Question about going from wattpad to the publishing world.

Hello! I'm not a professional writer, however, I do need some advice from those who are! :)

Here we are, on wattpad, sharing our stories with each other. What are your thoughts of posting a finished novel (not necessarily edited fully on wattpad) and then deciding to publish it? How about your story potentially becoming recognized in the Watty Awards? No matter what route you take in the publishing world, is too much recognition bad with potential future sales?

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@Jilleigh This is "How long is a piece of string"?

For some publishers, any previous publication is a huge problem, and they won't touch it.

For others, proof that you can attact readers and have a marketing platform, is an asset.

Ideally, you could post something on Wattpad that you don't intend to submit to publishers, or intend to self-publish, and then you can go to a traditional publsisher and say "I wrote a book which got a million hits on Wattpad. Would you like to publish my next book?"

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I have just started circulating my short stories to various literary publication and many of them state in their guidelines that they will not publish work that has previously been published, even online.

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@Ctyolene Thank you for the input! I'm leaning toward more self-publishing. I'm aware of how tough it is to go through traditional publishing.

How long does it take to get a million hits on here? Wow. Impressive! I've seen a few.

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@KiplingKat Thank you for the reply. I need to do some more research I guess! Good luck on getting your short stories published. :)

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@Jilleigh Thanks, best of luck to you too.

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@Jilleigh As it happens, Kris Rusch's weekly "Business Rusch" blog post was about audiences. I think it's something you should think about.

Stories on Wattpad are free to read. That may or may not translate into sales of your books. If you got to a million reads, that ought to result in at least a few sales. What about a more reasonable number, like a few hundred reads? Will enough of those readers buy your book? Would they pay to read it if they've already read it for free?

I think it won't be an issue if what you post here are early drafts, and what you put on sale is the final draft. Then you can post first or sample chapters here to entice readers to buy the book.

Good luck with your project.

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@RobertLCollins This is good information, thanks. Yes, I never like to post final drafts, just in case. :)

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@Jilleigh I have posted work on wattpad before and then gone on to have it published (Crimson Dawn). What I post here is always unedited, first drafts of my work. I did let my publisher know that I had posted rough drafts of the particular story on wattpad. His only request was that I take down the entire thing and just post a few chapters.

I am now about to have my second, full length novel published, and it also started out as a wattpad novel. I took it down once it got accepted, but I have re-posted one chapter, and will probably post a few more.

I must say that without the fan base that I have here at wattpad, I don't think my novel would be selling as well as it is, without them. Especially since I write in genre's that are really popular here.

I'm in the process of starting an e-publishing business and I for one, plan on welcoming authors with established fan bases on sites like wattpad and booksie. I've seen how much they help unknown authors establish an audience.

In the end, I guess it depends on the publisher that you query your work to, but since you're self publishing I don't think posting on wattpad should hurt you. Your diehard fans will follow your work.

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@Hathor422 That is really great to hear! I do love sharing my writing and getting feedback from readers as I write my stories. Good luck with your e-publishing business!

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Yeah, I'm in the exact some position. I posted my unedited book on here and then rewrote it and published. It was super popular on wattpad, won second place in the horror watty awards...then you remember, most fans here are teens and don't have visa cards or amazon.com accounts to actually purchase the book once published. Wattpad showed me my book is good, but once you leave the site you have to basically start from scratch.

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I think the trick with WP is to use it to get feedback from people who don't know you. I have some ruthless crit partners, but it was someone on WP who pointed out "A soldier wouldn't do that in those circumstances"

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@Ctyolene I use wattpad to post up my less great ideas and get feedback on what i should do to improve then i look in the books that i have manuscripts for and ask those same qeuistions does it have spelling mistakes is the grammer out of place or does it flow as well as it should.... but that's just me

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Hey all, I am in the same boat, @Jilleigh actually sent me to this thread because I was asking her similar questions. When you say "unedited", do you mean 1. has grammar, spelling mistakes or 2. the ideas are not finalized and well-rounded, or it features plot holes that are only filled in in your final copy, not uploaded on Wattpad.

I guess I'm wondering whether we should be concerned about publishing whole stories on here because publishers might not like it, or because that raises the possibility that somemone might steal our ideas, which would be much harder to prove in court than stealing your words.

I would like to gain a fan base for my book through the Watty awards, but since it must be completed, I am worried about the possibilities. I am just a paranoid person. Thanks a lot!

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@whikerms Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. There are no original ideas. Anything you can think up, someone else already has a story with that idea. What is original is how you handle the story, not the central idea.

Most people post first drafts on Wattpad. They are posting as they write, By the time the story is ready to be submitted or published, it will have had a huge amount of rewriting. The character's names may have changed, plot holes will be filled in, dialogue will be sharpened, descriptions will be fleshed out, and spellngs, grammar and style will have been polished. Sometimes the setting is changed, from history to outer space, or from New York to Ireland.

However, in spite of all that, some publishers are not happy about buying something which has been published on Wattpad. Others are okay with it, as long as there is no issue about copyright, and some are enthusiastic about a story with a large number of fans.

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@Jilleigh My book is newly published and I want exposure. I posted six of my chapters of this first book and that's it...hopefully it will be enough to get people hooked. If they really like it and want to know how it ends, they can purchase. I want to share my work but I also am hoping to make a living one day off of my writing. So this was a compromise for me. When I'm done with the sequel to my first book, I may take the same route if it works well for this one.

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Wow, I'm having exactly the same problem. I've posted 4 rough chapters on Wattpad and then I started worrying about if that will be a problem when I want to get it published. I haven't actually written the whole thing but I don't know if I should put it all on Wattpad or not. Barely anyone has read it so far and the ones who have are so sweet and I'd give them free copies anyway but I now don't want much more publicity just in case it does get published (I stupidly sent off the first 3 chapters to a publisher. It was a rash decision and I'm now seriously regretting it seeing as I haven't even finished my book and as it was a rough draft, things that I'm just coming up with can't be edited into it any more because it's already been sent off.) Basically I've got a few problems and I don't really know what to do. I'm so stressed out at the moment and I'm doing my GCSE's next year. Oh yeah, did I mention, I'm only a teenager. What should I do?=(

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By the way, sorry for butting in. This just caught my eye and I didn't realise how messed up my whole thing was till I wrote it all down.

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@ChloePxx Sending it off doesn't mean anything. If you are coming up with things that would better the story, add them in. Like you said you only send off parts of the first draft. Shoot, I published an entire book, then took it off the market after three years, and redid the whole story, adding about 100 pages to the book. The plot is the same but the story is richer and the world more developed after the revisions. What you sent is like a pitch to the publishers, if they like it they'll want to know more. When your book is done, if you get a deal with a publisher, you'll be working with a team to clean up and clarify your work before publication. That means you'll be cutting and adding more things.

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@SaRiley Did you have the entire novel posted on here before taking it off? I mean, the rough copy of it?

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I only just recently joined wattpad. My book was published and in bookstores and on amazon when I took it off market. Thankfully I self published so I could make all those calls for myself. I just republished the updated revision in paperback and by summer's end it will be on Kindle as well.

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@SaRiley That's wonderful! Congratulations. I have been reading up on self publishing. I know that actually picking up an agent is slim pickins'. I just want to share my stories. So, if that means eBook format for dirt cheap, that's okay with me. I guess I will look into it more once I get closer to that point in time. I'm just going to focus on finishing my novel and then revisions. Now I have dedicated readers and I'd hate having to stop uploading chapters for them.

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You know people look down on self-publishing but the young man who wrote Eragon, self published and was discovered that way. If someone in the biz gets a hold of your story after you've self published and they like it, they wont hesitate to contact you and if you're book is already doing good before they contact you that give you more bargaining power when it comes to drawing up that contract. I joined this site to meet other writers and to grow a fan base. I'll be posting parts of other projects as well which works for me since all these will eventually be finished and published.

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@SaRiley I'm not looking down on self publishing, I may have come off as if I was. I actually support self publishers and have purchased at least 50 eBooks from Barnes&Noble on my nook. Amanda Hocking is actually one of the authors that got me started on buying those $0.99 cent eBooks. Now her books are on the shelves in the big book stores! It's all about marketing. So, never say...never. Right? : )

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Sadly, since there are no editorial controls, there is a heck of a lot of crap in self publishing written by some people with really crap attitudes. For that reason, self publishing is going to remain secondary to the professional publishing houses for the time being.

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