Vocal Media: The Best Platform For Authors

When I started writing in the month of August 2021, Medium was the only platform I was writing for. My first target was to qualify for the Medium Partner program by reaching 100 followers to monetize my articles. In a week I achieved this and I was having around 108 followers with four published stories.

I went ahead and applied for Medium Partner Program(MPP) and to my utter shock, I was told that I am not eligible yet. I had put all my hopes on this platform. Later, I got to know that there are some countries that don't qualify for MPP. Stripe is still doing Beta testing of their services in India in collaboration with Medium. So, it may take time for Medium to launch its MPP in India. Till then continue writing on Medium, grow your presence, and along with that look for other Blogging platforms to start earning. 

I got to know about the Vocal media platform, soon after this, and its monetization mechanism. I immediately joined the platform and started publishing my content over there. It has a very transparent monetization arrangement based on the number of reads, unlike Medium where you are not even aware of the basis of your payment if you are getting any.

What is Vocal media?

Vocal Media is touted as a platform for users seeking an alternative to Medium or to their own self-hosted website (ie. WordPress, Squarespace, Wix). It's one of the more recent writing platforms to appear on the scene.

They have different communities to where you can submit your writings. Their network is built so that you can earn money by writing or publishing your own blog articles.

How to Make Money With Vocal Media

There are three main tiers of earning money with Vocal:

1. Reads

Vocal rewards its users on a CPM (cost per thousand) basis; more commonly known as "reads." The more reads your post receives, the more you are compensated. Therefore, the more you promote your post through our community, your social networks, friends, and family, the more reads you'll have in your account.

Currently, Vocal regular members get $3.80 earnings per 1,000 reads. Vocal+ members get $6.00 per 1,000 reads.

2. Tipping

Tipping allows your readers to pay you directly for your posts. These are micropayments that go straight into your Stripe account.

Be sure your story is well written, engaging, and interesting for your audience and they're more likely to tip you! You can also get a tip from the Vocal itself if they really like your story.

In order to receive a tip, you must have Stripe connected to your Vocal account. The tipping option won't appear for your readers if Stripe isn't connected.

3. Sales

If you have a product or a video that you're interested in promoting, you can embed your Amazon product, YouTube video, or Spotify link into their modules to drive your readers to watch, listen, and purchase.

Once you accumulate $35 in your Vocal account, you can withdraw your earnings. Vocal+ members can withdraw their money when it reaches $20.

Both Vocal and Vocal+ members use Stripe to withdraw their earnings.

Pros of Vocal Media

Easy to use interface: Once I registered on this platform, it was very easy to get started. The interface is clean and simple, similar to Medium, and there's no huge learning curve. You can post as much as you want, and at the end of every post, there is a Twitter button and a Facebook button to allow you to share your writing on social media.

Use Free Images: Vocal Media also allows you to pull free images from the website Unsplash to add to the visual appeal of your posts. 

Easy traffic: Making money online is hard. Even if you are one of the greatest online writers, you still won't have millions of visitors pouring through your site.

Vocal Media makes it easy to get traffic. All you need to do is write great articles for their editors to publish and their readers to read.

Maintains the standard: Every article you post is first reviewed by an editorial team before going live on the site, so there's some level of quality control on the content on Vocal Media.

Daily Paid Challenges: Anytime you log in to Vocal Media, you will have a minimum of 3 to 4 active paid challenges. These challenges according to me are one of the best ways to motivate young budding authors. The best part is that for participating in these challenges you don't need to pay. 

As of now(31 Oct 2021), there are four active challenges where you can participate: Foggy Waters, Critter Costume, The Scarlet Macaw, The Vocal+ Fiction Awards.

Gifts from Vocal Media: After every milestone, you get gifted by Vocal Media. You will keep getting small tokens of 5$(or 10$) after you reach the milestone of five(or ten…) published stories or if your story is featured in the top story section of Vocal Media and many more.

Other than these, there are many other benefits that I am not still aware of.

Some cons to fix

There are still some issues that the Vocal Media platform has to deal with.

 Vocal media has hardly any presence on search engines like Bing. The other day, I wanted to show my story "You Have To Let Go Sometimes" to my family, which was selected as one of the top stories in Vocal Media, but my cousin was not even able to locate the website Vocal.Media on Bing. The first page on Bing showed articles of Vocal Media written on the Medium platform but no mention of the actual website link of Vocal Media. 

Vocal Media also lacks the feature of auto-saving while you are typing your articles, unlike Medium where your articles get saved every second while you are typing. I lost my story once on Vocal Media like that. So, consciously keep clicking on the "Save Changes" option as you are typing your article.

Compared to Medium, where I receive considerably strong views due to Medium's robust domain authority, the only way users are going to see your content is if a) the editors deem it a "Top Story" and promote it on the front page b) you enter it in a Challenge, or c) you promote it yourself.

It's just a matter of time before Vocal Media dominates the blogging scenario by building on its positives and improving its negatives.

Conclusion

Vocal Media is a great writing platform for creators, bloggers, content writers, and authors. You can make a part-time or full-time living, writing on any topic of your interest. You can monitor your progress on the Stats section- your daily earnings based on the number of reads, your tips, etc., and based on this you can channelize your time and effort.

I was able to earn around 50$ in 30 days with ten published stories. I was more than satisfied with my progress and I know if I put in a little more effort, I can cross the 100$ mark next month. Mind you, writing is just a hobby for me and not a full-time profession.

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