Green Gables was rejected 4 times before initially being published.

Not winning a Vocal challenge, or getting a story rejected and sent back to drafts can feel very much the same.

With Vocal challenges, I feel like each time I submit to a challenge I am going to win or at least place.

This is just part of my overly optimistic outlook on life and aggressively positive nature.

But you can't win every time.

My biggest disappointment was with the Fair Winds challenge. I thought I was going to place, especially after my story made a Top Story spot. I was SO excited to have my story chosen, especially because this was my first top story on Vocal.

I thought I was definitely placing at this point.

But after the winners were announced, I felt very defeated.

I didn't place in this challenge, but without this challenge, I never would have written this story. And now, Every Second I Hold my Breath is one of my favorite stories I've ever written.

Not placing has been a challenge to me because I've never used a medium like this to publish my work, and never continuously entered my work to be seen and reviewed by others.

One of the biggest and best lessons I am learning from Vocal is to cope with disappointment, and then press on.

Making Money with Vocal+

A lot of you are probably wondering if you can actually make money on Vocal with a Vocal+ membership, or if it's just going to cost you $9.99 a month indefinitely. I have found for myself, that I have made a lot more money using Vocal than I have spent on it.

Is Vocal+ worth the money?

I started using Vocal+ with the first 3 weeks being $4.99, a promotion they have for new members.

By the time my 3 weeks were up and I would have to start paying the normal price of $4.99, I had placed as a runner up in the "If this, then that." challenge with my article, If you loved Friends, here's how to pick your next sitcom binge.

The prize for runner up's was $50 and a year of Vocal+ for free. Not bad at all!

While I didn't win that challenge, I was monetarily compensated, and no longer pay to use Vocal at the moment.

I know that this particular thing won't happen for everyone, but sometimes it can. My advice would be to keep entering in challenges, and even if you don't place, you could still get something great out of it!

Making Money with Vocal Challenges

The way to make the most money with Vocal is by winning challenges.

My first (and only, so far) challenge that I placed in was the Spring Forward challenge, and honestly, I had forgotten I entered in this one.

This was a challenge that seemed like it'd get a lot of entries, and that a minimalism post would probably be picked as the winner. As a health and wellness blogger, I thought this would be a fun article to write and kind of just roll with.

I wrote and published this story in one evening.

I didn't even realize I had placed in this challenge till the day after. We had just finished eating dinner, and I checked my email to see if an Amazon order had shipped yet when I saw the "Congrats! You're our third place winner" email.

I was ecstatic!

While I did come in third, it was a challenge I wasn't expecting to place in, and the third-place price ended up being $250. It was a pretty sweet night.

Bonuses, Tips, and Reads

An easy way to actually make money with Vocal+ is your bonuses, tips, and reads. These things will happen naturally as you write and publish stories to your Vocal or Vocal+ account.

Some things that get you bonuses from Vocal are:

• Read Milestones ($ differs depending on the Milestone)
• Being selected as a top story ($5 bonus typically)
• Liking, sharing, and tipping others for their hard work on Vocal as well.

Tips are when another creator or reader (they don't have to have a Vocal account!) tips you for your work. When someone reads a story of yours that they loved, they can use Vocal's tip feature to send you a monetary thank you.

So far, I have made $18 from tips.

I have also made $6.13 from reads.

As I am writing this, I have just over 1k reads on my stories. This is because of my Vocal+ subscription. If I had a regular Vocal account, I would make about $3.80 per 1,000 reads.

While those numbers won't make me a steady income, if I up my read count and advertise my work more, I could always make more money from reads. It's just like running a blog and having ads on it. You get paid as much as people see your work.

Vocal writer Kathryn Milewski has a pretty great article about getting reads, and making money from them.

Vocal+ for the serious Creators

In my experience so far, Vocal+ has definitely been worth it.

I've made $323.35 so far on Vocal since February, and that is challenges, bonuses, and reads altogether. At only initially $4.99 a month, I'd say it was definitely worth it to upgrade to a plus account.

The great thing is that if you feel like it isn't working out for you, you can always downgrade your account.

If you are a serious creator and continuously write, enter challenges and share your work, I believe it can pay off for you as well.

If you've been on the fence, you can try out Vocal+ with my link and get a discount on your first month!

(This link is an affiliate link and helps me get a referral at no extra charge to you. It's just Vocal's way of rewarding creators for helping more creators find themselves through writing on Vocal+.)

I'm a writer, so...

I don't know if my name will ever be famous, if I'll write a book and get it published, or if people will know me for my blogs. What I do know is that I am a writer, and my stories are worth being read.

And I'm proud of that.

Vocal has been a great source of accomplishment, community, and a chance to reignite my passion for writing.

So if you're like me, you might want to give Vocal+ a chance.

It may just end up being worth it.

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Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this article, be sure to click the heart button. If you really liked this article, tips are greatly appreciated! You can find more articles from me here on my Vocal profile.

-Leah H.