Hobbies Are therapies & Writing is One Such

My debut in paid writing happened about 32 years ago with writing on Infrastructure and Interior decoration. These were interview-based articles or i should say transcripts that unlocked my hidden passion in interviewing and soon shifted to corporate jobs and served and flourished for the next 20 odd years. But the Revival from the Great Recession of 2008/09 was not very encouraging to continue with jobs.

And as the good old saying goes, every crisis yields new opportunities, just like the paradigm shift in every aspect of life brought in by Covid. Covid has, sort of; created a mandatory need for a digital/virtual identity compelling all to go tech-savvy, the advantages of which will continue to unfold in the course of time.

So post recession, new opportunities began shaping up. The early to mid years of 2010 witnessed a sudden growth of borderless social media platforms that brought the world together in a user-friendly interactive space, disregarding all barriers of borders, gender, age, color, education, language, and status. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Quora, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Vimeo, Podcast, etc. came with their respective unique features allowing users their own virtual presence in the parallel running virtual world. But the real online writing independence was offered by blogging sites like WordPress, Blogger, Wix, Squarespace, Weebly… again with their unique features to cater to individual requirements.

The growing social media ecosystem shook up the dormant writer in me. It offered global reach in a click.

So i decided to create a Wix website and start posting my stories. For some unknown reason, i wasn’t very keen to write on an “open for all” platform. But that didn’t happen !! Years passed jiggling my writing launch as by the time i got accustomed to one, it would upgrade with a whole set of new features or i would begin to prefer some other 😟

And then came COVID and its lockdown. This gave me all the time to study various personal blogging options and two names that would come up in every keyword search were Medium & Vocal. And guess what, i never knew one could earn by sharing stories on these platforms! Given my belief in baby steps to start with, i joined Medium about a year ago, around July/August 2020 and began to read but as a non MPP i was not allowed more than 2 stories for free! I was in no hurry to join MPP till i had understood the features. Later i also got to know the constraints in joining MPP because Stripe was not supporting some countries yet, including India.

In the meantime, i continued working on the book i was writing. It was early this year i joined Vocal also, to validate the comparisons i had read so much about, before zeroing in on Medium. And to my surprise, the two are so different and uniquely wonderful. Both have their own USPs (Unique Selling Points) and meet your expectations to the best.

Not a day is missed without reading stories on both and it has been such a learning and enriching experience. I love these communities and the freedom they offer.

While Medium allows commenting, follow, and be followed; Vocal introduced "Subscribe". After all, these are personal blogging platforms; albeit with the public view. If you love to comment open to receiving comments, Medium is the option, but sometimes one may just want to scribble the thoughts without being judged, park on Vocal. And you can also share the same stories on both.

Both the platforms engage their writers with motivation strategies to make their writers write more and enroll new members. Medium started with Bonuses and Vocal started the “Ambassador Program” and engaged its members to become the Vocal Ambassadors.

Unfortunately, both the platforms sort of restricted my planned fast-forward writing journey due to their only available payment mode-Stripe which is not yet active in India. Vocal also pays through Stripe but upgrading to Vocal+ comes with extra privileges and has an edge over Medium as it allows Vocal+ to enter fabulous money rewarding challenges.

In fact, it was a challenge “Stray to Stay” that pushed me to go visible with my profile that i later shared on medium, marking my debut on Medium also. And the ongoing Fiction Challenge is too compelling to let go by fiction writers. It has 25 grand prize winners will each receive $5,000, and be published in Vocal's first ever book, a collection of short stories by our creators. Another 1000 lucky ones will get one year Vocal+ membership for free. WOW !!! Read more here 👇

My Unique Link will enable you to join Vocal+ for 3 months for $4.99/month (which is $9.99/month otherwise), plus a $10 Welcome Bonus in your Vocal Wallet. And you can start writing and earning.

And i will be happy because i will earn my small affiliate reward too.

And do read the monetary benefits on joining Vocal+ 👇

Vocal has many ways to reward its readers. You earn on

- Your very first article

- Your engagement with other articles

- $6 on 1000 views

- $5 on posting 5 articles

- $10 on posting 10 articles

- $50 on posting 50 articles and so on

- You can participate and earn in Challenges

- People can even give “Tips”

And many more………

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Have a look at their communities and Challenges

https://vocal.media/communities

https://vocal.media/challenges

Join now and you can also apply for Vocal+ Ambassador Program.

Get Set Go … →> Unique Link to join Vocal+

Thank you and happy writing !

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p.s. : Please do bear with me as i prefer to use “i“ for myself and not "I" Thank You :))

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