A Dollar for Your Thoughts

It's been a little over a week since the updated platform rolled out. And while there have been a few bugs and glitches — some more frustrating than others — the team worked around the clock to fix them, and most of us can cheerfully publish again with our newly verified accounts and a kick-ass new editor.

Awesome!

But the updated platform also revealed an issue that many of us weren't fully aware of: the greedy AI darklords and their armies of bots, leeching money from the company by leveraging a feature that used to be at the heart of what made Vocal unique.

I'm referring to the fact that anyone could earn on this platform when any readers interacted with their work: no commercials and no subscriptions required on either side.

This feature will be mourned.

And while it is more than understandable that something needed to change, a lot of us are hurting for the friends and creators we admire who don't have the means to get a Vocal+ subscription and might lose the desire to publish without the incentive of a small but reliable reward.

While reading around, I have stumbled on more than one creator volunteering possible solutions. I have a few ideas of my own as well.

Why not gather all these ideas in one place where we can discuss them together, get inspiration from each other, and ultimately have a repository to refer to when writing to the Vocal team? And why not give a small monetary incentive to those who take the time and put in the effort to write well-organized and useful posts?

So here we are... It's like a Vocal-themed unofficial challenge.

But Sasha, you're already running one unofficial challenge! True, but this is something different.

For onesies, there is no deadline in sight! Yay!

For twosies, there is no limit for the number of entries: you can keep submitting as much as you want, as long as your post follows the rules.

RULES:

• What should you write about? Please write a post that tackles one or more of the following topics:

1. How can Vocal support real creators who can't afford a paid subscription, without bleeding money to cheating bots? Please consider that Vocal is, sadly, a company and not a charity for starving writers, so asking them to reinstate the previous model or to pay for things that don't get them any income is probably not constructive.

2. How can Vocal support its active writers better? Offer your ideas in terms of how you'd like the platform to promote its human writers better, in order to reach a broader audience. Please be specific: no to "Be more active on social media," yes to "Post a video on Instagram Reels each week with all the new top stories." Try to think of financially viable solutions, so "Run a spot during the Super Bowl" wouldn't be a good idea.

3. How can Vocal attract more new users to the platform? Are there features that you think would make a difference? Here too, please focus on specific and financially viable solutions.

• Where should you post it? Writers community with the tag Vocal seems like the obvious place, but if you have other/better ideas, please go ahead and publish there! Also, maybe let me know in a comment, so I can update this section.

• What do you get out of it? First and foremost, clarity. You get to properly round up your ideas, express them clearly, and write a post that you can always reference when sending emails to the Vocal team.

But also money.

Of course, you'll get money: it's in the title!

I'll tip 1$ each story that presents at least one new (not present in other submitted posts), valid (specific, actionable, and financially viable) idea in a well-explained (understandable) manner while following the technicalities.

TECHNICALITIES:

• No whining. This is a place for sharing ideas, not for complaints. If your article sounds like an excuse to pick a bone with the platform, please don't post it here. It will NOT be added to the list, and it will NOT be rewarded. And while it might make sense to introduce your idea by sharing the pain points that it addresses, this can be done respectfully without turning the whole post into a whinefest.

• The idea has to be new. Not as in "never thought of before", but there shouldn't be anything very similar in the other submissions. So please take the time to double-check the work of others before posting yours.

• It has to be well explained, financially viable, and actionable. We can't ask Vocal things like "pay us a dollar per story for no reason"; we cannot ask them to keep bleeding money to AI in order to reward the good creators too. The same way, we cannot ask them to run a marketing campaign at a loss or to "Just promote us better".

• It has to be relevant. Both in terms of "the issue you are writing about is still an issue at the moment of linking the story to this post", and in terms of "the proposed solution is current, making sense in the times we live in" (say, no MySpace, Google+ or other archaic things should be in it).

• You must share a link to your story (or write its full title) in the comments to this post.

• I'll pay out the tip after I've read your post. That may take some time, so please be patient!

Here is a stellar example of a post that follows all rules and technicalities, offering thoughtful, relevant, and actionable advice:

And all the ideas, in order of submission:

• "Improvements I'd Like to See" by Harper Lewis. This post presents the idea of a feature allowing writers to filter through their stats (or even having the stats of each story accessible on the story's page), and asks Vocal to start posting again on their Facebook page

• "The Attraction" by Kendall Defoe. This post analyses the success of the competing platform Medium.com, and invites Vocal to reach out to potential new users via ads and collaboration with influencers. There is also a hint at how a collective effort of posting on social media by Vocalites themselves would benefit everyone.

• "A Budget Subscription" by Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred, offers the idea of a cheaper subscription where users can earn a smaller amount per read (compared to V+) while paying a very affordable contribution.

• "A Constructive Wishlist for Vocal" by Annie. This post does a stellar job of presenting several ideas in a clear and actionable way. A feature that allows organizing our stories in folders (super useful for chapter writers); a separate community for unofficial challenges (or even their promotion under the "Challenges" tab); hiring a social media manager are only a few of the ideas offered in this post. Yes, this post is linked twice; nice eye for detail! But I wanted it to be here twice: it's just that good.

• Please Read by Julie Lacksonen. An introduction is on its way

• Behind the Win by Paul Stewart. An introduction is on its way

Keep linking your stories in the comments, and I will add them here after reading and tipping ❤️