10 Positives on being a Wattpad Writer

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Wattpad. If you haven’t heard of it yet as a writer, then trust me, you will. It’s a growing social media platform that banks on serialization of writing. (Think Charles Dickens/ Alexandre Dumas publications of his newest chapters every week in various literary journals/newspapers). It matches millions of readers to hopeful writers. And here are 10 positives I’ve learned about being a writer on the site. (My profile: https://www.wattpad.com/user/authorsophiawhitte )

 

  1. The site allows you to match with millions of readers. Warning though, demographic is mainly Young Adult/ New Adult. So, if you’re a YA or NA writer, then this is the site to beta-test all your writing ideas!
  2. Copyright is pretty good. As long as you have a copyright “All Rights Reserved” warning tagged on your work, then it’s usually safe. (Though not always, so watch out about posting anything super confidential).
  3. It allows you to get a general feel for audience/target demographic reaction to your stories. Is your pacing too fast? Too slow? Every chapter offers new opportunities for readers to tell you what they love about your story.
  4. You can speak with amazing authors on the site. (Politely, of course. Never spam people. That’s rude). Really high-profile writers offer sage advice on the platform within their profiles/ on writing forums.
  5. Writing forums. There’s no better way to get to know your target demographic than to just talk to them. Find out what books are “in”. What are all the new book bloggers raving about these days?!
  6. Everyone is super positive. It’s rare to get trolls on the site. It really is a platform by book-lovers, for book-lovers.
  7. It’s a safe space for young writers who want to learn how to write.
  8. SO MANY FREE BOOKS. If you ever wanted to find some exclusive, first-draft sample chapters from some famous authors, then now’s the time to check out Wattpad.
  9. It gives you an idea of fandom-culture. Confused on what fandom culture is? (Try out Tumblr for a bit). It’s basically where ideas such as “shipping”, OTPs, and the ideas of fandoms come about. A fandom is a community of people who are all relative self-identifying super-fans of a certain book/movie/video game/anime series. Fandoms are usually super kind and supportive of each other. It always helps authors to understand this kind of thing, especially as fandoms move their base of operations to digital.
  10. It’s free. (Though there is some advertising as Wattpad is trying to become the YouTube of books and help writers monetize their works without actually charging the reader). But, free is always a plus. So, get started and join the awesome Wattpad.

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