What's up, it's Slogus, and welcome to my first official guide to writing reader inserts on Wattpad.
I've been on this app for a whopping seven years. (As of now.) And those years have been nothing but growth in terms of my writing skills.
It's crazy to think that during those seven years, I haven't once hit 1k followers... But now it's time for me to give back, even though I didn't hit that goal.
(Be sure to follow my backup account, Slogussed)
In my early days, I was known as "Kai." I mainly wrote Naruto genderbend stories and anime in general.
My first book to "blow up" was, "Whiskers." It was a book about female Naruto. (Naruko) I also had a Female Minato and Female Madara book that did pretty well, too.
I would then go to writing video games such as TWDG or TLOU, but after that, I unpublished all of my books and went dormant for a few years.
Now, I'm back and better than ever. Honestly, I'm proud of what I've become I'm terms of writing, and that's beyond Wattpad.
(My old books may make a return...)
Anywho, without, further ado, let's get into the basics...
1) Covers:
The first thing a "hungry" reader looks at is the cover of your book. If you want your book to do well, you need to make an eye-grabbing cover. One that either has bright colors, displays the title of your book, or says, "X Male Reader." That way, your readers will know what they want and what they're looking for.
We always hear the saying, "don't judge a book by its cover," but on Wattpad, that's pretty much all everyone does, which leads me to my next basic...
2) Descriptions:
Now, I'm gonna be honest... A good chunk of readers does not read the description of your books at all.
But, to the percentage of readers that do, (which, we authors love greatly because we put a lot of effort into our descriptions), they want something that's enough to leave them wanting more.
Your description has to explain the gist of your story, all without spoiling it. We learned this in middle school, it's called a hook.
Your description should also be somewhat long, and shouldn't just say, "read."
It's called a description for a reason, it describes your book.
3) Titles:
The title of your story is arguably the most important thing.
If you don't have a cover, your title makes up for it. If you don't have any tags, your title makes up for it.
Your title should be something that relates to the plot of your reader insert unless you simply wanna put "_____ x Male Reader," which is fine.
In terms of reader inserts, and especially male, it's BEST that you put "x Male Reader," in the title. If you put "x Reader," or just give it a standard title, nine times out of ten, MALE readers will assume it's for a girl, and skip it.
The fan fiction community is small, the x reader community is smaller, and the x male reader community is even smaller. You have to stick out so your male audience can reach you.
4) Tags:
The tags of your story aren't super important, but they help a lot.
If your title or description lacks something that a reader searches for, your tags will make up for it.
I recommend maxing out the tags, ALWAYS. And to use these tags, ALWAYS; #xmale #xmalereader #malereader #malereaderx . These tags have helped me greatly.
The algorithm looks for tags that apply to your story as well.
I will go more into depth on my algorithm chapter, which should be the next chapter.
5) Promoting:
You're going to have to make some precautions to get your name out there.
If you're starting fresh and have a low amount of followers/reads, you should start following people.
It's a common thing for people to look through other people's followers, I do it a lot.
Back in the old days, on Wattpad, there used to be a notification board. It would notify you if someone you followed commented or voted on a story on a whole different person's account, etc. Back then, it was easier to blow up.
Since they got rid of that, it's been harder.
In terms of who you should follow, you should follow authors who are writing the same books as you. If potentially there aren't any, you should follow everyone who comments on your stories or follows you.
You may think it looks bad on your account, but you'll gain followers quickly since most people on this app follow back. Your followers and the people you follow will expand and you'll get notifications from each one, you never know how it might help.
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And of course, you just have to be patient. Some of your books may blow up overnight, some may blow up in weeks, months, and maybe even years. It all depends on the algorithm.
That's it for the basics, now it's time for the algorithm. Each part will sometimes get a little more intermediate as I go on, so try to stay tuned. ->