WRITING
Why I Am Keeping My Vocal Media Subscription
My experience writing on the platform
Vocal Media is a platform that supports, discovers, and rewards artists by providing storytelling tools and active communities that allow creators to be found and fund their creativity.
I recently read a post by Susie Kearley, where she mentions that Vocal Media is now going to enable comments. Needless to say, I was delighted.
Reader engagement is one of my favorite aspects of Medium. The lack of engagement was a huge turnoff for me on Vocal. So, it might be a game-changer for me if comments will now be allowed.
Pros of Vocal Media
- I enjoy Vocal’s clean, ad-free interface, which makes the content pleasant to read.
- Vocal is relatively user-friendly.
- Vocal has rewarded me with multiple bonuses and an upgraded 3-month free Vocal + premium membership.
- I received the Vocal bonuses for publishing stories even when I was not a Vocal + member.
Cons of Vocal Media
- Vocal can be quite glitchy. My bullet points, lists, and section breaks from Medium are all eliminated when I transfer my stories over to Vocal, and I end up having to reformat my entire story.
- There is a minimum 600-word requirement for stories and a minimum 100-word requirement for poems. Many of my pieces are shorter than this length, so I cannot republish them on Vocal.
- Despite getting compensated for both internal and external views, I was not earning much for reads.
- The search engine optimization is very weak, so it isn’t easy to get views, unlike Medium. You need to promote your article via social media to increase views.
- You are limited to using only one tag per post.
- Vocal Media has communities similar to publications on Medium. Your story might be published in a different community than the one you selected.
- The long lag between submitting and publishing a piece can be inconvenient. Suppose you want to publish multiple stories to the platform; each one must be approved. The latter took several days in my case.
- There are monthly writing challenges with prizes for Vocal + members. However, most of them are fiction stories, which I do not write.
In light of Vocal’s drawbacks, I contemplated closing the account and cashing out on the platform.
50-Story Bonus and Top Story
Sharing Randomly detailed how she repurposed 50 of her Medium articles and received the maximum bonus possible on Vocal. After reading her post, I decided to keep my Vocal account and follow suit.
I have published 200 stories on Medium, so I figured I could repurpose at least 50 of those pieces to Vocal. I had only repurposed 20 articles until that point, as I was unaware of the $50 bonus for the 50 articles.
I am happy I decided to go for it because one of my pieces was selected as a top story on Vocal and featured on Vocal’s homepage. I will now be receiving another bonus for that particular story.
Closing Thoughts
It is critical to diversify your income as a writer. Additionally, publishing on various platforms is an excellent approach to building a solid portfolio for possible freelance writing customers.
I will continue to write on Medium and Vocal Media for the time being. I have also added NewsBreak into the mix, but I will leave that story for another day.
What are your thoughts on Vocal Media and the upcoming changes on the platform?
Here is a link to my Vocal profile:
I would like to highlight this excellent article by Danielle Hestand, where she explains the advantages of writing in various niches. It resonated with me because I have never limited myself to writing in only a couple of niches.