I Won $675 on a Vocal Writing Challenge and Still Switched to Medium

Lucrative cash prizes are great, but winning still comes down to the judges

Prior to switching over to Medium approximately two years ago, I spent the last year dabbling with Vocal. Vocal is a similar platform with Medium that offers the opportunity to make money on quality articles.

The majority of my income was coming from content writing and reviews, but I wanted an outlet where I could write about topics that were of importance to me in a way that might generate passive income. However, in the last few months I’ve concluded that Medium is a superior platform for interaction and offers a more consistent payment model for steady work.

Here’s an article on the content writing life:

Why I chose Vocal

I signed up for membership plans on both Medium and Vocal at the same time, and for the first month or so I tried to alternate where I published. The idea was to see which was the easiest platform to actually make money.

The stories on Vocal are not behind a paywall, and their system is easier to comprehend initially. You get paid for clicks, and soon after publishing I’d see a couple of pennies trickling into my account. On Medium, the payment process is not so straightforward and I was discouraged by the initial earnings.

You can check out my Vocal author profile page here:

Although it initially appeared that it was easier to make money on Vocal, I’ve found that Medium is much more reliable once you fully commit to publishing there. There are no followers on Vocal, and once you build up your following on Medium, you end up getting a lot more visibility and interaction for your Medium articles.

Also, I think Google is more likely to index your Medium stories rather than your Vocal stories. I’ve had stories truly languish on Vocal, while my Medium stories get consistent views. Medium offers you some SEO optimization features for your stories, so that alone might make it the better platform.

“Tipping” on Vocal

Another tactic Vocal used to entice me was the tips feature. Sometimes people read your articles and leave you a tip. These tips can come from anonymous users, or they can come from a Vocal curator the moment you publish your article. When that happens, Vocal promotes your articles on their various feeds.

From my Vocal wallet:

However, even when your article is curated, you just don’t see a huge amount of traffic. My top article there has received only 572 views in almost a year. That’s simply not good enough. My top article on Medium has 1.6k views in less than a month.

Vocal challenges

Although I’m disappointed with some of the features of the Vocal platform, I think it’s worth maintaining a paid membership just for the challenges. Challenges are weekly writing contests with cash prizes up to $5,000, and they are only available for Vocal members to enter.

One of my articles was selected for a 3rd place finish in the Mobile Moments challenge. The prize included $500 payable in cash via Stripe, and a moment photo kit. I have to admit I was pretty excited to receive the notification that I’d won $500 in a writing contest. It took a couple days, but the money arrived in my Stripe account exactly as they had promised.

Here’s my third place article:

Also, I had no idea what the “moment photo kit” was that came in addition to the cash prize. A few weeks later they asked me what the model of my phone was so that they could send me a camera lens. However, I have an old Samsung Galaxy S7, and the lens was on back order, so they just sent me a gift card for $175, which was fine by me.

Challenges are hit or miss

I got on the podium on the second Vocal challenge, and I hoped that it might turn into viable source of income. I diligently entered every contest for the next few months, but couldn’t get a sniff at a win. Chances are, if I’d gotten as much as a 3rd place on any other contest, I might still be dedicating the majority of my time to Vocal and you wouldn’t be reading this.

One thing that’s encouraging about the contests is that there simply aren’t a lot of entrants. Some of them have under 100 submissions, while the top ones seem to max out at around 200. Upgrading to a Vocal+ account was only $50 per year when I did it, though I think it might have gone up to $100. There really aren’t a lot of opportunities on the internet to pay $100 and have the opportunity to enter 50+ contests with cash prizes up to $5000 and only 200 or so entries.

It probably makes sense for all writers to have a Vocal account simply for the opportunity to enter the weekly contest. One article sent to Vocal a week isn’t going to hurt your Medium stats, and if you happen to win, you’ll outpace your Medium earnings. If you don’t win, you can always upload the entry into Medium at that time.

Why I prefer Medium

One of the downsides of working with competitions is that you don’t get any feedback unless you’re in the top three. I have no way of knowing where all of the articles I submitted to Vocal Challenges were rated. If they’d let me know that every one of my entries landed in the top 10 on their final rankings, then maybe I’d be more encouraged to keep submitting there.

I’ve worked long enough as a blogger, columnist, and content writer to know that I can produce quality work. I’ve had articles go viral in the past, and Medium is a platform that offers much greater visibility for what you write. Because I am capable of writing a large number of quality articles, the Medium model works better for me. I would rather write 100 articles a month and have all of them make $20, than hope that one article wins $5000 in a contest. The first option gives me greater control over my earnings.

My latest contest entry

I’d taken a few weeks off from the Vocal Challenges to concentrate on Medium, but I saw that Vocal just launched another $5000 contest. The contest is called ‘Outdoor Shots’ and I was encouraged by the theme since the last time I won a prize on a Vocal Challenge I think it was at least in part due to the strength of the image I’d included (I used it for this article).

I’m very proud of the picture I sent along for the ‘Outdoor Shots’ challenge, you can see it here (I’d love some feedback):

Once you’ve had a look, peruse some of the other entrants and let me know if you think I should at least be in the running for the top three, or enter yourself and let me know how it goes:

Vocal seems to require a community even more than Medium does, so keep me in mind. I’m always happy to interact and assist other writers.

Going forward

For the foreseeable future, I intend to up my output and establish a foundation on Medium. I had a very successful first month, and I’ve been blown away by the community and positive interaction of Medium. Both Medium and Vocal are exciting platforms that offer the writers a chance to earn a passive income from their work.

Vocal Challenges represent a very lucrative opportunity, but because it’s a contest, you can’t depend on winning the prize. Still, an annual Vocal membership is inexpensive and it gives you the chance to sign up for a weekly writing lottery ticket with a good cash prize and reasonable odds of winning.

Maintaining accounts both on Vocal and on Medium seems to be the most prudent choice for serious writers (depending, of course, on if the membership fees remain low).

Here’s my assessment of my first month on Medium: