Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

Quit Starring Yourself, You'll Go Blind

The idea of giving yourself a star is a part of Wattpad everyone has an opinion on. I naturally have my own opinion as well. But why just give my opinion on it when I can turn this subject into an entire chapter? That's just wasted opportunity right there, so let's get this thing going. This is Wattpad 101 after all, and I think it's a good idea to at least discuss the phenomenon known as "self-voting". Autovoting if you will. Not to be confused with Deceptavoting.

For those of you out of the loop, when you publish any given chapter, there is a star displayed in the upper right corner (in the browser) and in a second screen at the end of the chapter (tablet/phone) with the word vote next to it. Whether you call it starring or voting, the effect is still the same. You're declaring this chapter 'just swell' and endorsing it. By voting (starring) or starring (voting), it's a small price to pay to boost the writer's confidence and help their work be more likely to be seen. Other than actually commenting, this is the best way to endorse and support your authors... outside of patreon (jingles change can).

Hopefully, most of you are aware of this. What you may not have noticed, realized, or confirmed, is that that button exists on your own writing as much as other people's writings. And yes, you can click on it and ultimately give yourself a star. To some, this is an appalling action that comes off as conceited and desperate. To others, this is a natural thing to do, a sort of virtual pat on your own back that occurs almost ritualistically.

I've mentioned in my chapter on Wattpad ratings that starring your own chapters does NOT affect your ranking in Wattpad, so if you were hoping that by starring your chapters you could get noticed, starring truly does nothing but conflate the number of stars under your chapter total. If you write a sixty-chapter book, that's 60 more stars you could potentially add to your book.

To the unobservant reader, a book with 100 stars may look a lot more worth their time over a book with 40 stars. Although that's hypothetical, I don't know too many people who make reading choices based on the number of stars a book has. Either way, to some, you wrote the darn chapter, and you should have the right to click on it.

My last chapter went on about the reasons a reader might not star your work. A point I teased at but didn't add (it's 100 reasons, not every reason!) was that some people don't like to star a work because it reveals what they were reading on their recent activity. I can click on anyone I'm following and see the last few stories they starred. So, if they were starring Backyard Bad Boys XxX, I could tell... and I could judge you. In the same respect, you can see if someone stars their own work. Shortly after someone releases a new chapter, look through their history to see if they starred their own work!

To some, this should be the norm. As the argument goes, everyone has a vote in the election. Even the President of the United States usually votes for themselves in their election. So, why does voting for yourself on a Wattpad book suddenly become so undesirable? Shouldn't it be a given that you should support yourself. You wrote it! Shouldn't you be endorsing the thing you wrote?

Some readers might even go so far to say that if you can't star on your own work, in other words, you can't even give your own writing your personal vote of approval, then how do you expect others to? I'd like to think that way of thinking is pretty extreme, but it is a way of thinking you may encounter from some readers.

Then there are the other kind of reader. The kind of reader who feel like starring your own work is desperate. Voting doesn't affect the ranking system, so it's just there to make you feel better, but it's affect is a placebo. You're essentially lying to yourself, pretending you had more stars than you do. Furthermore, you're lying to other people, conflating the success of your work just for the slight edge it could give you.