Why I Stopped Publishing on Vocal

Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash

I learned about Vocal while reading other articles here on Medium. I signed up in July of 2021 with the hope of publishing different types of content compared to what I post here on Medium.

Last month, I decided to cancel my membership and stop publishing new content there. I also removed some of my stories. While I know that Vocal has been a great opportunity for some other writers, this is why I decided to cancel.

It Was Hard to Get Views

The first thing I noticed was that my views were significantly low. As in one or two views per month. Here on Medium, views have never been a problem for me. My posts get more visibility here, even if I don’t market my content. It just makes way more sense to spend my time and energy here.

I Lost Money

I realized that in order to enter the writing contests, you needed to pay the $10 monthly fee. I also learned that in order to reduce your payout threshold and to get paid more for each view, you needed to cough up the cash. I did this for about six months, but I ultimately was never able to cash out.

Now, this definitely isn’t the case for everybody. I know a lot of writers find Vocal to be lucrative, but it wasn’t for me.

You Can’t Remove Your Own Stories