Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label writing community

HubPages vs. Vocal

Gaining Context I opened my account at Vocal around two years ago when I published my first article. It was a syndicated article from my golf blog, which surprisingly has done better than all other articles since. Around three months ago, I decided to give Vocal a real chance with a renewed effort and by becoming a Vocal Plus member. They enticed me with half off a year’s membership ($50 for a year, usually it is $99 annually or $10/month). Since this renewed effort, I have published nine articles; six were written originally at Vocal (four were for Vocal Challenges), and the other 3 were syndicated from elsewhere. The plan for Vocal was to publish my creative writing there originally, which meant I had to switch from HubPages where these were published originally before. The distracting ads and lackluster RPM helped make this decision, although I’ve been writing on HP for over a decade. After three months of “working” Vocal, I’ve realized it isn’t worth paying the $10/month. I’ll expl

Making Substack the Center of a Writing System

Focusing Distractions with Complexity With all of the options writers and content creators have now, finding the right one for each system sometimes takes experimentation. Flops and failures often come with such brimming efforts of zeal, yet the glimmer of hope remains in pictures of automated simplicity. In the beginning, things were simple; then came the expansion, the maintenance, building, creating, researching, and other such effort and time into what can only be called a writing system. Organizing this complex miasma of disparate platforms, the writer (insert content creator as needed) has become a blogger, marketer, promotor, maintenance tech, and organizing master. The actual writing is pushed to the side. Finding Balance Each writer organizes their system differently according to their needs and abilities. I’ve always admired someone who focuses on one platform and doesn’t get stretched too thin. We can get distracted by constantly expanding and trying new things. What’s neede

Views are Like Customers to Writers

Writing online entails considering how many impressions, views, visitors/reads, comments, shares, and reactions each article gets. These digital assets symbolize the money made from each article. How many views did that article get — that poem, story, blog post, picture, art piece? The number will determine how much money the article made. While most writers appreciate even one single read, this doesn’t pay much. On the high end, this might bring .02 cents. Usually, around half a cent, or $5 RMP. Different Writing Platforms and Efforts At Medium views don’t turn into a specific amount of money, rather they are merely an indication of possible money — reads are more important at Medium, as they correlate closely with any money made. Each read at Medium this month made me around that .02 cent mark! The reads at Medium might not be from members, so may not make us money. Still, on average, both views and reads equal a certain estimated amount for each Medium writer. At Vocal, they make it