

Although that’s a big number, it’s still not out of line when you consider the competition of other major prizes.Īnother contest with a top prize of “only” $1,000 recently closed with 130 submissions, so the options with good odds are still available.
#VOCAL WRITING CHALLENGE FREE#
First place was $20,000, second place $5,000 and third place $1,000 with free memberships for 10 runner ups.Īt the time the contest closed, there were over 12,000 submissions. Another was that there were a lot more entries.įor example, the “Little Black Book” challenge required an article between 600 and 2,000 words that involved a black notebook and an unexpected inheritance of $20,000. One was that the cash prizes were a lot higher. I noticed two things when I logged back on to the Vocal challenges page.
#VOCAL WRITING CHALLENGE CODE#
I happily typed in the code and reactivated my account. That meant that I would qualify to enter their contests again. The email included a checkout code that would give me a year’s membership for free. I logged in one day to find I’d received a $10 tip and a thanks for the feedback from my challenge article. Now, my article is not exactly flattering, but Vocal has a thing called tips, and even though I’d let my subscription lapse, my account was still active.

The email from Vocalīecause articles about making money writing are always popular, I wrote one entitled “ I Won $675 on a Vocal Writing Challenge and Still Switched to Medium.” This article performed moderately well, but I’d largely forgotten about it until one of Vocal’s creative directors found it and sent me an email. Since transferring to Medium I’ve had two articles that significantly out earned my Vocal prize money. But as it stands, I never had another podium finish on a Vocal challenge. If Vocal had sent me a list showing that my submissions had routinely been in the top 10, then perhaps I would have never started writing with Medium. I figured my skill level should be sufficient to ensure an article of mine had a good shot of making it to the final table, but chance is the ultimate authority in who eventually emerges as the winner. My expectation going in was to look at the Vocal contests like a game of Texas Hold ’em. At the end of the day, it comes down to the decision of a couple judges. I say that even having notched some victories. The lure of big prize money always makes fools of us, but the truth is that contests aren’t to be trusted. Vocal was launching challenges all the time, and since there would often be as few as 200 submissions, I felt I had a decent chance to be a regular winner. I’ve won other writing contests, but nothing with a cash prize as big as this. Winners were also to receive a “Moment photo kit” but because my cell phone is refurbished and out of date, they elected to send me a $175 prepaid credit card which was fine with me. For the Mobile Moments Challenge, first place was $2,500, second place was $1,000 and third place was $500. The number of entries was low and the prize money was really high. This was only the second challenge that Vocal offered, and I was pretty excited about the model. It’s pretty exciting to get a legitimate email that says “congratulations, you’re our 3rd place winner!” That happened to me about a year ago when an article of mine was selected to the winner’s podium for the Vocal Mobile Moments Challenge. Initially I’d considered paying the $100 subscription fee just to have access to the contests, but a recent email from the staff at Vocal made that unnecessary. To its credit, Vocal does offer monthly contests with cash prizes up to $20,000. Medium is superior to Vocal in all ways except one. Suffice it to say what when I decided to jump into the publishing platform game, I spent my first six months wallowing at Vocal.Media before transferring over to Medium. I’ll stop there otherwise this is going to end up being a very long list. While other kids were watching GI Joe on Saturday morning, I’d tuned in to Thundarr the Barbarian. I was one of the last people to get a cell phone, and when I eventually did break down and get one, I opted for a Blackberry even though technology had advanced to the point that affordable touch screens were widely available.

Growing up, I had absolutely no interest in a Nintendo and eventually got my hands on a Sega Master System (not a Genesis mind you, this was Sega’s unpopular predecessor). When faced with two choices, I habitually gravitate towards what turns out to be the least popular option.
