In my last post about Vocal Media, I discussed whether it was worthwhile to write for the platform, and how it compared with Medium and hosting your own website.

Recently, Vocal Media announced that it would finally be allowing for quick edits of submissions. In the past, if you needed to revise your writing, you would have to contact the team at Vocal Media directly, and they would have to manually change your published post back to a draft so that you could make the necessary amendments.

But Vocal Media decided to listen to users and on July 2021, the quick edit feature was introduced!

…too bad the feature is only available to Vocal+ members.

I mentioned briefly the differences between a free membership to Vocal Media and the paid Vocal+ membership. But now that Vocal Media is actively segregating features between the two formats, it bears revisiting to see if a Vocal+ membership is truly worth the cost.

Here’s what you gain by spending the $9.99 a month or $99 a year on a Vocal Plus membership:

More Money Per Views

Vocal Media pays its writers through the Stripe. For every 1000 reads, a Vocal+ member can earn $6.00; this is in contrast to the $3.80 writers can earn for the same amount of views.

In addition, the payment threshold is also lower for paying members; Vocal+ members have to earn $20 to redeem their payments as opposed to the $35 minimum of non-members.

Vocal Media Badge

A slight aesthetic variation, but Vocal+ members have a tiny red V+ badge attached to their profile picture.

Lower Processing Fee for Tips

A unique feature of Vocal Media is the ability for readers to provide monetary validation in the form of tips for pieces with which they resonate.

Vocal+ members only incur a 2.9% processing fee for tips; that means, for every $10.00 of tips earned, Vocal keeps $0.29. Compare this to the processing fee for non-Vocal+ members: 7% (that’s $0.70 per $10.00).

Challenges

Another feature unique to Vocal Media is the ability to submit to writing contests — dubbed Challenges — for the opportunity to win cash prizes, free annual memberships, and other perks.

The site calls these “Vocal+ exclusive challenges”, but it bears mentioning that since the Black Book Challenge back in February, there have been no challenges available to users of the site who are not Vocal+ members.

Quick Edit

The most recent feature to be offered to Vocal+ members, Quick Edit allows writers to edit the body of their story without having to contact the Vocal team. However, to make changes to a post’s title or the feature image, members would still have to go the traditional route of emailing Vocal to make changes.

Should Editing Features Only Be for Paying Members?

According to Vocal Media, the Quick Edit feature is only available to the Vocal+ members because they have actively invested in the safety of the site.

I decided to poll the members of the Vocal Media Creators Hub on Facebook and here are some of the responses regarding Quick Edit being exclusive to Vocal+ members:

“To me it shows they don’t value the writers just the money they make.”

“While I can halfway see their logic behind it (they explain why they’re doing that in a post), I think it’s a little weird to cut non-paying creators off from a basic editing tool.”

“I think it is something everyone should be given. I’m a VocalPlus member, so this isn’t bias, but if your (sic) going to put your own work on the internet with your name on it than (sic) you should be able to edit it freely.”

“It’s normal to offer services for paying customers. The free level of service always comes with less access.”

“It’s normal. They’re a business and they need to make money to continue to expand, grow and upgrade. Not speaking for Vocal, but it’s my best guess that they will use a portion of those company profits to add features everyone benefits from.”

“I think it is a good thing as it will ensure that nobody goes off the trail and add something that hurt vocal credibility or the brand.”

“Writing platforms that make money from the content their “writers” provide should provide all the tools those “writers” need, whether they’re Plus or not. None of the other platforms hide these features from non “Plus” members.”

“I think once one publishes something, it should be the way one wants it before publishing. I can’t really knock them for that. I write everything on word before I publish something and I have it read back to me and correct any mistakes there may be. Just my opinion, but if someone wants something published, it’s not on the publisher to edit the work…”

So as you can see, the opinions range from supportive to critical regarding the Quick Edit feature.

Personally? I tend to agree that the ability to quickly edit one’s writing should be available to ALL Vocal Media members, not JUST the ones who paid for Vocal+.

I also write for Medium, another writing platform for user-generated content.

While the Medium Partner Program offers exclusive features to members (ie. unlimited posts vs. only 3 a month), Medium doesn’t restrict non-members from editing their work.

For this reason, I maintain that Medium is the superior writing platform for both new and experienced writers.

There are to be other features to be added to Vocal Media in the future, like the ability to customize one’s profile page. But what are your thoughts?

Should non-paying Vocal Media users be allowed to edit their writing? Do you agree with Vocal Media’s decision to restrict the Quick Edit feature to paying members, or do you think it’s an excuse to nickel-and-dime inexperienced writers who aren’t aware of their options?