Greater by the Dozen

“Hey, baby. People have read my stories 30 times! And I’ve made $0.12! I’m a professional writer!” I excitedly told my girlfriend. This was three months ago while checking out Vocal on my cellphone.

I first submitted a story to Vocal on February 26, 2021. At the time, my plan was to record my YouTube show Keggercast and write short written versions of what I talked about on the show. I recorded another episode of Keggercast a week later but didn't submit a story for it on Vocal because I fell into a deep depression that lasted about three months.

After my depressive episode passed, I received an offer to try Vocal+ for only $1 for the first month. I logged back onto Vocal and came across an ad for Vocal’s “Members-Only” challenge, which had a grand prize of $22,500 and I thought, “That’s a lot of money just for a story. $1 for a chance to win $22,500? I’m definitely in.” I accepted Vocal’s first month for $1 offer.

After writing and submitting my story for the Members-Only challenge, I decided to see if there were any other challenges that I felt confident I could write about. I found the “Create Your Happiness” challenge with a $15,000 grand prize. Of course, I then thought, “$1 for a chance to win $37,500. I need to enter ALL of Vocal’s challenges before my Vocal promotion ends!” I thought I would be canceling my Vocal+ before I was charged $5 for the following month. I didn’t. I ended up entering the Doomsday Diary and Travel Cuisine challenges. I have to admit that my Travel Cuisine entry was some of the worst writing I’ve ever done. Then I submitted a story to all 8 of Vocal’s “Summer Fiction Series”. I was hooked.

I caught the writing bug. I started submitting a story at least once a week. I didn’t expect to make any real money off of my writings but would get excited when I’d see that my stories were read and I earned a few pennies off of them. I did begin to wonder if it was worth paying $5 a month just to enter Vocal’s heavily competitive challenges. I decided to keep Vocal+ and write off the $5 a month as advertising for my home business Keggercast Entertainment. Now, if I don’t earn more than I pay for Vocal+, I can write it off as a business expense and save on my taxes. It’s a win-win. Woohoo!

I don’t expect that I will ever quit my day job and earn a living by submitting stories to Vocal and that isn’t why I’m doing it. But it is nice to see my reads and earnings go up every few days. I’ve been a Vocal+ member for only three months and, at the time of this writing, I’ve actually made a profit of $10.49, thanks to bonuses. And reads, of course. I don’t believe that the pace of earnings will keep working in my favor, but it has given me even more motivation to continue writing.

Making Vocal’s “Top Stories” page was a big surprise. I was surprised to have reached 100 readings. But having 12 people subscribe to keep up with my writing was an even bigger surprise.

In the age of social media word of mouth is the best way to spread your content and talent. People liking and sharing your creations encourage their friends, family, and followers to check out your work. In theory, these first dozen subscribers can lead to two dozen more subscribers, which can then lead to four dozen subscribers, and so on.

I would’ve never expected to have people actually want to read my writings. I appreciate everyone that has read any of my stories, but the people that subscribe have subscribed expecting to read more than one of my stories. This forces me to not only be a more imaginative and entertaining writer but also to keep writing more stories. And I thank them for this challenge. My greatest challenge on Vocal.