Your Vocal and Vocal+ Reads Are Where The Money's At. How To Drive Up Your Reads By As Much As 400% In 30 Days.

I first heard about Vocal+ in November of 2020. Looking back in time, I wish I knew then what I know now.

It was starting to get cold outside, bass fishing season was over in my region, and I was looking for something to focus on in my spare time. Which, during the pandemic, I had far more of than I cared for. So, stumbling across a platform that I could use to attempt to write from home, become a better writer, get into content creating, and let's face it, maybe make some extra money, sounded all too exciting.

I started writing immediately, I posted some things I'd already done and watched as my reads went up and down between zero and fifty a day. How, I wondered, would this make me the advertised "Up To $6,000 A Month" with such low numbers?

I've seen plenty of posts on Facebook groups that wonder if this is a scam or if it's rigged. Most of the time they are from people that feel like they've got something really good and the numbers just don't add up to much. Let us be honest about it. Because, I'm one of those people that has felt the frustration of a bad day, a story underperforming compared to what I imagined it could do, and being disgruntled that it didn't take off the way the advertisements hint they might.

There are reasons for each one of those feelings. Impatience, luck, work, writing ability about cover the reasons, except for the fine print. At .006 per read, it will take a million reads to get to $6,000.00 dollars. While this is a pittance for what some people's works have been worth, in my opinion, this isn't People Magazine, The NY Times, or authoring a best-selling novel that's being optioned for the movie rights. I mean, I get it. I absolutely understand that by and large, probably a majority of people on Vocal were enticed by the chance to make some money for doing something that they enjoyed. Who wouldn't have been, if they ever thought of writing in a professional manner, were told they had the skill to write or were looking for some extra cash?

When April 1st rolled around I was just over a thousand reads on Vocal. Nearly four months of time and effort had gone into that thousand reads. I was starting to have some doubts about whether or not I could make anything out of this "content creation" thing. But, I'd just signed up for one of the enticing Vocal + offers and was committed to giving it more time. Then came the day, April 9th, that I realized I could get more than fifty reads on a story. I even realized that maybe I should work outside of my comfort zone. For years, through my first career in this world, I'd written thousands of words a week in the form of police reports. The narratives are based on the truth, based on observations, and based on information that is collected. They're put together in basically the same way as a reporter puts together a story, minus it being slanted one way or another.

So I put the work into a story about one of the professions that has a high degree of absenteeism due to the constant stress, already poor hours, and generally, from what I've witnessed, bad working conditions. With a little more work, I tailored it to fit other professions as well. Once it was done I picked imagery that fit the workplace and gave the appearance that my angle was pro-employee. Fiction is easy for me. I spent a lifetime as a movie buff and around people who made things up to survive and skirt the law. However, this story was my first "good" piece of non-fiction work and I felt pretty good about it after completing it. So, how to drive the reads?

Facebook has an unlimited number of groups that have been formed around different interests, professions, hobbies, places, and if you name it it's probably there. I've found groups ranging from overseas travel to the occult, the paranormal to nudists groups, city and state information groups to professional groups. I honestly, to the best of my recollection, don't recall looking for one that I haven't found yet.

Depending on your subject matter, your fan base, or rather a huge potential fan base, is waiting for you on social media with as little as some keystrokes and a search. I recently wrote a piece on the question of the strongest Avenger from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I gave the nod to a particular character. The Marvel groups are chocked full of fans and these, if you didn't know, are some hardcore fans. The groups have anywhere from a couple of thousand members up to over 600,000 members. I wrote another piece on the anxiously anticipated Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever, and my thoughts on how they even do the movie without Chadwick Boseman. In one day that pulled in over four hundred reads just placing it in the Marvel groups and the Vocal groups. I found groups dedicated to following the mythical demon queen Lilith and posted my Lilith background story there and went from just a handful of reads to nearly 30 without trying.

Tools to be successful may be in front of our faces but are we looking at them correctly. If you've been one of those that are trying to make a success of your time and money on Vocal, have you ever looked at your stats and felt dejected? You're not alone. Someone told me, on one of the groups, not to worry so much about the stats. They were absolutely correct. Write well, enjoy it, and it should all come around in the end. However, I'm going to offer a different perspective.

When you look at your stats, you can tell what specific day of the week a particular date was. So, what are your high dates and what are your low dates. Are they indicative of higher readership on Friday and Saturday or Monday and Tuesday. Look at the end of mine and you'll notice a sharp spike at the end. That's on Sunday and Monday. For three consecutive weeks, my highest day was on a Sunday and that gives me a tool. If we know what our highest readership days are, all we have to do is answer why? Did we do our best work on Friday and Saturday? Or, are our fans free to read more on Sundays? Is the spring weather changing people's patterns? If we are going to write content on a platform we have to think about little things like this. Vocal isn't going to be successful long term if they just give it away...although that would make life as a writer easier, wouldn't you say?

Luck does have a little to do with your organic success on Vocal. It has to. There are a limited number of spots as a top story and common sense says you'd have to kick out a few really phenomenal pieces of work to be a creator they're loving or get profiled. So, what are you doing to work toward a top story. Much like my suggestion that we look at content creating for a platform meaning that we'd have to look at little things that might help our own success, I'll take it a step further. I know some people have their niche or specialty. However, if you were a reporter you'd do most of your work by assignment. You might be a feature writer, normally doing the government reports or business, but if your editor assigns you to do a piece on local gambling trends you'd have to do it, no matter how comfortable you might be. It seems to me, to get a top story, you've got to have a hot piece, something that's eye-catching, thought provoking, or speaks to one of the humans at Vocal. They are humans, after all, so you've got to catch that eye when they're deciding who to put on the top story spot.

So, if you haven't tried reading the top stories, give them a look. There are some interesting things going on there. Just this image alone caught my eye, and in a big way. Thanos, the mad titan from Avengers, on earth with a whale and One World sign. Lakeesha Bailey's use of imagery was guaranteed to provoke thoughts in anyone that saw the movies. Thanos believed wiping out fifty percent of all living things would be the only way for worlds to thrive. It's insane but look at the title. Was Thanos Right?

Get outside the box, trying the new thing with writing, look around your world and into yourselves. Somewhere, deep inside, there's an idea that we can all use to get a top story spot. Then write it down, grow it carefully, slowly, like it's your child. Once it's a good enough "kid" to send out into the world, it may be the next top story. The top story spot is on the opening page of vocal for a day. Over twenty-thousand users will see it at some point or could see it if they open vocal that day. That should make it the most coveted spot to be. Sure, maybe, just maybe, not everyone that gets there deserves it. Maybe their title, opening image, and first paragraph got them there. The ones I've clicked on so far, all belonged where they were.

As I sit here, writing this piece, that I honestly thought of as a starter or "For Beginners On Vocal" because I think of myself as still a beginner, I realize a lot of what I'm pointing out is probably making those successful Vocal members chuckle and utter "DUH". But, I was and still will be occasionally frustrated by failures, or my perceived failures, and remember a couple of months ago when I thought I wouldn't hit a thousand reads, much less be nearly seven thousand. After picking up a few tips and tricks along the way, and making a couple of my own observations, I wondered how well an article like this would do? Let's find out...

My final thought, it's been about six months. In six months I've grown this venture from literal pennies a month to the point it's paying for itself. So, if you're new, or been here a while, take one last thought...if I can do it, anyone can.

If you found this entertaining, or helpful in any way, leaving a heart would be really nice. If you would like to leave a tip that would be greatly appreciated as well. Thanks for the read.