Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

Please Star and Comment on This Chapter

And, I just want to let you know I've been there. Even now, other than Wattpad 101 I can't say any other story on my list generates the 10-20 stars within a week of releasing a new chapter without doing anything. I'm betting if I ran out and asked for another 5-6 critiques on Vampire's Kiss, it might explode in popularity once again (It has been a few years and I'm sure there is a whole new group of teens to get excited about my lame oneshot).

If I was releasing any other stories on Wattpad, I likely WOULD request more critiques and I would be fishing for stars and I would like to see my work get both so that it actually can be found on Wattpad. Because that's the problem. If you don't do these things, then your story will never get a reader base in the first place.

And, yes, I've said it before. You can do it the nice way.

-DON'T whine and demand stars on the Wattpad forum.

-DON'T expect a star just because you gave someone a star.

-DON'T demand absurd payments, if you demand payment at all.

-DON'T seek critiques for comments, seek critiques for critiques.

However, even if your actions are pure and you move with the best intentions, at least accept that you want those stars, and as much as I say "be active in your community" is a way to gain stars, you need to accept that in reality you (to some extend) are "being active in your community" deliberately to get those stars. I'm not inviting people to be a douche about it, just to acknowledge their inner desires.

And that leads us to the final aspect of this discussion. Demanding stars in your chapter.

In the forums, it's bad, but you can write whatever you want in your Conversation feed and in your chapters. Many people feel the need to "remind" readers to star and comment. I've written chapters doing this. I've written chapters not doing it. (I like to experiment to see what works, I swear, it's in the name of science!)

Thanks so much for reading. Please star and comment on this chapter.

You've all read this or something like it before. Sometimes it occurs at the end of the chapter. Sometimes it occurs at the beginning of the chapter. Since Wattpad's chapter releases can sometimes feel like blogging, there are plenty of people who also provide daily news at the beginning of chapters too. The worst of them will add:

I will release the next chapter after I've received X stars and Y comments!

Right off the bat, I have to mention that there are people who absolutely HATE when writers do this. By asking for stars, even politely, you will instantly put some hackles up and possible even stop yourself from receiving stars. Personally, I don't relate to these kind of people at all. Why U so Mad, Bro? Seriously, I just don't get why reminding readers who may, I don't know, be reading your story so intently they forget about staring and commenting to do so seems pretty harmless to me. As I mention, stars and comments are the lifeblood on here. They need it for their book to get any response.

However, I guess, just like DRM in music and video games, some people feel like it ruins their experience. Like when you play a game and in the middle of the narration you're told you need to buy DLC. Even though stars are cheap, I guess people don't like to be panhandled while they are just trying to enjoy their day.

Mind you, I'm speaking mostly of the former comment, not the withholding of chapters for stars and comments. My opinion on that action is mostly... meh... I will tell you that in my experiences, begging for stars and comments does NOT lead to more stars and comments. Withholding a chapter for stars and comments does worst.

Wattpad is a saturated market, and when you become stingy and difficult with your releases, the only thing you accomplish is driving people away from your work and towards someone else's work. As a writer, the thing you want the most is people reading your work... so to do that, you need to actually present the work. The more annoying and obstructive you become, the less readers you're going to have... and even if your demands have immediate gains, in the long term it's almost certainly going to hurt you.

So, in my opinion, I would NOT request for stars and comments. As someone who has done it and not done it, I've never seen any gain in doing so. And when it comes to withholding releases, you are actually hurting your own success because there are two things that DO increase the number of stars and reads you get.

The first is... actually talking to your readers. Form a repertoire with them. One simple trick is to ask questions at the end of your chapter.

"Do you want her to end up with Dr. McSexypants or Mr. McBiceps?"

Asking that kind of question right after someone read that chapter will assuredly get people who will give a response. However, that particular trick also backfires. You see, when you request someone answer a question, they do that. And as a result, you may get 3-4 more comments, but all of those comments will just be "Dr. McSexypants" (He's a doctor, of course, Team McSexypants for the win). SO if you want meaningful comments, you'll rarely get them. So even with meaningful questions, the answers will often be short and to the point.

However, just talking and being friendly and finding a few fans who you can exchange some fanboy talk with can help. I've found editors that way. I've found critiques. I've found cheerleaders. If it stops being some anonymous guy and starts being a friend, you'll find yourself obtaining a lot more insightful and meaningful comments, which coincides with advice I've left in the past on both how to gain follows, and how to take criticism. So, this device is a two-for.

So, what is the second thing that increases stars and comments the most reliably? I've said it before. Releasing reliably. If you're going to release every Tuesday, release every Tuesday. Be reliable. I'm not always reliable. I wasn't reliable releasing Hawtness 1.5. As much as I complained in my last chapter about hoping for its success, I knew flat out where a lot of that success went. Not releasing when I said I'd release. Not releasing reliably.

To ANY fan, they want to know when the next chapter comes out. No television show would be successful if one week it runs on Monday, the next week it's Thursday, then it skips three weeks and shows up on a Tuesday at midnight, then you hear nothing for a month, then it appears again on Monday. No fan would follow a show syndicated like that, so why would you expect a released book to succeed on that kind of schedule?

I say this knowing that this is one of my biggest problems on Wattpad, or all my writing. I write chapters when I feel like it, and that leaves a LOT of stories jumping around from hiatus to written to back on hiatus. It KILLS my reader base, but it's also part of just how I write.

Meanwhile, my most successful stories always occurred at a time when my writing was released reliably. Either once a week, or once a day, as long as I explained my release schedule, and always kept up with it. When I couldn't release I made a post explaining it. As a result, I could keep a strong base of followers. I could keep my cheerleaders. I could keep my reliable stars and my reliable commenters.

Now, I'm not saying NEVER request stars and comments. If you were writing to a typically none-Wattpad audience, they might not be familiar with stars and follows enough to know to do so. If you're main audience are younger kids, they might not think of these kind of things unless you request. If you're writing a one chapter story, you obviously won't have a reader base to maintain, and it might be advantageous to request reads.

However, that's the decision you ultimately have to make. Even though I don't think that requesting does much, I've still done it. I request stars and comments at the end of a book. I can't help it. That's how powerful the desire to have your book acknowledged and seen is. But ultimately, the more in-your-face you become about your demands, the more you'll set some people off. So, back to the advice I've given since the beginning, appreciate your readers, perhaps passively suggest you'd like to see more stars and comments, but don't make demands. People don't like to be panhandled. Good Luck, and Happy Writing!