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We Can Now Subscribe To Our Favorite Writers But I'm Hoping There's More To Come

Here Are A Few Things I'd Like To See In The Future

By Nathalie ClairPublished 3 years ago 6 min read
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We Can Now Subscribe To Our Favorite Writers But I'm Hoping There's More To Come
Photo by Malte Helmhold on Unsplash

Vocal has been paying attention and really stepping up when it comes to giving us writers what we want to see on the platform. Back in June, they created a new community dedicated to fiction, which had been highly requested. In July we finally got the ability to edit our work on demand with quick edits, which meant we no longer had to email the Vocal team and wait about a day before we could edit our stories. Trust me I needed this, I feel like I can always find something to fix and edit. The Vocal team would've gotten sick of me emailing them.

Now as of Sunday night, Vocal has added a subscribe feature, which allows members to subscribe to their favorite writers and be notified any time they publish something new. This is a big one and something a lot of members have been wanting. A week prior many members of the Vocal community received emails and participated in a survey dedicated to improving the platform. I for one was excited to see Vocal being so proactive in asking us directly how we felt. It definitely felt like this was Vocal's way of saying we care about what you think. The survey of course hinted at the subscribe feature that we now have but no one knew it would be here so quickly. Hats off to Vocal for a wonderful surprise. While many of us have found ways to share our stories and stay connected through Facebook groups, having this feature directly on the site will provide even more opportunities to stay up to date with your favorite authors.

This is a HUGE step in the right direction and while I appreciate this new feature, not to seem greedy, but there are a few more changes I'd love to see happen in the coming months. I know a lot of people have already created their Vocal wishlist so this might feel like an old idea. But I wrote this last week, left it in my drafts, and I have now had to edit it to match the new updates so bear with me. Hopefully, I'll mention some new things that haven't been said before.

When It Comes To The Subscription Feature

As someone who also writes on Medium, I know the two sites are often compared, but I can't lie there are a few things from Medium's site that I would love to see Vocal adopt. They're both great writing platforms in their own right and each site serves a different purpose for me. Don't get me wrong though, while there are a few key features that I think would be great to have on Vocal, I don't actually want Vocal to turn into Medium 2.0. They're similar sites but also quite different and that's what makes me enjoy writing for both.

One feature that I'd like to see on Vocal is the ability to highlight and/or comment on parts of a story that you particularly love. This would allow the reader to come back to a quote that they really enjoyed, while also letting the author know that something they wrote resonated with one or more of their readers. This could be a great way to give feedback and start a dialogue among readers and authors. Even if those conversations happened off-site it would be a great way to reference the specific details of someone's story. There have been so many times that I loved the way an author described something or just a line that I thought was really great and wanted to highlight it and share my thoughts with them, but couldn't.

One Vocal Member, Pam Reeder, mentioned wanting the ability to create a favorites list so that we can have a section for stories that we love and may want to read multiple times. I actually really love that idea and agree it would be great. To go with that I would also like the ability to compile a read later list for times when we see something we want to read but may not have the time to read it right then and there.

By Christin Hume on Unsplash

When It Comes To Quick Editing

This one has probably come up a time or two and maybe the team is working on it but it's definitely on my wishlist. We were all excited about the ability to quick edit without having to wait a day for the Vocal team to get back to us. I’m not sure why the quick edit feature only comes with the ability to edit the body of the story, but I'm sure I speak for most members of the community when I say we’d like to be able to use quick edit to edit all aspects of our story, including title, subtitle, and picture.

Speaking of subtitles, this isn't one I've heard anyone else mention, but I'd actually like to remove the mandate for a subtitle. Honestly, sometimes it's hard enough to come up with a title, and then to also have to come up with a subtitle can be kind of frustrating. In my first short story I posted on Vocal, I named it Unexpected Romance, but then had no clue as to what to put for the subtitle. I ended up going with A Nicholas Sparks Experience, which made it sound like some sort of fairytale and I actually don't even like it. I went with it because I felt pressured to put something down or I wouldn't be able to submit it. I’d definitely prefer the subtitle feature to be optional and not mandatory.

Last but not least I definitely think we need an automatic delete or remove story button. We as creators should have 100% control over when and how quickly we are able to remove an entire story from our profile. I completely understand needing to review stories before they can be published to the website, but I see no reason why we must also ask permission to remove a story. I recently reposted a story I originally wrote on Medium knowing that my family and friends wouldn’t see it because I had no intention of sharing it on my social media. I later decided to post it on Vocal just to see if it would garner any attention among Vocal members. After two weeks I got three reads on it and so I decided I wanted to take it down. The issue was that once I was ready to remove it, I now had to email the Vocal team and wait for them to put in my request. It was a bit annoying. There shouldn’t be a delay for me to remove anything that is mine that I no longer wanted on the site for whatever reason. So that is definitely something I really would love Vocal to add to the quick edit feature.

While I'm genuinely happy to see so many wonderful improvements to the Vocal site, I know there will be more changes to come. I just hope some of my suggestions are at least considered.

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About the Creator

Nathalie Clair

I love a good story, whether it's a book, a movie, a play. I love reading/ watching interesting characters develop & drama unfold. As a writer I create that world. I create that drama. IG: @positivelyhealthyvibes Twitter: NATHALIE_CLAIR1

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