The Reason I Only Published Once on Vocal

Vocal seems an option, at least for republishing from Medium.

The home page is a step in the right direction. Authors have their name and face on the story. The featured picture is not seen as a useless accessory. Clean graphics. Tidy layout. Navigation is reasonable.

Tipping is there.

Reading time is missing, but things can improve. Communities are limited and pop. I’ve serious concerns about them, but that’s me. And, again, things can improve. No personalized feed, no navigation in your profile, etc. But I’ve thick skin thanks to Medium.

No comments. Ah. Who knows, it could be an idea.

So, I gave it a try, starting with one of my stories, republished from Medium.

It was smooth. They review the story before publishing, but it was online in hours. Earnings, based on views and “engagement” go to a wallet, and you withdraw to Stripe.

Not bad.

The story got three reads and earned $0.01, but that’s okay. I don’t expect visibility with one story there. On Medium, with 2.3k followers and hundreds of published stories, that story got $0.94. $0.01 as double tip and newbie is already more than expected.

When I was ready for the second story, a quick check on the first one. Maybe I wanted a minor edit, I don’t remember.

And I shivered.

No edit.

Wow.

And to remove, you have to contact support.

If you don’t see it as a big deal, I’ll tell you that having my stories removed from Hackernoon (a popular publication about tech, once on Medium) took months. Endless email threads, with long delays, no replies, misunderstandings. They literally kept my stories hostage, sucking my traffic and showing stories that needed an edit or that I wanted to stay there no more. A hell I’m not interested in walking through again.

Vocal it’s not the New York Times. It’s a self-publishing platform. I need to edit and delete. I need ownership of my stories.

It’s possible that I’ll give it a second try, sooner or later, especially when edit/remove will be there.

But for now, I’m sorry, Vocal. A good start, all the best, but you don’t get my stories.