How I’ve made less than $3 on writing platforms, and so can you!
It was a dark and stormy afternoon when I joined Vocal in the winter of 2021. I had high hopes for winning every single one of their contests and it spurred me to wuthering heights of harried writing with little to no revisions. Surely, they must realize my unfettered genius!
Alas, ’twas not to be. Sammy and Sunny constantly overlooked my raw talent and the Great Word Overage Scandal during the Summer Fiction Series finally disabused me of any notion that I had a chance at ever placing in a contest. I would have been better off waiting in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin to arise. Stay strong, Linus, and keep the faith!
When I left Vocal, I had less than $2 from reads. Even though I was a Vocal Plus member at the time, I still had to reach $20 so I didn’t even make the two dollars — it prevented me from chasing Sunny and Sammy (Scammy?) down on my bike! Somehow, screaming “A Dollar and Seventy Five Cents!” doesn’t flow as well as “Two Dollars!”:
After my misadventures at Vocal, I drifted back to Medium. I still don’t understand this platform very well. Reads, Views, Quantum Entanglements, huh?!? I like the platform and, like with Vocal, connecting with cool writers is a non-monetized benefit! I recently mused on a dream platform for writers if it’s of any interest!: https://agtallenger.medium.com/what-would-be-the-writers-dream-platform-28454a5f3419
I don’t want to be some salesperson hawking referrals to potential new Medium members (and maybe Vocal is doing this now too?). No platform should want me to do that — because I couldn’t sell a glass of water to a desperate hiker stuck in Death Valley. I’m the poor kid who would get ripped off selling pizzas for Cub Scouts, for fuck’s sake!! True, those people were scummy bastards for ripping off a kid, but I have to wonder if I just suck in sales and marketing, bar none.
So, I’ll keep writing and hope that someday my works may reach the far expanses of space and time. Maybe an alien species will recognize and celebrate my genius, and shower me with Altairian dollars or Space bucks.
At this rate, I’ll just need 27,777.77+ years to be a millionaire on a writing platform!!
