The Decline In Our Vocal Story Reads By Vocal Creators
And Why It Has Happened
Introduction
These days I don't get many reads from Vocal Creators, most of them come from non-Vocal Facebook Groups, so my reads are good and thanks to Vocal's refusal to show the number of reads within stories (they can show hearts in real-time, the number of comments twice, but no reads which is the most important thing I need to know because that is what that story pays me).
So Why Is This?
In my early days on Vocal, we couldn't filter our stories by community, that was a huge improvement. At that time I probably had less than a hundred subscribers (I now have nine hundred) but this story where I grouped my stories into communities got 311 reads and 32 hearts.
You can see the proof in this article.
When I post a story today I barely get five hearts and comments from Vocal Creators and because the Stats are flawed, unless I get very few or very many reads I am unaware of the reads I get from them. This is the piece I wrote over two years ago about the faults with stats and many creators have told me it's my own fault for publishing so many stories.
I average about forty a day, which gives me seven dollars a month from reads, which is my sole income from Vocal now, so it's a hell of a lot more than from my blog.
What I think has happened is that as more join up with Vocal which is an excellent platform for creating and sharing your work, and getting paid for it, that there are many more stories to read from many more creators.
Top Stories are much more common for a lot of creators but often they have less than ten comments and hearts, certainly when they are chosen and the same goes for Challenge Entries..
Some of the most lucrative rewards come from the Leaderboard which on a weekly basis pays creators the same sa a Challenge placement or four Top Stories, check this out.
Conclusion
The whole Vocal experience is continually evolving, sometimes it is Vocal, and sometimes it is the Creators (for example the number of unofficial challenges). You can check out some of this month's gathered here:
I know that only four or five Vocal Creators will leave a comment here, but I have adapted myself to deal with this situation.
Thank you for reading, I really appreciate your support.
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.
On Vocal Challenges: Official And Unofficial
Introduction Each month we try to gather up the Unofficial Vocal Challenges in the Vocal Social Society and collect them on a thread so that people can find them easily and take some inspiration. This is the thread for September 2024:
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred about a year ago in Writers
The Abandoned, part 1
We’ve all heard something about ghost towns and abandoned buildings. You might think it’s a fascinating but rare phenomenon, but you’d be wrong. If you dig deeper, you’d find it’s actually quite common. Disturbingly common, in fact. There’s at least one in every U.S. state, and thousands around the world. When you add in vacant properties, the list probably balloons to millions.
By Gabriel Shames5 days ago in Writers
Comments (25)
I love Vocal but from a financial standpoint it’s really tough. I’m so grateful for the weekly leaderboard though!!
Such a large and emerging platform must be hard to keep a track of, i see your points, as usual, they are helpful to me. I say again, I keep reading, people say thanks and most don't return a read, frustrating. But I am here to write and be grateful to those who do. Kudos.
Congratulations on your Honorable Mentions.
Thank you for posting this and letting us know how you feel. It is my goal to get the chance to read and comment on everybody’s story here on vocal, it’s a big dream but I will try to do it. Everyone on here has something valuable to say, lots of original stories and talents, and we can all try our best to support each other in our spare time, daily. I’ll also try to come back to check out your other stories as well.
Mike, you have received more than four!!! Great article!!! Loving it!!!❤️❤️💕 Congratulations on the Leaderboard Honerable Mentions!!!
I wouldn’t call Leaderboard lucrative: you can only place once a week, at $20 the most. So, mathematically it’s $80-100 per month at the most. I think only Dharrsheena can do that and only because she spends so much time to read and effort to comment here, which I’m incredibly grateful for because sometimes she’s the only one who reads and comments on my story. I’d be curious to know how many creators on this platform earn enough to cover their Vocal+ subscription.
I was thinking on this recently and just added a little note in one of my articles " why I haven't written in a month' I address an area that Vocal has turned into a mini read forum, if the story is longer then 8 minutes ( actually closer to 6, then it may not be read) Well said Mike and Congratulations on your placement
Interesting read.. I am clueless about how reads & likes do or don’t work!😵💫🤔… you were proved wrong about the number of comments you would get 🤣.
Hey, you shouted out the Leaderboard, and now the Leaderboard is shouting out you 😎
Vocal needs a good shake up, and to listen to their users. Vocal also used to do a lot more promotion for us on other social media platforms. Top story used to guarantee a lot more reads, now it’s almost overrated. Also the new format of the homepage screwed that up even more, because users don’t see Top Stories first. Plus too many AIs and bots now, Vocal is losing it. Currently working on a piece now about it. It sucks, because this is where I started out, writing about living in the Arctic. And I’ve made some amazing friends here. But vocal as a platform itself, is losing lots. #whathappenedtotheapp??
Looks like you beat your expected comment count by quite a few this time.
I've never had many reads from Vocal creators. Not with dozens of Top Stories, not with how many challenge wins and placements. Honestly, I think that there are several reasons for what you're seeing. First the platform isn't the same. Second, some of the people aren't the same. Creators come and go. Then, at least as far as the Facebook groups go, I think a sort of fatigue sets in among participants. It's impossible to read everything that everyone me puts out, even if it's only a few people that you follow.
I feel like I've said this before, but fundamentally this is not a good site for readers. It's difficult to tailor it to see content that is of interest (while I follow several people, I don't necessarily want to read all of their output because they cover different themes or genres and I might not be interested in all of them). It's difficult to filter content that is, frankly, garbage - whether that's AI stuff, or simply half-baked, badly written text. In theory, we can 'tag' content to help readers understand what it's about; in reality the available tags in most communities are too generic to be useful (and don't even start on a story that might fit more than one community). The only way to build any kind of readership, it seems to me, is to take stories and promote them on other sites. Which is fine, but then you have a hard time customising your Vocal page so that it's attractive to readers who come for one branch of your content without being off-putting to readers who are interested in another bit of your output.
Like your analytics. It's hard to keep up with all the stories and sometimes I have to take breaks. I applaud you for being a very proficient writer. I have trouble doing that, too.
I think a lot of our Vocal friends are not around as much anymore. I used to be able count on 40 - 50 reads per story on average. Now it's more like 20 - 25, some even below that. Of course a top story increases reads. I don't find the leaderboard as effective in that way.
Interesting thoughts, Mike. My reads have increased dramatically in the last 30 days, but the total is nowhere near yours. Of course, you also have over 10 times the number of stories published than I do. I think there are too many factors to consider one underlying cause, though I'm sure your theory is at least somewhat sound. I know my temporary slump in posting new stories is at least one factor in the increase that shows now. I also see a significant increase in reads and comments when any piece is awarded a Top Story. That would seem to indicate that my 472 subscribers (as reported) aren't reading very consistently. Overall, I think I'm happy with an average of over 40 reads per story and the occasional Leaderboard placement. Any Vocal awards are icing on the cake, so to speak.
Right now the stats show that I have 222 subscribers. I average between 7-12 reads per story with top stories receiving double that. I know many of the 222 are no longer active on vocal, but the subscriber number never decreases. I've mentioned this on a Vocal chat but they have no interest in adjusting the subscriber number to show a more accurate figure. Maybe it's too cumbersome an algorithm to run.
My engagement has almost always come entirely from Facebook. My genre isn't very popular here, but I do very well on Vocal. Vocal feels like a generic site to me. Seeing story stats would be nice.
I thought there had to be something wrong with my content or with how I was handling it for there to be such low engagement. I’m happy to see that it’s not just me, but it does show that we need to be more supportive of each other’s work and actually comment and like it when appropriate. Thank you for the insightful article.
Great informative article. Been on Vocal for several years now and really just the past two years now have been lucrative for me.
Thanks for sharing. Not sure how it worked. Need to support the platform more.
As always, good food for thought. One thing I will say is that you’re one of the folks who adds a lot to the Vocal community.
Thanks, Mike! I paid attention to stats to begin with and now I don't. I'm glad about the leaderboard, but I have not been interested in learning what it takes to score there! I really should pay more attention.😉💗
I wonder if i were on your list of people that will heart and comment? Good thoughts to ponder as always
And I'm one of those people to read and leave a comment hehehehe