Hide & Seek — My Writing Journey
Don’t restrict yourself to Medium alone…..an invitation to join Vocal+
My debut in paid writing happened about 32 years ago with writing on Infrastructure and Interior decoration. This was late 90s. I had already served the corporate for about 5yrs before taking up writing as a full-time job. I had joined a small publishing company that mainly covered Government Infrastructure projects. I doubled up as both reporter and writer. These were interview-based articles, or I should say transcripts, and I guess that’s what made me jump for the job. I had only given interviews for jobs and was always intrigued with the idea of taking interviews. My initial corporate functions were finance-related with no scope of even short-listing candidates, leave aside interviews.
Even though low-paying, but I experienced a sense of achievement in writing. It was wonderful to reach out to the public through writing, and I excelled as an interviewer. Capitalizing on this newfound talent, I wrote interview-based articles for an interior design magazine also as a freelancer. However, back then, writing as a profession wasn’t very lucrative and lacked the benefits and perks of typical corporate functions compelling me to shift back to corporate jobs followed by running my own consulting into Recruiting and Business Advisory. I served and flourished for the next 20 odd years till hit by the Great Recession of 2008.
The revival from the Great Recession of 2008/09 was not very encouraging to continue with jobs. In the meantime, media had witnessed growth taking many shapes and forms. The advent of technology in media has opened a plethora of opportunities. It was time again to unlock the writer in me.
The revival from recession witnessed a whole new set of opportunities shaping up in every field especially freelancing. There was an impromptu growth of social media platforms that brought the world together in a user-friendly interactive space, disregarding all barriers of borders, gender, age, color, education, language, and status. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Quora, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Vimeo, Podcast, etc., came with their respective unique features allowing users their own virtual space in the parallel running virtual world. But the real online writing independence was offered by blogging sites like WordPress, Blogger, Wix, Squarespace, Weebly… again with their unique features to cater to individual requirements.
The growing social media ecosystem shook up the dormant writer in me. It offered global reach in a click.
So I decided to create a Wix website and start posting my stories. For some unknown reason, I wasn’t very keen to write on an “open for all” platform. But that didn’t happen !! Years passed jiggling options for my writing launch as, by the time I got accustomed to one, it would upgrade with a whole set of new features, or I would begin to prefer some other platform 😟
And then came COVID and its lockdown.
And as the good old saying goes, every crisis yields new opportunities, just like the paradigm shift in every aspect of life brought in by Covid. Covid has sort of; created a mandatory need for a digital/virtual identity compelling all to go tech-savvy, the advantages of which will continue to unfold in the course of time.
This lockdown gave me all the time to study various personal blogging options, and two names that would come up in every keyword search were Medium & Vocal. Given my belief in baby steps to start with new technology, I joined Medium around the end of 2020 and began to read the stories to, but as a non MPP, I was not allowed more than two stories for free! Nevertheless, I was in no hurry to join MPP till I had understood the features. Later I also got to know the constraints in joining MPP because Stripe was not supporting some countries yet, including India.
In the meantime, I continued working on the book I was writing. It was early this year I joined Vocal also to validate the comparisons I had read so much about before zeroing in on Medium. And to my surprise, the two are so different and uniquely wonderful. Both have their own USPs (Unique Selling Points) and meet your expectations to the best. I love the freedom they offer.
While Medium allows commenting, follow, and being followed, Vocal does not, and I like that also. After all, these are personal blogging platforms; albeit with the public view. I love to comment, as you can see on my profile page on Medium, and am open to receiving comments also, but sometimes one may just want to scribble the thoughts & stories without being judged, like in Vocal. And you can also share the same stories on both. One major advantage with Vocal is that one need not be Vocal+ to read the stories facilitating higher reads/views.
Not a day is missed without reading stories on both and it has been such a learning and enriching experience.
Medium sort of restricted my planned fast-forward journey due to its constraints with Stripe. Vocal also pays through Stripe, but it at least allows upgrading to Vocal+, which comes with extra privileges and has an edge over Medium as it allows Vocal+ to enter fabulous challenges.
In fact, it was a challenge “Stray to Stay” that pushed me to go visible with my profile on Vocal that I later shared on Medium, marking my debut on Medium also.
Both the platforms engage their writers with motivation strategies to make them write more and enroll new members. Medium started with referral, and Vocal initiated the “Ambassador Program” and engaged its members to become the Vocal Ambassadors and earn affiliate income.
After the super success of 8-week marathon challenge SFS (Summer Fiction Series) that ran through the months of July and August earlier this year, Vocal is now running another unbelievably rewarding Fiction Awards Challenge, which has 25 grand prize winners receiving $5,000 each and has their stories published in Vocal’s first-ever book — a collection of short stories by Vocal creators, available for purchase, estimated for release in the spring of 2022. And another 1,000 runners up will be selected to receive a free year of Vocal+.
WOW !!! Read more here 👇
It closes on 29th December so still 42 days to jump on the bandwagon.
My Unique Link will enable you to join Vocal+ for three months for $4.99/month (which is $9.99/month otherwise), plus a $10 Welcome Bonus in your Vocal Wallet, and you can start writing and earning.
And I will be happy because I will earn my small affiliate reward too :)
And don’t leave without reading your monetary benefits on joining Vocal+ 👇
Vocal has many ways to reward its readers. You earn on
- Your very first article
- Your engagement with other articles
- $6 on 1000 views
- $5 on posting five articles
- $10 on posting ten articles
- $50 on posting 50 articles and so on
- You can participate and earn in Challenges
- People can even give “Tips”
And many more………
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Have a look at their communities and Challenges
https://vocal.media/vocal-plus
https://vocal.media/communities
https://vocal.media/challenges
Join now, and you can also apply for Vocal+ Ambassador Program.
Get Set Go … →> Unique Link to join Vocal+ below
Thank you and best wishes!
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• p.s. : Please do bear with me as I prefer to use “i“ for myself and not “I” Thank You :))
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