My Life On Vocal At The Moment
It's Hard Work But ....
Introduction
Since November 23rd, 2025, continuing on Vocal has been made difficult for me due to Vocal's minimal support. The music I chose for this piece is "Hard Workin' Man", written by Jack Nitzsche, sung by Captain Beefheart, featuring Ry Cooder on the guitar. The rhythm provided by a car body printing press, and the image I created for this, is appropriate.
So What Am I Doing
Vocal has given me a year's V+ in compensation for the situation, but that means no Top Stories, Challenge Considerations or Leaderboard placements, so the only income is via reads, which dropped to six hundred over the last thirty days.
I now have it back up to over a thousand, and that will keep growing.
I have gone back and republished some stories that are still pertinent or did not get a lot of read first time around, and this time have got a few more. Over time, your audience changes, hopefully growing, but not being able to publish new stories saw my readership take a big hit.
I have also been looking for non-Vocal groups to share my work with (including old stories), and that seems to be getting me reads.
So that is the direction I am now taking, along with self-publishing my books.
Conclusion
I am sad that a lot of Vocal Creators have dropped me like a stone, but you can't force people to read your work, but certainly comments and hearts seem to have dried up. Sometimes I see people have liked my work, but no comments from them.
So I am not going to stop and will keep on recycling until I can publish something brand new.
This piece has got a lot of reaction, but that is just an exception that proves the rule and is clickbait.
Thank you for your time.
About the Creator
Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred
A Weaver of Tales and Poetry
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Creationati
Call Me Les ♥ Gina ♥ Heather ♥ Caroline ♥
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More stories from Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred and writers in Writers and other communities.
Rereading
I reread my favorite books, over and over again, for a very simple reason: I love the characters and enjoy spending time with them. Maybe I grieve their loss, maybe I bargain with the text: if I read you better this time, maybe Benji won’t die, maybe Manderly won’t burn, and maybe Lenny and George will get that piece of land and have something to call their own.
By Harper Lewis7 days ago in Writers
Comments (12)
Mike, have you tried to edit your profile? Take off a few things and then see if you can publish new items?
I don't understand why you can't enter challenges. They let us enter old stories for the challenges.
I'm with Sandy and Tiffy, I admire you for not giving up. I would have given up a long time ago.
I admire your determination Mike! May you have a blessed 2026! 💕
I'm happy to see you're not giving up despite the issues 🙂
Wonder if it's a space issue for them? Hope this gets fixed soon
I am also confused, like Harper said, why you can't win challenges, top stories, and leaderboard placements? Compensating for one thing should not punish you for a year. I truly don't see any logic there. And you can't publish new stories? I really don't understand. I have noticed Vocal is quieter lately. I also notice less comments, likes, reads. Perhaps they have dropped me, too. My initial theory is that there are less actual people around and the ones still hanging out are spending less time here for very obvious reasons: the energy and time invested is not worth the ROI. I am spending less time here myself, to be honest, due to the above. I probably said this before, but Vocal needs some revamping, some updating, some new considerations as to how to increase what we get per 1K reads but right now it's honestly way way way too low and as far as I know it has never been increased. Then the challenges. They are not what they used to be. I never won any challenge, but honestly, the prompts now are lousy, boring, AI generated, and the same stuff over and over again, just rewording the titles and prompt. In other words, no effort or innovation whatsoever. I don't think it's anything personal, Mike. I think it's a general attitude toward managing the platform. I don't know who's behind the scenes right now but it's pretty evident there is not too much effort putting onto it. And that, is something some people see, react, and act in consequence. Many might have left, many others perhaps kept only regular memberships. And to be honest, that's where I see myself heading, too. It's better to not be eligible to win challenges than to think I am a total loser, a terrible writer, or that absolutely anything I write is worth a prize. To that I will add I won't ever forget that Vocal has awarded challenge prizes to AI generated stories from accounts I super checked back then, with awards of $500 and the same account winning several Top Stories. Anyway, I know how you feel because those kinds of things affect your self-esteem greatly. I know it does to me. I would say, do your thing without expecting too much from the platform because obviously, no one no longer cares.
I’m confused—was part of this settlement an agreement that you can’t win challenges, get top stories, or have leaderboard placement? That seems odd, so please clarify.
Comments start here
Agree with your reasoning to continue wearing conracts!!! Loved it!!!❤️❤️💕
I like your little forays into your life. Your personal pieces one can take what they need from it.
I love your thoughts of bad weather at night. Such a beautiful place to spend time at home on a quiet rainy morning