Wattpad is a bit too pre-teen for me. Are there any other sites like this with older demographics?

My stuff tends to be over the heads of most people here, which makes sense because they're in a different stage of their lives.

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lulu.com, pubit.com, booksie, goodreads, smashwords. Wattpad is mostly for teens from what I can tell.

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Which one would you say is the "best" site? @CarlaJHanna

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@TobyLurio There are lots of mature readers and writers on here, but you have to look for them. They are not in the What's Hot list, but they are here.

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@TobyLurio That depends on your genre. I write teen romance so Wattpad is great for me. I just joined this month and already was asked to submit my manuscript to a major publisher who saw the chapters that I was uploading to Wattpad. I think that's awesome visibility and greatly appreciate Wattpad for such easy exposure. A very good friend of mine just got a book deal with ACE. She writes paranormal teen romance and was 'discovered' by a literary agent in the same way but on a paranormal story sharing site. I sent a query to her agent and got a form-email rejection within about 1 hour from when I submitted the query. I'm brand new on this process so I'm sure more writers can respond...

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@CarlaJHanna Do you mind me asking which publisher asked you to submit? I've got to admit I never heard of this happening before.

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@Ctyolene I'm learning that it's a pretty small world. I should keep my mouth shut until I know her response to my MS. But it's one of the biggies for YA. I am grateful to Wattpad; I'm surprised. I also thought that the New York Pitch Conference I went to in December was outstanding. Of the 20 or so participants in the Fiction/Other group I was in, which included sci-fi, YA, paranormal, horror, and mystery, over half were asked for their manuscripts from at least one of the four publishers present: Thomas Dunn Books, Penguin, Random House and Ace. The feedback from pitching to all four editors was great, even from the editor from Ace who had nothing to do with my genre. She was still insightful and engaging.

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I don't know why I spaced this, but two sites that seem to get authors published are: www.writersalon.com and www.authorsalon.com. Authorsalon is tied to that great New York Pitch conference I went to. I am only now ready to join - the quality of the work is very high so I had to spend time working on my novel before I felt it was "worthy." I'm impressed with the writing on both sites.

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@CarlaJHanna If you get a book deal out of it, let me know and I'll do a write up for some of the papers, get you a bit more publicity. To my knowledge it will be the first time anyone on Wattpad was approached by a publisher.

I have honestly never heard of this happening. Any publishers I know are busy fending off authors from on top of a thousand-story high slush pile.

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@Ctyolene Okay, thanks. We'll see what happens. Maybe I wasn't supposed to say anything. I hope I didn't nuke something by doing so.... Whoops.

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@TobyLurio Finestories at http://finestories.com/

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More story sharing/critiquing sites not yet mentioned here: authonomy.com (definitely lots of smart grown-up stuff over there), figment.com (though that's also skewed to YA) and scribd.com.

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@CarlaJHanna Can't see how it could hurt. Publishers don't make you sign an oath of secrecy when you submit to them.

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@Ctyolene I just got the call from the editor. She read my MS this past weekend. She said Loved In Pieces needs work but has "potential" and requested to read the ms for Book Two.

She also clarified how she saw my work. She was at a conference, talked about her "list" with a peer. That peer heard about my book from his writer who knows my work from my romance writing club. He said my pitch matched what she's looking for. The author is a published contemporary romance novelist (who's made little money) - about twenty steamy novels (not my genre) but she was great help with tearing apart my plot and helping me make my story move faster. She also apparently talked about what I was writing and I would hope didn't send around the pdf to everyone. (!???!?)

The editor went to my website, saw that I had posted on Wattpad, read the first 10 chapters that I had up, and requested the MS. I didn't realize how much talking goes on between editors (or writers in a writing group). Now, she's politely asked me to stop talking.

But if we new authors don't talk about this process, how will we know what to do or what is possible? How do we find out what is on this "list"? If we want help and join a writer's group, how do we keep it confidential? But then, if it was confidential, I wouldn't have been asked to submit. So thanks, I think - with chills.

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@CarlaJHanna Thanks for posting this. Publishing is a crazy world that very few people understand. Any scraps of information are helpful.

I have no idea if my writing is good enough to publish because all of my recent writing teachers are semi-famous and are hard to match.

My mom won a national magazine award. It's gonna be a while until I feel like a good writer.

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Not everyone's pre-teen. I'm 26. @TobyLurio

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@CarlaJHanna Wow, seriously? How did that happen?

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@Corinder I know that a few people aren't. But the vast majority of users are under 18.

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@TobyLurio I'm not either. But I write for teens, so in my case it's a good place to be.

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@TobyLurio When you get a bit more into WP, you'll find a big group of people that is not pre-teen. In the clubs you have one for non-teen fiction too.

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I agree there's a handful of people that are non teens such as me. LOL

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Haven't been a teen for a long time....

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I'm with you completely. I was posting excerpts from a novel that I was publishing. But then I realized it was way too adult for WP. Fortunately, I've gotten good reviews from Shelf Magazine and Top Book Reviewer on it. So it should be in print soon @TobyLurio

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Figment is really good. There are writers of all ages there, and the writing is much more serious. There isn't all the vampire romance and One Direction fanfic crap like there is here. The people there are actual serious writers, is what I'm saying, not pre teens who think they can type a few misspelled words about Twilight and be "real writers". And there are opportunities to enter contests for your writing, actual genuine reviews, fun writing activities, and even an interesting social life thing on the forums. I'm not sure why any serious writer would go on Wattpad instead of Figment.

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@Magicesi Hey, I'm a serious writer. :P Because I didn't know about Figment?

But hey, these writers ARE going to grow up. I can't see what's wrong with people who are serious writers banding together on wattpad? It seems a bit like 'ABANDON SHIP AND CONNECTIONS' when there's potential here too.

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