Prisimpad: A Guide to Wattpad, Writing, and Whatever

ON WATTPAD: Your Profile and You

Under that you'll see either a blue published, meaning it's published, or a gray draft, meaning it's not. You're the only one who can see that text. It's just a way to distinguish between published and unpublished. You're also the only one who can see drafts.

Unfortunately Wattpad has removed the genres from displaying anywhere on or in the books so I really have no clue how you would tell what genre a book is in other than hoping the cover and/or blurb provide some insight. It's one of my sore points with recent changes because I don't see why the genre would be hidden the way Wattpad has hidden it. Especially with all the empty space in this area available to have the genre in it. But that's another rant I'm starting to slip into. Downside trying to do one of these books is keeping my personal opinion out of areas that don't need my opinion.

Your library area on the about tab is another fairly straight forward area. Depending on how many public libraries you have will determine on how many show and if you have a button to show more. Since I don't, I can't show you the show more button since both of my libraries fit on the screen. But if you don't, or if a profile you're visiting doesn't, you can click on show more to get the rest to appear like magic.

Each library you have will display the first couple of books. How big your screen is determines how many books show. If you want to see more than what's displayed, you can enter the library by clicking on it's name.

Above the library to the right you'll see a plus sign and a gear.

The plus sign gives you the ability to add a new library while the gear allows you to edit a library.

Under each book cover in the library you'll see the title and it's stats. Again no way of telling what genre the book is in, but you can only get the blurb if you click on it. Clicking on it will bring a popup that gives you a partial blurb.

You can also see if the book is complete by bringing up this menu. Clicking on more will take you into the contents page of a book that gives you the full blurb. Once you have the popup from the book in the library you can then read it or add it to another library.

I think that's it for the about tab, so moving on to the conversations. Again it's broken up into two columns. The left is your message board the right is activity within both your books and other books you might comment or vote on.

The recent activity I don't think I have to go over too much. This area is going to show you every recent vote you did, every comment, if you've posted a chapter, added a book to your library, any action you have publicly made involving a book will show here. If you want to delete any of these, click on ... which will bring up the delete option.

Once it's deleted, it's gone forever. Like it never happened. At least on your profile. That's it for that side. The real point of the conversation tab is the message board.

This section is where people can publicly message you and where you can make broadcasts to your followers. If you used the Wattpad button to share a book, this is also where it'll pop up. I didn't really go into the share buttons as I wasn't sure if I needed to, so speak up if you'd like to know more about the share options on Wattpad!

To do a broadcast, click on the "post a message" box to bring up your typing cursor. This will also expand that area to reveal the check box to broadcast.

Checking that box prior to posting the message will send a notice out to all your followers. I've turned off my email notices years ago, but I believe the message will still be emailed to people who have their email option turned on. If they're like me and don't, then they would only see it if they check their newsfeed . . . which I honestly forget exists since they pushed it to siberia. I'll go into where the newsfeed is located when I cover the drop down menu under your name.

Moving on to the next tab, following. This one does the same thing as if you're clicking the on the plus sign by the circle pictures on the about me. Clicking on following brings up all the people you follow. I don't feel like I really need a screenshot but if you want one, let me know.

I think that's everything on the basic profile. If I missed something, speak now or forever hold your peace! After being here as long as I have it can be hard to figure out what to cover and how to cover it. I'm trying to make these guides helpful to new users in addition to current users who may not have known some of the tools available to them.