Wattpad Guide: What We Talk About When We Talk About Wattpad (Tips & Strategy)

Identity - Photo

TLDR: Use a nice author portrait photo of yourself if possible.

Other than the name, the photo is also part of the first impression and may open or close doors. Again, it's better to take your art seriously. Put an appropriate picture (preferably of yourself or of a real person) that is a portrait showing the face. The composition of the shot and layout and so on is up to you and some author pictures can appear really cool full of poise. It also communicates something unique, because there is no other you. You, are you and be confident that you're developing your own identity as a writer. I'm going to call this a Silent Strategy Combo. We have move #2 of the Combo. I will explain what this is later on.

One thing to remember onwards as we discuss this element: profile pictures appear quite small.

Stereotypically, there are several categories of pictures we usually see:

- Celebrities, and obvious pictures of celebrities. The high def, professional photo shoots especially found on google, and especially the white background ones that look like a tacky commercial for shampoo or hair dye. Or on the other hand the super low resolution pictures that tell everyone it's a rip off from someone's personal site. All it presents is the idea that you are unoriginal. Or that you are writing fanfiction - bad fanfiction. Even good fanfiction deserves a good serious author who is serious about their fandom. Take Anna Todd for example. She writes 1D fanfiction and of course we all know how successful she is. But we also know that she uses her real picture as the profile picture. Again, hold yourself with dignity and be proud of saying I am me and I am serious about writing.

- Default pictures for new members. Now I am not actually familiar with default pictures because I've never used one but perhaps I've seen rubber duckies and guitars and dogs and flowers and roads or something. I've seen many of those and other stock photo lookalikes. If your photo is a default one or even vaguely resembles stock photo, like a landscape shot, change it. It presents the idea that you are new, timid, lacking confidence and/or want to remain "anonymous". Usually it's new members who still have these so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. As for anonymity, remember we are already pretty anonymous (save for the conspiracy theories with the government monitoring our every nice or credit card companies leaking info). Your privacy settings, location, birthday, social media details and so on are in your control. You don't need to hide behind a rubber ducky.

- Characters, especially anime characters. I love anime and I love anime art and do it myself. I am tempted quite often to put a cute picture of an anime character on my profiles. Anime characters are often more "original" than celebrities from google simply because there are so many of them and a huge abundance of styles and artists who do it. However it is also unoriginal because many others are using anime images. There may also be copyright issues of using someone else's image, just for argument's sake, to make you feel guilty (if you do this). But other than that, it presents you as an anime fanfiction writer. If you do write, and even write anime fanfiction in this case, no one can tell that you do, because everyone else uses those images anyway. What would make them coincidentally click on your profile on first impression? And though the community with a love for anime and Japanese entertainment is large, at the same time, One Direction fandoms are still much more actively rampant and immense. Meaning you are limiting your audience to anime lovers. But even among anime lovers, people are often very subjective. Anime lovers tend to be strongly passionate about certain anime and certain characters and then can be hostile or apathetic towards others - I exaggerate, but just a little. So again, anything not you will limit yourself. And of course the more successful authors probably won't take you as serious either. There are a few authors of original quite anime-style light novels that I've had the chance to read and I'll mention: @NickUskoski (Mecha, 2.9 million) and @MichaelLimjoco (Fantasy, 1.6 million), who are friends of mine. You'll notice that they neither needed an anime sounding name nor a profile picture that is not of themselves. You don't need it if you wish to reach your audiences. The Wattpad system focuses on ranking and recommending the actual work.

- Letters or other graphics. I see memes and quotes and letters in display pictures sometimes. While the above is unoriginal, letters or other 2D graphics creates the impression that the account is for a personal blog or rant thread or a place to reblog - basically that it isn't for writing and is a tacky party for personal friends. Not to mention, at a small thumbnail size, no one will make out the details.

The list could go on. But essentially, anything other than a realistic portrait shot, you are playing with much fire and too many unknown factors. People can retain a judgment against characters, series, colours, the wit or joke that you are attempting to pull off, or even your way of being unique or interesting, and so on, (one recurring message I will be giving is once again that every piece of perceivable content anywhere, especially publicly displayed on a media or arts site, automatically relays certain messages) and you are limiting your audience.

If you're a writer, a portrait shot automatically grants you protection on here against such prejudice, believe it or not. I will once again attest to the fact that I do scan names and if the name and profile picture both tell me they are a professional - this is double Combo - it's more likely I'll give them a quick browse, amongst the sea of other "interesting" usernames and pictures trying to make a statement. You could try to argue that it is unoriginal to stick with a normal name and picture, but once again, anything else shows people that you are attempting to be original and will likely fail on different groups of people which potentially limits audience, gives off different messages and reduces the amount of respect from the people you want to notice you. A professional branding will guide people to your profile, curious and expecting something because you look like you know what you're doing - at which point you can deliver. After they do visit, in fact, a personal photo and name will tell people you are a real person behind your work and messages, building a psychological and emotional connection right away. (Of course there are more factors that contribute to this Silent Combo to be discussed further).

Again, you want to create a clean, nice, professional image for yourself. If you don't have or want to use a picture of yourself, at least it should look like it could be you (not endorsing that professionally here). You could also try taking a picture with shades on or a hat or side profile shots or last resort, from the back like a mystery writer photo. Make it basic and simple.

While this all can be argued to be very specific and catered to an adult writer or the serious writer, demographics on Wattpad are constantly expanding and becoming a much more professional platform - especially with famous authors and franchises coming on board. It's best to be leading the growth than to be one in a crowd of other fan or reader-looking members. Secondly, young readers of any age, any location, any fandom are not repelling the idea of a professional, skilled looking writer. What kind of reader would be? Are people not going to read John Green because he is a professional, arguably relatively skilled and is an older man? Or R.L. Stine? Margaret Atwood? Personality comes through not through the picture (though you could always dress in bright colours or whatever you want) but upon the recommendation and reading of your writing, bio, messages, and future interaction. If you have a quality writing, a great personality and huge passion, people will realize. As Wattpad continues to grow and develop better ways of discovery, quality writing will become more and more significant and other details become peripheral. Quality writing will hold readers. So look the part first.

Our conclusion for the last two pages is that identity and the first impression matters. Your branding as a serious writer and opening doors to more visitors and readers starts right from the first moment.