Fictional Writers Took Over Vocal Media
So, I left.
Back in March 2020, I joined Vocal Media and it was one of the best things I had ever done in my life to date.
I had always wanted to blog or write in some shape or form but had always been too scared of what people would think. Screw what people think, because I’m having a whale of a time.
When I had first joined Vocal Media, there were so few members of the community that part of me thought it was a scam. Trustreview didn’t have any information on the website, so if they didn’t have verified social media accounts, I probably would have turned and walked the other way.
Nearly everyone on Medium is aware that Vocal Media is famous for its competitions. Not only this, but the prize fund is always money.
From 2020 onwards, I participated in their weekly competitions. First place is awarded $1000, second $500 and third place is awarded $250. I’m fortunate enough to have come first place in one competition and second place in two others.
A part of me does put this down to there not being many entries in the first place. If you’re a member of Vocal Media, you will be aware that you can click on the challenge and view all of the entries. Back in early-mid 2020, there would be less than 50 entries. Nowadays…
Well, there are no more weekly competitions. And that’s my problem.
Word spread like a forest fire about the competitions and how people were walking away with legitimate money. Vocal Media started reeling people in with bait such as free 3-month memberships and ambassador programs.
More and more people were joining daily and entering the weekly competitions which was a bummer for me, as it made them harder to win.
Over time, Vocal Media was announcing bigger and better competitions. What turned into a maximum prize of $1000 for first place, turned into $5,000, $10,000, and once even $20,000 just for a poem.
On the day that Vocal Media announced they were holding a competition for fictional writers, it was game over for me. I can’t remember exactly what the competition theme was based on.
I’m not a fictional writer, I don’t practice the trade at all. I’m a rambler writer, I write whatever I feel about with no niche. Just another internet big-mouth.
For freelance fictional writers all over the internet — and there are a lot of them — this was all that was needed for them to sign-up and subscribe to Vocal Media.
The number of subscriptions must have been insane because the company has never stopped doing fictional competitions. In fact, they’ve been doing them so much that they stopped weekly writing challenges. Even when the weekly challenges were going on, from time to time the challenge was based around a fictional story.
I left Vocal Media around a year ago now. There was nothing really left for me, apart from the Vocal Media ambassador program when I would earn the occasional $25.
My last official pay-out was about $90.
From time to time I click back on the website hoping something will attract my attention, or that the weekly challenges have made a return. But this is not the case to this day.
Oh, not to mention the endless arguments on the Facebook pages. There are some absolute dickheads on that site.
The site has catered to everything around fictional writing, and so there’s no place for me on that site. Realistically, the only people it really benefits are the people who’ve been writing fiction for many years and who have multiple published books.
Kudos to those whom it is benefiting. If it works for you, there’s no reason for you to leave.
