The Death Of Great Ideas. My Best Ideas Came Here To Die.

Broke--you're in the wrong place to fix that issue. If you decide this is what you're going to try, then you've got a one-in-a-million shot of fixing it here. This won't make me popular telling you that little reality, but I'll share why I would state it this way over the next few paragraphs.

The Love Of Writing

For a couple of dozen years, I have been a writer. The fact is, anyone that writes, is a writer. If you love stories, love to entertain people with your imagination, and enjoy having a creative outlet through wordplay, then you're probably a writer.

"Write for the love of it."

--Every writer to a struggling writer.

Professionally I wrote stories. They were true life stories involving officers and "bad guys." These stories are commonly referred to as police reports. For a long time, and through two long-term sheriffs, three administrators, prosecutors, and numerous defense lawyers, I heard the same sentiment.

"Your narratives are so descriptive I can see what was happening without being there."

All the while, I was secretly writing in my free time. I've actually written two books, dozens of short stories, a couple of novellas, and two screenplays for movies. Living in a small town and most of my family having died, there were very few people in my life that I could depend on to read them and give me any feedback. But, I kept writing and hoping one day there'd be one of them that I felt so sure of that it would be my transition from dreamer to living the dream.

Enter Vocal

Like it says above, Vocal is a platform for supporting, discovering, and rewarding creators. It all sounds good in theory, and it attracted me to the platform. When I first joined it was because I was bored, had been writing several things, constantly filling my computer with more and more stories and ideas--and I read the advertisement. Makeup to $6,000.00 a month writing stories from home.

Sure, the $6,000.00 a month is for getting 1,000,000.00 reads. It's possible, at the last point I knew for sure, that as few as one person has reached this milestone. A million reads is an unreachable goal in many of Vocal's user's minds. Even though I have seen one person show stats that they did receive a million reads, I find it hard to believe. I have nothing against the author, but it feels so unfathomable to reach that goal I imagine I would win the Powerball first.

Considering my most-read story has only 3426 reads to date, and my second-place story is far behind my first-place story, I don't expect to ever make it this far. Great ideas or not, getting reads through Facebook groups, Twitter, vocal users, email lists, etc...is akin to pulling teeth or getting congress to pass certain legislation or getting certain amendments ratified that haven't been yet. And, to make it even more of a conundrum as a creator, this wasn't even my best idea.

Any one of us will give a million suggestions on what to do, what not to do, and why you should just, "write for the love of writing." However, if you're like me, you're going to come to the conclusion that writing for the sake of writing is something you can do without the constant rejection of disappointment you feel when you put in hours of work, pour your heart out on paper, choose an image that you trust is attractive, and formulate a title you think is catchy. You can write for the sake of writing and not share the story online. So, why are you here?

MONEY

Chances are, you saw the advertisement. It's a brilliant advertisement. During the pandemic, amidst a worldwide economic disaster, a continued and ever exploding inflation problem, mounting debt, and fewer and fewer choices that are out there, you were drawn in by the promise of opportunity.

Vocal currently is advertising on all the social media platforms and through the magic of "word of mouth" advertising. The newest push involves the biggest opportunities for any independent writer out there, much less for an established, professional, or accomplished writer.

This newest round of prizes is promising because it will award 25 winners with 5,000.00 dollars in prize money each. There are going to be runner-up prizes as well, and a free year of Vocal + is nothing to sneeze at. With 73 days left to go as of this writing, there are already 1236 entries into the challenge. The challenge is five days in so it stands to reason with the time left this challenge is going to have close to, if not well over, 10 thousand entries.

Considering the number of accomplished authors, published writers, and the overflowing level of talent, this simply isn't something that can be done by just anyone. It doesn't matter how great a story you tell, or what you're level of skill is, there's only going to be 25 winners and chances are it's not going to be you or I. What about the other challenges? This is where I would mimic the buzzer at the end of the basketball game if we were in the same room. I've entered nearly every challenge since spring, having a couple I just couldn't get to in time, and have never won or even placed. The odds are that steep. My best shot probably comes in the Halloween Monsterbash Playlist, and when the results come out this week, don't expect to see my name.

When I came up with the idea to write this in this fashion I was intrigued as to how it would feel. Picking the music to go with it, sliding the songs into the right place, I thought it was an intriguing experiment in immersion. Maybe, just maybe, this would be something that would explode in popularity. Again, there's that buzzer sound that I would make if you were to ask me if it succeeded...BUZZZZZZZ!

After all this...why am I still here?

Writing And Feedback

So, when a person stays around for nearly a year, they're going to have seen a lot and have learned much about the platform, the inner workings of writing and publishing online, and what the possibilities are of such an endeavor. I won't say I'm a master of any discipline, tip, trick, or style. I'm hardly more than an amateur writer. The one thing that I've learned is that my style isn't right for the platform. As much as I try to write to the audience that the platform brings, going backward to June of 2021, things have changed enough it has become next to impossible to maintain readership at a level that is either fruitful or educational.

My personal observation is that Vocal has become very centered around the financial aspect of the platform. All summer long people were in writer mode. Reads floundered to exponential lows, just as things were starting to go well. No matter what idea, what direction, or what genre I ventured into, finding a steady audience has proven impossible to do. I've realized more and more that it's highly unlikely that this will be everyone's forte. Vocal will work for some. but not for the majority of its users.

Self Promotion

The truth about self-promotion is that it is simply advertising. Taking the link to a story and dropping it in Facebook groups, on your personal page, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Medium, Minds, Instagram (even though I don't know how to use Instagram for this), and sharing it directly to friends and family if you have those, is simply advertising. I can honestly say it makes a big difference. On days I can sit at a desk and write, stopping every couple hours to advertise multiple stories, and then go back to writing, even I can get a bump in readership. But, reads on Vocal are worth such a small amount, unless you're getting a few thousand a day, you're not making any money.

So, it's the community. There are, in just a few groups, five thousand different members, and near 30 thousand paying members. They are among some of the nicest people in the world. I say world because they come from all over the world. Canada to Australia, Australia to Europe, Europe to Central and South America, South America to India. India to the good old United States. Vocal users come from all around the globe.

Like any other group of people, if you came to vocal, and you must have if you're reading this, you'll find that there are those that are committed to writing and sharing it with people. Many have their own Facebook groups, many with a lot of skill and experience, and many more up-and-coming talents that are simply too innumerable to name. I'd try but I'd forget a few and feel like a heal.

So, why am I writing this? More or less to both amuse me, fulfill my promise of writing every day that I could and because there's a need for the truth. After 11 months, nearly a year, you might say that the bloom is off the rose. I've brought a lot of great ideas, at least they were great sounding ones, to life. Most of them were barely ever read, not even scratching the top 3 pages of my stories list, but great ideas, nevertheless.

Funeral For An Idea(s)

For all intents and purpose, when you have a great idea, you've put in what you feel is great work, you put it out there for the world to see. When those ideas are not well-liked, well-read, or even noticed, you have brought them to their funeral.

An idea is born from within your imagination when it comes to fiction, or when it comes to a new angle, or an interesting event. The birth of the idea gets your creative juices going. You do some research, you outline the idea in your head, you start putting words together, deciding on imagery to find, and what sounds like a catchy title. You've done the work. Then, you promote, promote, promote, promote again, and just when you're done, promote some more. Then you scoot off to read, live your life, and breathe until your next great idea comes along. All the while, you're hoping that's the viral story, the one that will tell you that "you've got what it takes." For a while, you even continue the idea, the numbers gradually getting worse.

Recently Buried Stories

Unlike the Phoenix rising from the ashes, these went down in smoke, months old, and couldn't get to even a one every other day average. Like the others, I promoted the hell out of them, and they added up in what I affectionately call the "proof I'm not good enough pile." Perhaps that's the reality of the situation, that I shouldn't be writing. The one thing that separates me from most is that I didn't finish college, and really didn't start having a love affair with reading and writing until in my mid-twenties.

Perhaps it's something a little more unique. Some will say that if you're happy with the story that should be enough. That still begs the question of why am I putting on the internet, to begin with? If you're here, like I am, then there's a chance that you're using the platform much the way a movie studio utilizes a test audience. When people see a movie as a test screening, their reactions, interest, and responses are gauged to see how well it would perform in front of a bigger audience. If that's the case, then you've found the right place to write. From seeing some impressive stats from those that are really quite productive people, and skilled writers, you can find out pretty easily if you're really good enough to consider trying writing as a professional venture.

And that, after 11 months on the platform, is absolutely the only promising thing about Vocal +. The community of writers you'll get to know all depends on you getting into the groups, getting involved, and interacting with the online writing community. Vocal + is just providing you the road map, you have to do all the work once you start the journey, and only a certain type of writer, a certain type of story, from the correct perspective, is going to win a challenge while nothing from here actually goes viral enough for you to see that success. Once you're here for eleven months, try searching yourself online with Vocal +. It's how I found out that Jason Morton is the frontman for the Chesapeake Sons.