This Is How I Enhanced My Earning Power With Vocal Creator Bonuses

Vocal creators, back in 2016, could only monetize their stories via earnings from reads. Then, in 2018, the platform introduced tips that enabled writers to receive micro-payments from their audience. Afterward, 2020 brought Vocal Challenges to the limelight, allowing creators to compete for cash prizes. 

Now, about one month ago, Justin Maury, Founder and Creatd's President, the Vocal platform's parent company, broke the good news in his article "Introducing Creator Bonuses on Vocal." According to Justin Maury's business profile, he is also a full-stack design director focusing on product development. With over ten years of design and product management expertise, his passion for the creative arts and technology ultimately resulted in Vocal's vision.

Vocal had solved one of its most troublesome issues, the burden associated with micro-payments via Stripe, by introducing a "more direct way for the Vocal team to reward creators directly in their Wallet." The new system allows the Vocal team to add money to the creators' Wallet balance. From a financial perspective, bonuses are more money-savvy than tips in what concerns reward payments incoming from the Vocal Team (I'm not referring to external users' tips, that system is on a different scope).

Before becoming President, Justin Maury was already a seasoned Product developer. He is truly a mastermind because he almost seems to read Vocal creators' minds and start thinking about solutions to their concerns. A couple of months ago, after I got my first tip from the Vocal Team, I remember thinking how this system had too many twists and cogs for such small micro-transactions. Justin was probably already ahead of me and developing the new system:

"Bonuses give us the chance to support creators more directly. They help distinguish between support from our team and support from your fans. When you receive a Tip, it's from a reader who wants to say thanks and support you. When you receive a Bonus, it's because the Vocal team wanted to send a reward for creating something amazing."

According to Justin Maury's plan, "bonuses should help creators accrue more in total earnings while enabling the Vocal team to give back to its creators more directly and efficiently." I can vouch for this because I've seen my Wallet revenues increase exponentially based on bonuses during the last month.

How to receive a Bonus?

Vocal has truly enhanced subscribers' earning power with the launch of bonuses, thus giving us, the creators, another "unique avenue" to be rewarded for our creativity.

The creator bonus feature enables the Vocal team to add money directly to a creator's existing Wallet balance. Bonuses celebrate accomplishments such as writing a Top Story, reaching a reads or profile milestone, winning a Challenge, or giving back to the Vocal community by liking, sharing, or sending tips to fellow creators. Eligibility to receive bonuses applies to the entire Vocal community, including both Vocal+ premium creators as well as the near 900,000 freemium creators.

I'm a Vocal creator and an active member of several Vocal communities on social media, namely Facebook and Reddit. I've noticed many creators are unaware of the bonus system in place and the associated milestones. I recently published an article about achieving my 50 stories milestone and receiving the $50 bonus and was astounded to realize how many of my fellow writers didn't know about it.

Final Thoughts

Hence, I'm raising awareness of this subject based on my personal experience. I noticed some ongoing discussion about the quality of articles featured on Vocal top stories, and I would like to stress that, from my perspective, under Justin Maury's presidency, Vocal seems focused on two things:

1. Giving back Vocal to its creators (Communities no longer own the homepage).
2. Reward outstanding quality (focus on the discovery of curated stories and their creators).

Focusing on creators led to Top Stories replacing the previous Staff Picks section. The President was keen on emphasizing how those stories are "constantly updated throughout each day, hand-selected by our team (…), not algorithms. This helps us ensure that genuine quality is rewarded, not just engagement, and it guarantees that Vocal's communities remain safe and diverse."

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Thanks for reading this article. Please feel free to come back at any time and pick up another thread from my Vocal book of content by clicking here. Small tips and big hearts are highly appreciated. Till next time, cheers.

-Rui