How to write like a Pirate, Get readers, and other inspirational crap

You want people to read you story? Writing and Prewriting.

The moral of this chapter is "Then WRITE MORE!" Imagine your ears hurting as I yell this.

(If you can't handle the hard truth then skip the Rant Brackets)

Rant Brackets [Do you only have one chapter? One chapter is not a story, it's barely even a preview! You'll be lucky if your mom and best friend read it. No one...

...Let me stress this point: NO ONE goes around wattpad looking for one-chapter novels. Get over yourself and stop begging for reads. The majority of People who log onto wattpad to read... WANT TO READ, not preview. We are talking 20+ chapters ideally. One chapter does not a book make. The first things readers consider(even if they won't admit it) is how many chapters it has, how many reads, votes, and the last time it was updated. If you have a one chapter work that was updated a month ago with a handful of reads and no votes then you've failed compared to anything with more than one chapter that was updated today or yesterday. Why should I devote my time and energy to the disappointing "this is the end of the book" line before the story even began?

Are your feelings hurt? Then quit and stop flooding the internet with disappointment. Unless you put out short stories, or half a book in one chapter, a one-chapter work is not a story, put some actual work into it! Do you actually want to be a writer? Do you like/love writing? Is writing more then just a cry for attention? Then keep reading.

Okay the secret to being successful and getting reads on Wattpad: Consistent updates. Your best advertisement isn't posting in the comment sections "Please pay attention to me too", it's when someone looks at your story and they see it was updated today or yesterday not a week or three years ago. The wattpad algorithm will do the work for you if you have halfway decent tags, teaser, cover, and you post consistently. (Tips on these will be addressed later)

Last note on my rant, don't post stories you don't plan on finishing. I know that sounds like it should be obvious, but I have to say it. And don't post while saying things like "I might not finish", "I'm lazy so updates will be sporadic", or "it's not that good". You're just telling people not to read your story, Literally! And for the LOVE OF GOD, don't beg random strangers to read your story. (Your stories can sell themselves, you can get reads! There is something to be said for advertising your story, but wattpad is built to do half the work for you.) Especially don't post on other people's walls, in the comment sections of book (especially if you haven't read them), or PM me directly if you have less than 10 chapters. Don't ask me about one chapter "previews" for advice, comments, and reads. One chapter is not enough for me to give you any realistically good feedback that is going to help you. Put some work into you story. Let me quantify that beyond my 50,000 word requirement. Plot out your story even if it's in your head, write it down, hit writer's block, get over writers block more than once, have someone tell you it's not good and then don't give up on it, making edits and changes to make it better, read it dozens of times and a dozens of times more, do hours of research for one scene. Does this sound like work? THAT'S BECAUSE IT IS! Writing is a passion, but passions are just things you do for fun that someone else would find tedious. There should be days you absolutely hate it and other days you absolutely love it, and everything in between, AND YOU STILL KEEP WRITING!]

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Prewrite

You're still here, awesome. Let's get into it then.

Okay here is the real secret to getting reads, consistency. A crappy story updated every day will get more traction than an amazing one that's only updated once a week or once a month. I learned this lesson the hard way with my story "King of the Vale: Commander of Legions" It's 25 chapters of some of the best stuff I've written(and it's been dropped). Not even 700 reads within the first two years and it's been 4 years since I started it... less then 2k reads. I was inconsistent in posting. Pearly City and Foxtails are both above 100k in the first year with foxtails is just over 700k when I wrote this. Both had consistent posting, in fact, many of my readers came over from Pearly city to Foxtails. The secret was consistency. I posted every day to every other day. And I'm told they are half-way decent stories to boot.