It Happened

Introduction

Three years ago I joined Vocal to win a big prize. That never happened, but this did.

What Did?

As you know I have a fascination with numbers and tend to track what happens to my account via Vocal's flawed statistics. As I hit certain numbers of stories, I tend to share them with others on Vocal.

That also makes me aware of where I am, so this is Vocal story number 2216, adn I have a least two others to pick up after this one.

I have finally got fifty thousand reads and over three hundred dollars in payments for reads. Remember this is over three years so works out at a hundred dollars a year, just under two dollars a week, which is maybe one small coffee a week. That will not make me rich and will not impress anyone.

When all these things are added up they start to look impressive but you need time and effort to actually rack these up. However anyone can do what I have done., it is nothing special or magical.

The thing is to publish regularly and build an audience. Also read other stories regularly and if you are lucky people will reciprocate. I am not lucky in that area, but I am lucky that my stories do get read by a lot of people, usually not Vocal members, so I do get a healthy number of reads.

Engagement does bring readers to your stories and I am so thankful to Vocal that they allow and pay for non-Vocal reads. This means you can target non-Vocal areas with your stories where appropriate.

My most-read story is this, and the reason it got so many reads is that I shared it in some large folk music groups (and they can be tricky places to post because your work has to exactly align with their rules. This didn't, according to some group members so I got a lot of reads so that people could either defend or denigrate it in the groups, but Vocal benefitted me financially because of that.

As you can Vocal Creators and Vocal themselves are not impressed with my most-read work, none of these are Top Stories, but they have got a lot of reads and therefore made me a little coffee money.

Conclusion

This is a marker piece to remember when I hit fifty thousand reads and three hundred dollars from them. Because for a month I was not a V+ member the figures are slightly out of sync but that was inevitable.

This is something that is within your grasp and every Vocal creator's grasp. I do hope to see others as they hit their milestones, whether is is a hundred, a thousand or more, every milestone is significant.

Once you publish your first story and get your first read and first comment, you are on your way.

The music I included was, appropriately "The Happening" by The Supremes and the initial words sort of fit this:

Hey, life, look at me

I can see the reality

'Cause when you shook me, took me out of my world

I woke up

Suddenly I just woke up to the happening

Thank you for reading.