If I’d hoped to discover a whole new set of fans on Wattpad frothing for my every update, I was sadly mistaken…
Ah well! My experiences on the online storytelling community site were interesting nonetheless. My few readers – we’re talking single figures here – appear to be loyal. You can look at engagement on Wattpad, seeing how much of a chapter gets read. Those dear readers of mine read all my chapters in the main so at least I’m doing something right
I uploaded other stories and they still read on. They read everything quickly too.
As an experiment and because vampire stuff is popular on Wattpad, I thought I’d do a vampire story, Unnatural Appetites. I’m uploading it live, so to speak. I post up chapters when I do them. To do that, I needed to write a detailed synopsis first plotting out the first, second and third act. That was a useful exercise. I’ve done synopsis (synopsii?) before, but not this way. I change it as I go along. Most writers are familiar with a situation or character that seemingly pops up from nowhere when you are writing.
What am I doing wrong? I haven’t bothered following anyone else, apart from the people who follow me. Actively going after followers would help increase my readers. It’s the universal law of social media politeness. You follow me, I follow you back.
[Unless I’m on Twitter and you’re one of those self-publishing marketing companies. Or my nutter radar starts vibrating.]
One person did contact me to tell me she loved my writing and couldn’t believe I had so few followers. Some years ago, a writer friend of mine (Gordon Lawrie: Four Old Geezers and a Valkyrie) you really cherish those comments and it’s gratifying when people make an effort to tell you they enjoy what you write. Too true!
It’s early days. I have the patience of a vampire starved of blood for five days let loose in a shopping mall the day before Christmas. (Thought I’d better use a vampire metaphor there to tie in with Unnatural Appetites.) I need to stop myself logging onto Wattpad more than once a day to see what my figures are. Yes, I know. Lame.
Anyway, who knows what might happen? The Wattpad community might discover a liking for plus-size vampire X-certified romance – I went deep niche – or they might start commenting on my other stuff, helping put it up the Wattpad ranking system.
As others have commented here, I might look at Write On instead. Writers have found this more useful, as the feedback can be thoughtful and constructive. I’ll keep you updated.
Emma Baird - author 
I feel your pain! I can’t figure out Wattpad either. Everything I read said it’s completely like social media. You need to like and read everyone else stuff to get noticed. I just don’t have that time. I just uploaded something to Write on By Kindle today, we’ll see what happens. What I read is that this is an older crowd than Wattpad. My stuff may be better there? (Hell, I uploaded a vampire story today too!) I’m completely going over to wattpad now and following you. 😉
Thanks Joy! I’ll follow you too. Like you, I don’t have the time to social media manage Wattpad, as well as everything else. I’ve just uploaded some stuff on Write On too. Maybe we can compare experiences there at some point…
I’m hoping to figure this whole thing out someday. 😉 Thanks again for your post.
I was on Wattpad for almost three years and I left that site, hoping to never go back. I hope you have better luck than me =)
Thanks Akaluv. I don’t think I’m going to be one of Wattpad’s success stories…
I wasn’t either, so don’t feel bad.
I think you have to try every avenue you can. I read this week that Brian Conaghan, one of the Costa book of the year category winners (young adult), has a total of 217 rejection letters. Now that’s what you call persistence, hmm?
Whoa! That’s a lot!
There is a lot of things wrong with WP but the inability to get readers over to your stuff is usually your fault. Getting someone to read you there is no different than out in the real world. You have to put yourself out there, make contacts, make friends, make or get good covers, engage readers and writers. Do all those things and you will get more readers than you can handle and you will learn more about your stories than you ever have. Just uploading something to Wattpad is the same as just uploading it to Amazon. If you don’t put some work into people seeing it no one is going to see. All those people blaming Wattpad for their bad #s should take a look in the mirror. WP has millions of readers. You can snag your share if that is what you really want. If you can’t do it there you have no chance of doing it anywhere else. And yeah YA and Romance are king there but there are millions of readers that read other genres there also.
I promise you, I do blame myself! I’m not keen on self-promotion, but I do the odd bit here and there. I spent last week doing quite a bit of writing and I really enjoyed myself. Sometimes, it’s lovely just writing for the joy of it.
As it should be. If you don’t mind I’ll keep up with your posts.
I’d be flattered if you did!