Wattpad

WATTPAD: Advice For Writers

visibility

Online community Wattpad has a large and dedicated following around the world. Wattpad is the world’s largest community of readers and writers with over 65 million people using the platform.
Famous authors like Margaret Atwood, Paulo Coelho, and R L Stine have also joined the professional bandwagon of authors currently active on Wattpad.
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As of January 2018:

  • 85% of its traffic and usage comes from mobile devices
  • the site has 65 million unique visitors per month
  • there are over 400 million story uploads in total
  • there are over 65 million writers

Roughly 10-15% of these users are writers, enabling 85-90% of readers looking for their next great read.  This is where Wattpad is superior to other writing sites. Wattpad offers the unique experience of attracting masses of actual readers.
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Wattpad holds several smaller contests a year and one major one. The largest is the annual “Watty Awards”.  The second largest is “Just Write It”.  Contests are open to anyone who has a Wattpad account.
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Wattpad: Social Media Site for Readers
Bronwyn Hemus gives this advice:
“You have a captive audience. People who sign up to Wattpad are clearly interested in books, there are millions of engaged readers looking for their next great read. The golden rule applies:

  • Always actively engage with people who are reading your chapters.
  • If someone has left a comment, make sure that you respond to their comment as soon as you can.
  • Take the time to look at your reader’s profile so that you can engage with them on a personal level.
  • Wattpad readers certainly seem very willing to engage with an author and provide feedback as a startling 5 million new comments are posted every month.
  • If you want to breed reader loyalty, spending a bit of time getting to know your audience will go a long way to increase sales. It will also help you better understand your readership which in turn will help you focus your marketing efforts outside of the site.”
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Serialization Keeps Readers Interested
Another advice she gives:  “You have to release your content on a chapter-by-chapter basis which in turn encourages continuous engagement with readers.  Loyal readers can register themselves as a “fan” and as such, will receive email alerts whenever their favorite author posts something new.
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Rowena Wiseman’s Advice
“After using the platform for a while now, here are my best tips for writers using Wattpad:

  • Have a good author profile picture and a professional-looking book cover
  • Write a short, catchy blurb for your stories
  • Include something interesting about yourself on your profile page
  • Link to other social media sites
  • Load your chapters separately

If you’ve got short stories, consider making them a collection – this consolidates the votes you receive and helps with your rankings.”
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  • Comment and vote on other people’s stories and invest some time in the Wattpad community – they’re really friendly! I’ve used other author sites before, but Wattpadders are especially supportive and encouraging.
  • Use multimedia to promote your work. Create book trailers in Animoto for a few of my stories and posted these in the sidebar.
  • Ask readers to vote and comment and tell them where they can read or purchase your other work.
  • Don’t expect to become popular overnight. Like any community, it takes a while to find like-minded people. Give it time, be patient and open-minded.
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Wattpad can increase your visibility and brand recognition – which is essential for new authors, especially self-published authors. You want people to become familiar with your books and associate them with greatness. Wattpad can help you do that on a global scale—for free.

More on this topic:
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2017/02/27/why-you-need-writer-friends/
https://www.savvybookwriters.com/additional-earnings-with-wattpad/
http://www.howtopublishfiction.com/how-to-market-with-wattpad/
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/39595.Published_Books_from_Wattpad
http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/5-things-writers-know-wattpad-future-publishing

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Books From the Author of This Blog:

111 Tips to Create Impressive Videos:
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111 Tips To Make Money With Writing
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111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free:
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111 Tips to Get Free Book Reviews:
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111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer 
How to Create,
Where to Upload and How to Market Your Videos
https://books2read.com/u/mVZkjr

Book Marketing on a Shoestring:
How Authors Can Promote their Books Without Spending a Lot of Money 
https://books2read.com/u/mZ5gdp

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Additional Earnings with Wattpad

Money

 

What about earning some pocket money – even before you novel is published?  Through the Wattpad “Futures” program, interested writers can supplement their income with little effort. The program helps writers earn money by inserting ads between chapters of their Wattpad story.  Every time a reader views an ad, the writer earns money.

Let’s compare it with other reader/writer platforms, such as Goodreads, Facebook or Spotify, which also have advertisements on each page. They won’t give you a cent…

Maybe worth thinking about joining Wattpad if you are not already a member, especially when you are writing in the Young Adult, Sci-Fi, FanFiction or Romance categories. Don’t forget: “Wattpadders” are avid readers!  It will certainly not work from the first time you are uploading a chapter to Wattpad, and might even take several months – until you have enough followers.

Margaret Atwood, world-known best seller novelist and poet, Booker Prize winner is only one of two million authors, who upload single chapters or more to Wattpad.com. Readers have the chance to read, enjoy and critique manuscripts – mostly before authors finish and pre-edit them.
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Canadian-based Wattpad.com, founded in 2007, was initially providing a mobile platform for public domain works from Project Gutenberg. Within two years, the Wattpad app had been downloaded 5 million times.  Writers post work in chapters, which tend to be short, to make them suitable mobile.  Wattpad is entirely free for all of its users which means that authors are actually giving their work away for free – no sales on the Wattpad site!  However if your readers ask you, send them a list with links to all your sales pages.

According to Wikipedia:  

  • 85% of its traffic and usage comes from mobile devices
  • the site has almost 40 million unique visitors per month
  • there are over 100,000 story uploads per day
  • there have been over two million writers
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Writers reach a global audience of millions of readers.
There’s nothing worse than writing a great book and then struggling to find readers. Other social networks aren’t wired for long-form reading like Wattpad.   Wattpad’s reader community of over 40 million people are hungry for great stories and spend 13 billion minutes per month on Wattpad.  At Wattpad, readers make up 90% of our community. This means that for every one writer there are ten readers.

At Wattpad you don’t have to have a finished manuscript to post and share your work. And in fact, it’s better if you don’t.  Serialization is what works best on Wattpad.  Think of your work like a television show.  Authors retain all rights to their work and are protected by copyright law in areas such as distribution, performance, and creation of the work.
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Featured Story List and Contests
Wattpad also has a Featured Story list, which promotes content reviewed and approved by staff and an editorial review board. Many of these featured stories are written by self-published and professional writers from different genres.
Wattpad holds several smaller contests a year and one major one. The large annual contest is called “The Watty Awards”. Contests are open to anyone who has a Wattpad account.

Wattpad, in collaboration with Margaret Atwood, Canadian poet/novelist/literary critic, held the “Attys”; the first major poetry contest offering a chance to poets on Wattpad to compete against each other in one of two categories, either as an “Enthusiast” or a “Competitor”.
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Wattpad “After Dark”
Read the steamiest romance stories for all passions and persuasions. If you love Romance novels or 50 Shades of Grey, you’ll love After Dark

Mature Romance includes, but is not limited to, Erotic Romance, Steamy Romance, New Adult, LGBTQ, Erotica, Dark Romance, and BDSM.  Get a free iTunes app and download steamy book chapters.

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Making Money With a Kind of Affiliate Program.
Wattpad Futures gives the platform’s more than 2.3 million writers a chance to earn income in-story.  “In-story ads are placed strategically in chapter breaks of some of the most popular stories on the platform.”

Through the Wattpad Futures program, writers can choose to insert ads between chapters of their Wattpad story; every time a reader views an ad, the writer earns money.  
The more times the ad is viewed, the more you’ll get paid.  So, to optimize your earnings, keep updating your stories and continue engaging with the readers who support you!   

Porter Anderson of Publishing Perspectives explains: “ When an ad is available between chapters of a work on the platform, what the reader sees is an invitation to view it.  Writers are paid according to views. 90 percent of readers are engaging on mobile.  The Toronto, Canada, based “Wattpad Stars” is a stable of particularly popular writers on the platform.  More than $1 million was paid out to them last year, company officials say, for their abilities to draw traffic to their writings.”
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“Readers have always encouraged their favorite storytellers with messages, comments, and votes.  Now, they can support Wattpad writers in a way that increases the writer’s income, without having to pay out of pocket.”
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Wattpad Stars, an Accelerator for Top Writers.
The program helps writers take their skills to the next level, and provides brands and publishers with an opportunity to tap into Wattpad’s roster of talented digital influencers.
Wattpad describes their program that improves writers careers: “Wattpad Stars” are commissioned by top brands to write stories that entertain and engage audiences and some even see their work in print or as screen adaptations.  They also receive marketing and support from Wattpad to increase their presence and advance their careers.
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if You Are Not a Member Yet…
Wattpad was established in 2006.  Today it has more than 45 million members spending an average of thirty minutes on the platform per visit.  There are more than 130,000 signups daily.  The service is offered in English, Spanish, Danish, Polish, Italian, Swedish, German, Turkish, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Catalan, a total of more than 50 languages.

See how to get started on Wattpad

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Writers: Earning Money on Wattpad?

Wattpad
Wattpad Futures gives the platform’s more than 2.3 million writers a chance to earn income in-story.  “In-story ads are placed strategically in chapter breaks of some of the most popular stories on the platform.”
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Kind of Affiliate Program.
Through the Wattpad Futures program, writers can choose to insert ads between chapters of their Wattpad story; every time a reader views an ad, the writer earns money.
Porter Anderson of Publishing Perspectives explains: “ When an ad is available between chapters of a work on the platform, what the reader sees is an invitation to view it.  Writers are paid according to views. 90 percent of readers are engaging on mobile.  The Toronto, Canada, based Wattpad Stars is a stable of particularly popular writers on the platform.  More than $1 million was paid out to them last year, company officials say, for their abilities to draw traffic to their writings.”
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“Readers have always encouraged their favorite storytellers with messages, comments, and votes.  Now, they can support Wattpad writers in a way that increases the writer’s income, without having to pay out of pocket.”
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About Wattpad – if You Are Not a Member Yet…
Wattpad was established in 2006.  Today it has more than 45 million members spending an average 30 minutes on the platform per visit.  There are more than 130,000 signups daily.  The service is offered in English, Spanish, Danish, Polish, Italian, Swedish, German, Turkish, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Catalan, a total of more than 50 languages.

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Wattpad Stars, an Accelerator for Top Writers.
The program helps writers take their skills to the next level, and provides brands and publishers with an opportunity to tap into Wattpad’s roster of talented digital influencers.
Wattpad describes their program that improves writers careers: “Wattpad Stars” are commissioned by top brands to write stories that entertain and engage audiences and some even see their work in print or as screen adaptations.  They also receive marketing and support from Wattpad to increase their presence and advance their careers.  A few notable writers whose writing careers have skyrocketed thanks to Wattpad include:
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Anna Todd:
Anna turned her love for Harry Styles into one of the biggest social media phenomenon of 2014.  After receiving one billion reads on Wattpad, the company helped her land a six figure publishing deal and film deal with Paramount.
Rebecca Sky:
Commissioned to write for the Athenos campaign and featured in the New York Times.
Apryl Baker:
Commissioned by Universal Pictures to write for the Ouija and Unfriended film promotions.
Edward Mullen:
Commissioned by USA Network and A&E to write for the launch of the television series DIG and The Returned.

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See also our article 15 Million Reads Before Her Book Was Even Published & Available.

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Wattpad writers who’ve built their online presence, with a knack for creating fun, serial stories, now have direct route to the Wattpad team to jumpstart their careers.

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