VocalReviews of vocal.media

Essentially a scam. The quality of your writing doesn't matter to these ultra liberal pink-haired shower dodgers.

I’ve been using Vocal for 3 months now. I originally joined to enter one of their poetry contests. So far I have broken even on the cost because they give bonuses at certain milestones. They also pay 2/3 of a cent for each read. Not very much. You need to do a lot of self promotion and bring your own audience to the table exactly like anyone in the visual arts or music world if you want to make money. My main focus is to become a better writer. The only way to do that is to write and the challenges they offer do inspire writing. Although the judges on the most recent fiction challenges have not been identified, the judges on the corporate sponsor challenges have been clearly named and you can look them up to see what they might be looking for in the contest. Overall I believe Vocal is trying to improve as a writer’s site, and their parent company Creatd. seems to be attempting to develop it further. The jury is out on how they will go forward.

Completely lacking in transparency. Contests (which come with huge prize money awards) seem to have winners picked at random - the quality of winners is often dreadful, and a recent contest winner was 800 words over the word limit. The judges aren't publicly named, so I suspect they're just random members of Vocal's staff. It's not clear what criteria are used to decide which stories are sent to the judges - it seems to be purely whether or not some low-level moderator likes your story enough to pass it on. No feedback is ever given - not even about the contest winners and the reasons they are chosen. Getting to be featured as a "top story" seems to have the same problems as well - many are either promoting brands or bigging up Vocal as a website, rather than being stories / articles that are any good. Basic spelling and grammar mistakes are a common sight. The website is horrendously optimised for search engines, so good luck getting organic traffic to anything you write - I googled my name and the title of several articles I have had "published" on Vocal and got zero results. It's almost impossible to get decent numbers of reads. Their adverts claim that you can earn up to $6000 a month - I would like to see the evidence for this. Maybe if you somehow win multiple competitions, it is possible, but based off the incredibly low amounts you get paid for people reading your articles, it is virtually impossible. Once I have finished submitting to the current round of contests I will be cancelling my membership. I do not intend to go back.

I agree that Vocal has a lot to clean up with editing / profile management both on computers and definitely phones, but that doesn't make it a SCAM. They are gradually working things out, and have improved dramatically - even over the month I've been a user. Building websites takes time, especially for startups. Mechanics aside these reviews sound like a lot of bitter people who want everything to be free. It's a couple Starbucks visits not a month's worth of salary to join Vocal+, and a lot of people seem to be making conjecture about the review process without any direct knowledge just their personal opinion. I too joined to enter a competition, and I did win - with my first entry. I am proud of my entry and have expanded it since then. I took all my money out after my win but continue to get reads. I'm in my second month and have another $20 in there I can withdraw. I'm waiting for results on the competitions I've entered this month. If you're joining to get rich quick as a writer, you are in the wrong profession. Just enjoy the process. I really need money too, but that's not my main focus. Vocal is a nice outlet for my creative expression, and the prompts are helping me develop a style. I also take a lot of care in the mechanics of what I present, so acting like every winning story is a pile of garbage filled with grammatical errors is not accurate either. I go back numerous times to re-read and edit my entries prior to competition judging (they have added a quick edit feature) My second story also received hundreds of views and numerous likes. I've written 8 or 9 at this point and they all have reads and likes even if only a few. For those questioning tips, yes they happen, I've received 4 tips also. I've also received additional money from Vocal for Top Stories. I may tire of the platform, but for now it's more than paid for itself to me. It did take some times to get my winnings through Stripe, but I got them. I'd rather have them be careful, and it should go more smoothly now that I am verified. I was hacked right before judging so I was very happy to wait and make sure my money went to the right account. If you find the right approach and have a little patience Vocal can be a great outlet. I enjoy it more than Medium. Once they grow and develop a little more I think it will be a terrific outlet.

I really don't think they judge the competitions but just pick a winner at random. I thought about entering because the prizes are apparently quite high but before spending the time I looked at some of the previous winners and losers. When you do this it becomes very hard to see the merit in the winners, and I read very many better losers. Conclusion - they can't possible be reading them and it's therefore just a method of harvesting $9 a month. Will save my effort and put it towards competitions run by genuine literary societies. At least then, when I lose, I'll know I was beaten fair and square by better material.

The contests are most likely scams. Look at the winners. The writing is pretty terrible. Could it really be that all the submissions were that mediocre? There is no way, in my opinion, that they are able to read and vet all submissions in less than two weeks, and the quality of the winning submissions attests to this. Don't waste your money on this if you are in it for the contests.

I have a $9.99 chrge on my debit card and never signed up Don't have a phone or anyting. SCAM!

I wish there was a way to dm Screw you to a whole website lol. Can you believe they have the fucing audacity to charge you to literally just write your own stories, and then they put it in the algorithm that if you dont pay then people won't see your work. Plus the people who are writing to compete usually are trying to get the money bcz they need it (like i was trying to do and spent 1 hr working on a short story to realize I cant even post it) are getting scammed out of the chance to win anyways. Its all BS and it couldn't be more obvious I feel really bad for the people wasting their money on it I hope they get their money back somehow <3