The Benefits of Being A Vocal Member

Introduction

I have been a member of Vocal for twenty-one months now, and the fact I am still here, with over nine hundred and fifty stories shows that I am still appreciative of this generally excellent platform. In my time I have seen a lot of people leave, complaining that they are not getting Top Stories, Challenge Wins or general recognition by the platform, despite the fact when you join Vocal tell you that it is your responsibility to promote yourself and provide a lot of resources to help you do that. which you can dip into in the link below.

A Little About My Medium Membership

I signed up to Medium as well, which I think is Vocal’s main rival but in order to get paid you need to get a hundred followers and your stories can be very short, even spam and that seems to be allowed, but I do enjoy my monthly statement and tax email that tells me 2c will be paid into my bank account in the next three to five days. I dropped my paid membership because I generally find it a bit messy. My Medium profile can be visited below.

The Vocal Benefits (I Will Be Repeating Previous Observations Here and Adding New Ones)

Vocal allows you to be a free member or to pay $10 a month which gives you enhanced payment options and allows you to enter the very lucrative challenges (which was the reason I joined Vocal in the first place, though I soon realised that it was unlikely I would ever win a challenge).

One big plus for Vocal is that they count reads from anyone who reads your story which means you can promote yourself on any platform with any audience. In my time on Vocal I have always made more money than I pay in subscriptions which is, in my opinion, a big plus.

Vocal are always working on enhancements to the platform, and while the editor is still limited, it more than serves its purpose for me. The fact you can add images, videos and links allow you to make a very rich experience for your audience.

A recent one it adding the share, comment and heart bar which gives you a little insight and allows you to share and comment quite quickly as well, but it would have been even better if they had included the read count for the story as well.

Insights are good but limited, but I love seeing Insights on my stories.

Comments are excellent as well as often I will see stories by creators I am subscribed to and now they know that I have read and appreciate their story.

The great thing about the platform is that you do not have to chase fans on the platform, you can just use it as almost a diary.

Subscriptions and Favourite Stories are other useful tools to keep you in touch with what is happening in your Vocal circles, and also an old enhancement was the ability to give a tip. It was two one-dollar tips from one of my favourite creators that made me think that I could be appreciated on Vocal, so that person is responsible for me still being here and producing articles like this.

There is also the option of subscriptions but I cannot see that anyone would want to subscribe to me, and if someone did I would feel under pressure to keep producing, and that is something I do not want.

The profile is limited but allows you to link to anywhere you want and this year I decided to link to my favourite creators and produced an article about it below.

So Vocal is definitely my preferred writing platform and I am very happy with the position I am in now with them but here are a few criticisms.

The Vocal Criticisms

The Stats reporting still does not function correctly, and although nothing has been said I believe Vocal have increased the time required to register a read. This time last year I was hitting two thousand reads a month, now I am lucky to hit a thousand. I covered this in the article below.

Payment used to be timely and on time, not every payment has to be chased via an email or a ticket. The odd one comes through automatically but I have forgotten the last time I didn’t have to chase up a payment. This really does need to be addressed.

The Vocal Apps were promoted and obviously took a lot of resources, but they give nothing more than what I can already do on my phone. Also after the great announcements of the release of the apps and a few people saying “WOW” I have heard nothing about them and certainly don’t see a reason to install one on my phone. I suppose that because I haven’t heard any complaints the people who have installed them must either be satisfied or they have just forgotten about them.

Conclusion

Vocal is an excellent platform to share our creations despite its minor flaws and issues, and I really hope that if any non-Vocal members read this, that they join up. You don’t have to write on the platform, but a free membership will allow you to drop hearts and comments on the Vocal stories that you like.

I included "Chasing Rainbows" by Shed Seven because I feel that is what many of us are doing here.