VocalReviews of vocal.media

I have written 50 stories on vocal,although they are published but I have not been given bonus ,I find this discouraging....

Why does VOCAL MEDIA not include any avenue to cancel the subscription? There is no avenue to contact them, they are ready to make your membership Infinitum is what I believe. When they deduct from your card, you are not notified. What sort of business model is that? Are you in this for a long ride? I doubt it.

I recently joined vocal after seeing a contest posted. The contest required that the first sentence of your story begin with their specific prompt. In this instance, the story must begin with,"Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say." The rules clearly state your story must begin with this sentence, anything after is up to you. There were some good submissions, with over 1400 in total I believe. First prize was $10,000, 2nd prize was $2,500, with 25 runner ups getting $50. I had no illusions I would win, but the dream was nice. One of the runner up posts was a new twist on little red riding hood, called, "Red Moon." The problem was, this story was published on the site 2 years ago! Nowhere in the first paragraph, or whole story for that matter, was the specific prompt sentence. I'm not sure how these are judged or if they're random lottery as someone has suggested. I doubt I will continue my subscription.

I recently ordered and received two personalize logo Harley-Davidson baseball Jersey shirts. On the very same day when I wore them, the buttons started coming off! when I started checking the remaining buttons… SEVERAL of them we’re already on the verge of also falling off due to them not being properly secured to the fabric. These baseball Jerseys were VERY POORLY MADE and not worth the money that I paid for them!!

My review will be short and direct. First off I am not an employee of Vocal Media nor am I getting paid to write this review. I am just an everyday person that publishes my stories/articles with Vocal Media. Vocal is not a scam. It is a legitimate licensed business. You do not have to have a paid Vocal+ account to publish your stories with Vocal. You can have your stories published even with the free account. I do have the paid Vocal+ account. My first year as a Vocal+ member was paid for a by vocal because I participated in an interview that they were conducting therefore they gave me one year free membership. I have paid for my second year which is $100 for the year which is less than $10 a month. Between the money I get for reads and the bonuses that vocal gives me for top stories and the tips that I receive from my readers I make between $100 to $150 each month. Therefore I am making a whole lot more than the cost of the membership. I have never won one of their contests which usually the prize for winning something like $5,000 up to $10,000 and more. As I say I have never won one of these contests. Which is okay. Because I do read some of the stories that are winners and they are definitely deserving. Therefore one day if one of my stories is deserving and wins I will be grateful for that. I guess in order to win one of these contests I will have to sharpen up my skills. I will end here by saying that Vocal is not a scam and I am very pleased with their business model. Yes they do have a few kinks that they need to be worked out but overall I am very pleased with them.

The most recent Vocal.com winning stories were straight up hack writing at its worst, with transparent prose, many mistakes, and they were literally painful to get through. One didn’t even follow the story prompt of waking up on an actual runaway train. I would say this is a scam where people pay to play and also build audience in order to win, because the actual writing is subpar. Would like a refund of my membership fee and to never visit this sad site again.

I joined to enter the Campfire Ghost Story competition, whose prompt was "Write the scariest, most bone-chilling horror fiction story—the kind of story you'd tell around a campfire on a summer night." If you would like to understand my one-star rating, I invite you to read the winning submissions with this prompt in mind. Neither winning story is technically bad (though they're not technically good, either), but neither is a campfire story, nor a ghost story, nor a campfire ghost story. My recommendation, then, is that if you do pay the fee to enter Vocal Plus's contests, do not follow the directions and do not spend much time on the composition.

Vocal Media is a site where you can write articles, short stories and poetry and post them for others to read. It gives you a very easy platform from which to post. Owning your own website costs around $20 a month if you go through website design sites. So yes, you pay $10 a month for a platform where you can post and share your own writings…just as you would pay a website developer. I do not work at Vocal. I do not personally know anyone at Vocal. How they judge is a lot more open now. They are now providing information about the judges and they give bios about them. I’m sorry that people are angry about not winning contests. Personally, I don’t think it’s about how technically well-written they are and how strictly the story followed the rules. They judge what they feel keeps them interested and invested in the story. All forms of art are judged differently, we are only human. Some people like broccoli…some don’t. The eye of the beholder. What one person loves, another will hate. It’s how the human brain works and Vocal is not a machine. There is no scam. And to update these reviews: you can now subscribe, comment, react, etc to people’s stories. They have listened to their consumers and are constantly trying to improve. And yes, you do have to promote yourself..JUST like every other writer, artist, musician, etc that has to promote their work. If you have your own webpage, you have to promote that too. It’s not Vocal’s responsibility to do the work for you. Promoting costs money and time either way. I may never win a challenge, no matter how badly I need the money. But, I do not fault Vocal for doing the best they can do while they are still a small company. So what if some winners misspelled words, I thought the winners had captivating stories. To me? That’s all that matters. They have to grow their business. There’s no ads, so they do what they can to get money coming in. And if paying $10 a month for your own writing platform irks you, then I hope you know someone who can build a website for you from scratch for free. Yes, some winners only wrote one story and won…and? Whoever judged it felt it was good enough to win. I am a Visual Artist, I’m very familiar with people having drastically different opinions. There are people who dislike Monet’s work, but does that make him a bad artist? Of course not. There are too many complaints from people who don’t understand that Vocal is a growing company that will make mistakes…but they are certainly trying. And I don’t know why people are complaining about customer service. They have answered every one of my emails. Also, there’s no secret left-wing agenda, they prefer their material to be politically and religiously neutral as it’s a platform for everyone to enjoy. Not letting in articles/stories with strong alienating opinions that might be harmful to their brand makes absolute sense. In fact, I commend them for remaining so neutral. It’s a safe space for everyone. So please, let them grow and learn. If not, feel free to start your own writing platform…..