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Before I go through my top 11 tips, let's just take a moment to look at Wattpad and its audience.
I think it's highly relevant in terms the things you can do to better adapt your book to the Wattpad environment.
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Let's look at the Wattpad Stats (and what they mean for you):
60+ million monthly users (loads of readers!)
400+ million story uploads (loads of competition for your stories!)
90% of all Wattpad activity is on mobile (Wattpad books are different to traditional books!)
Majority of users are female aged between 13-24 (books aimed at this demographic are going to get more reads!)
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Now I'm going to say two radical things:
1. Wattpad books aren't the same as traditional books!
I don't mean this in a negative way, and I don't mean that Wattpad books can't be traditionally published (they can be, and are!).
But the way I see Wattpad- it sits somewhere between publishing, entertainment (tv, film, media), and social apps. This can be used to your advantage, but if ignored it can be detrimental! A format and style that would work for a traditionally published book may not work as well on Wattpad.
2. Not all books on Wattpad will find their audience
(it doesn't mean the book isn't good)
Imagine you're sitting down with your friends to watch some cartoons. You put on a cartoon network. Suddenly a serious documentary comes on. What do you do?
You probably change the channel.
It doesn't mean the documentary isn't good (in fact, you may decide you'll watch it at a later time, or maybe you get so drawn into it you'll watch it anyway) but it wasn't the main reason you turned on the TV.
I see Wattpad in a similar way. I'd say that when the majority of people use Wattpad they're looking for a specific type of story (from my observation I'd say it tends to lean on the side of escapism type reads) - If you're writing something completely different to that it stands to reason that it will be harder to find your audience (but not impossible!).
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Interesting note based on the above - Vic James's Gilded Cage trilogy started on Wattpad. It got less than half a million reads but is now published with major publishers around the world!
A million reads doesn't mean publishing success. Less than a million reads doesn't mean publishing failure.
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Regardless of whether your audience is dominating Wattpad - there are still things you can do to ensure that when a potential reader for your particular book sees it, they read it.
The 11 tips I'm going to go through helped me find my audience...
