Stop Trying To Make A Living On Vocal

Listen, friends. I know you're writers and not mathematicians, but I don't like what I'm seeing. There's a lot of needless angst out there from folks who feel blindsided about what they're getting from Vocal and probably other sites as well.

Look, there are a lot of blindsiding things in this world-- like the year 2020...and the year 2021... and the belief that growing up means you have it all together. But Vocal, though flawed, is incredibly reliable.

A lot of the complaints I hear about this site make me sad. It's like yelling at your high heel shoe because it wasn't comfortable for running. So I'd love to help you wear this shoe correctly!

Let's start with the big green elephant in the room: MONEY.

Vocal+ subscribers make $6 per 1000 views, while unpaid members make $3.80 per 1000 views.

Now let's do some math! Let's say you wanted to use Vocal as a decent side gig. It's reasonable, right? You're an awesome, hilarious, endearing writer, and you make friends easily. You might even have a social media following! So, let's just say you're trying to make a sensible $200 a month. I mean, how hard could that be? I almost said $400 a month, but I want to make sure you're really seeing how EASY this "should" be, according to many.

All you need is 33,000 views!

YIKES. Okay, I can see we've bitten off more than we can chew. Abort mission. Let's just halve it! After all, who can argue with $100 a month from a nice little side hustle!

So you only need about 17,000 views! Let me repeat that in case you missed it. To earn $100 a month, or $25 per week, you need 17,o00 views...each month.

Now lets do some perspective. I've been here for six months, and I've done an exhaustive amount of socializing in a handful of Vocal Writers groups on Facebook, reading and conscientiously commenting on hundreds of stories! Let's look at my stats...

I'm just shy of 500 all time reads.

And I'm not mad about it. I mean, I'm a little mad that most of the people who are exchanging reads via fb don't return the favor, but it is what it is. That is...it's a great site, but not for making a living off of views!!!

I write full-time, and if I didn't say I didn't have lofty goals of winning multiple challenges someday, I'd be lying. Meanwhile, I just got my first "Top Story" yesterday! Did it affect my financial standing? Not really! But hey, it was $5. And that $5 is double what I've made from views.

Again. Let's stop worrying about our views and use Vocal for what it does best.

Vocal is a free platform for writers. (And an affordable and accesible paid platform for those who choose to use Vocal +)

Vocal is place that offers tons of accesible bonuses, both based on effort and merit. In fact, if you can devote just a few hours a month to writing, you can easily make up most, if not the entire cost of your Vocal+ membership back. Here is a list of several of the bonuses offered!

Vocal is a place that offers paid ( Vocal+) members the chance to enter and win writing challenges with prizes that usually range from $500-5000, but have gone past the $20,000 mark on occasion!

Vocal is a place where you can build a following via subscribers, and be rewarded via tips and likes! Now I think the tip thing is just folklore, but hey, I see a lot of people raving about constant $1-5 tips in our facebook community, so keep an eye out for this lovely lochness legend. The ability to give and receive tips is a nice touch.

Vocal is a community where you can read the work of fellow writers, and connect via several large, thriving facebook communities.

Vocal is a treasure trove of stories, poetry, and articles on every imaginable subject. As a writer, it's a free/cheap place to host any work you'd like to showcase without having to run your own site.

Now, here is what Vocal is not. Vocal is not a place to get rich $6 at a time. It's simply not likely. Now, I've seen a few people do reasonably well-- reasonably well as in maybe $15 a month... Those people are few and far between, and most of them are spending an absurd amount of their time and energy on their social media engagement.

But the biggest truth about that is, if you are able to consistently pull in views like that, you're wasting that momentum on Vocal. If you can build that kind of audience you can easily score paid writing opportunities-- if you're pulling in thousands of views, instead of hoarding your stripe balance, cash that baby out and go get a literary agent or take a class in pitching.

It takes a lot to be a writer. It takes pitching, networking, survival jobs. A college education can help, as can classes. Writers critique groups as awesome. It takes being in the right place at the right time. It takes 10,000 hours to build your craft. It takes finally sitting down to write that book/screenplay/graphic novel and then actually finding a person to pay you for it.

Full disclosure, I haven't been as successful as I'd hoped with my readership-- my most read story is short of 50 views... but that's okay. My Vocal+ membership is doing everything it is supposed to, and so is yours. So stop treating this pair of heels like it's actually running the marathon of the writing career you're aspiring to.

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