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For the past two months, I’ve been on a mission.

As someone who loves writing short stories and flash fiction, I realised how great it would be to have a place where writers get paid simply for posting their original stories. It seems obvious that there should be one, right?

Wrong!

I could really only find two legitimate websites like this. (More sites are similar, but they’re usually focused solely on a specific genre like romance, basically scams, or make you pay a subscription fee to post on the site.) Simily and Vocal both pay writers per view on the stories they post. The posting methods are fairly simple and payment is hassle-free.

So, I got to work and tested both websites. I haven’t been able to post on them as often as I’d like to, due to excessive busyness over the past couple months, but a big decision by one of the websites has made it clear which site I’m moving forward with.

Simily was my champion from the start. Though it’s a much newer platform than Vocal, I like the feel of the community better and the developers of Simily always seemed more invested in helping writers. The pay is a bit higher than Vocal. The downside is that free readers can only read five stories per month on the site, meaning your story will likely get less traffic there than on Vocal in the long run. (Though funnily enough, when I looked at the stats, it seems like you all were more apt to read my stories on Simily than on Vocal!)

Vocal, on the other hand, has a bit of a reputation for being biased and unfair, especially when it comes to their competitions. My least favourite thing about Vocal, though, is that each story is reviewed before it’s posted, and this can take anywhere from one to three days or possibly more, depending on the length of the story. I’m not quite sure why, either. You can post pretty much anything on Vocal and it’s obvious from some posts that they’re not picky about how well posts are written or edited. But I can’t bash on it entirely. The website is really nicely designed and a lot more put together than Simily. The categories you can post in function like little communities, ranging from fiction to science to travel.

Still, when everything was weighed in together, I felt more comfortable with Simily. That is – until their announcement last week.

As they move forward with their site, Simily is now forcing every reader to make an account. That means that if I linked one of my stories here for you to read, you’d have to make an account with Simily first before reading – and you’d still only get to read five stories per month without a paid plan.

My reaction? “Ha, bye!”

While I understand that Simily is trying to grow and create a community on the site, this change is a huge blow for writers. It’s hard enough to get people to read your stories, harder still to get them to click a link and read the story on another website. How many people do you think would go even further to make an account? Maybe one in fifty, if that.

So, I wave goodbye to Simily and move ahead with Vocal. The pay may be minuscule, but at least I can reap some benefits from the hard work I put into my stories – and as a bonus, I get detailed stats on each story’s views, as well.

Is it perfect? Sadly, no, but it’s the best I can find. Seems pretty odd that there’s not a better site out there for writers, huh? Here’s to hoping that one day there will be one!

What I am looking forward to with Vocal is the freedom to post articles outside of this blog’s niche. Specifically, I want to write more about Christianity, travel, poetry, and the TV shows, books, movies, and audios that I enjoy.

So, if you’re looking for my usual short stories or something a bit different, keep an eye on my Vocal page! I’ll be posting there more often from now on – if I can force myself to be organised and post stories in advance to account for the review process. Wish me luck!

And happy writing!
-E.J.

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Photo by Joshua Golde on Unsplash