Published 1/15/13
David is one of my favorite authors on Wattpad. His stories have a brightness and a boldness to them that I have always enjoyed in fantasy. He has posted several stories for both adults and teens on his Wattpad profile (@davidalastairhayden), one of which won an award for Best Villain. David has also independently published seven books, which can be found at the following links:
Amazon: http://brev.is/yA23
Barnes & Noble: http://brev.is/QM54
Kobo Books: http://brev.is/PM54
1. You’ve got several books up on Wattpad, but The Storm Dragon’s Heart and its sequel, Lair of the Deadly Twelve, have seen the most success by far. Can you think of any reasons those books might have performed particularly strongly?
They have an advantage over my other two books in that Wrath of the White Tigress and Chains of a Dark Goddess are both Rated R. Wattpad doesn’t promote R-rated books. They don’t get ranked or featured. Fans just have to find them by ... I don’t know how they find them. I’m thankful that a fair number of them do!
Wattpad trends toward a YA audience which helps the Storm Phase books. Storm Phase is far from standard YA fare. That presents a challenge to getting new readers, but it’s also an asset, a way to stand out. And a lot of readers thank me for having written something that’s different from all the rest.
2. You joined Wattpad in 2009, but it looks like you didn’t really start sharing your stories until 2012. What changed last year to bring that on, and what were your first two years on the site like?
I started sharing in 2009, actually. I put up sample chapters of Wrath of the White Tigress. It was only a Podiobook at the time. Not much happened. Not long after Wrath of the White Tigress and The Storm Dragon’s Heart were published in Summer 2011, I posted the first three chapters of both to Wattpad. And not much happened again. I honestly forgot about the site for six months or more. I returned and added a few more chapters to Storm Dragon. A few months later, someone with a lot of fans sent me a message and asked if I was going to post more chapters. I did. After that, the traffic started picking up. I decided to serialize it and post one chapter each week, hoping to earn a few fans and to entice the impatient to buy the book online.
3. You’ve talked elsewhere about how The Storm Dragon’s Heart didn’t always enjoy the support it now has on Wattpad. Could we get the full story of its Wattpad journey?
I think I may have just answered that one! A few well-connected folks on the site started reading and I guess some luck factored in. Releasing more chapters didn’t hurt. I think I made one forum post announcing the book. I didn’t do any other promotions.
4. You became a Wattpad Featured Author in November. How did that come about for you?
Wattpad contacted me ... I think it was July 2012 ... and asked me if I wanted to be a Featured Author. I said no. LOL. Actually, I asked them if I could become featured in November when Book 2: Lair of the Deadly Twelve would be debuting. Conveniently, that date matched up to when I would run out of chapters of Storm Dragon to post each week. Of course, it wasn’t really convenient so much as I timed it out that way. Wattpad was great with this and more than willing to work with me on it. Caitlin was easy to work with and helped make sure the timing met my needs.
Before they contacted me, I didn’t really know what being featured meant. I had an incredibly busy and difficult 2011 and early 2012 because I was helping out some family members in a rough spot, so I never really learned everything about how the site works. I just went with the flow.
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Wattpad Interviews
Non-FictionA collection of interviews with Wattpad authors who've found success in publishing elsewhere but who continue to publish through Wattpad anyway.
