Vocal-Do I Stay or Do I go?

Perhaps challenges that pay the top three winners is why I stay?

I’ve participated in many challenges on Medium.com and enjoyed them very much. For the most part, Medium challenges don’t pay. Vocal challenges, however, generally offer cash awards to the top three stories. I’ve yet to win-but like the lotto-if you don’t play, it doesn’t pay.

Here is the article I posted in a Vocal. media's $20,000.00 challenge. The criteria was simply to mention the word “Barn Owl.” I happened to have a barn owl story in my folder!

Barnaby, the One-Eyed Owl

The problem is I can not seem to gain any traction on Vocal. Media, yet something keeps me here. I like the layout, is that enough to stay? Vocal.media is visually more appealing than Medium.

I tried a little experient and posted a story on Medium.com with links to my Vocal stories using lines like,

" If you are one of my followers, follow me on over to Vocal to read the rest of the stories and leave me a heart. Frankly, they are heartless over there!"

It worked!! I received more views than I'd ever had before--13! Nothing to crow about-yet I'm crowing.

I love the challenges, but is that enough?

Here is one of my stories submitted for Vocal's summer fiction series. I double challenged myself and tried to turn the summer fiction series into a chapter book. These stories were fun to write. Below is a link to the first story.

https://vocal.media/fiction/day-the-after-began

My hope of turning external reads into cash, is it working?

My story on comparing payouts of Medium.com to dividends earned in my savings account received 2.3K views on Medium!! So happy, but they were mostly external views. Medium.com does not pay for reads outside of their membership- so virtually no payout.

Vocal.media does pay for external reads, so I tweaked my article a bit, added in Vocal analysis and published it in Vocal. I received 1 view/heart (the editor who published it I am guessing).

I did get a $2.00 bonus for submitting an article about Vocal! So maybe that’s why I stay? I’ve never been rejected and every once in a while Vocal surprises me with a bonus.

I encouraged my Medium.com followers to check out Vocal. Media give it a look for themselves! Asking them to like my stories and heart me seems to have paid off.

I’ll give Vocal one more year, then run my numbers again. But I fear like my last heartless relationship-I’ll stay way too long before I decide to cut my losses and run.

Original published in Medium.com, revised and edited for Vocal.Media platform.