(Huge thank you to KellyAnneBlount for inviting me to the best Wattpad event of the year again. I am ever grateful for your dedication and support.)
In the past Wattpad Block Parties, I've talked about sinking ships, genre hopping and dealing with plagiarism. But I thought I'd get real this time and talk about something very close to heart. So welcome to my most controversial post yet:
THE ART OF BEING (UN)POPULAR
***
To kick things off, let's begin with a quick survey of sorts. Leave a "+1" comment if any of the following applies to you—
Scenario #1: You and your friend started out on Wattpad at the same time, perhaps two or three years ago. Somewhere along the line, she made it—millions of reads, dozens of publishing authors, a wide adoring fanbase. But you didn't. While she's sitting at thousands of votes with every chapter she uploads, you're still struggling to hit ten.
Scenario #2: You've had one big hit—one story that shot you to fame. Everyone's talking about it, which is great, until you realize that it's the only thing they're talking about. Nothing else matters. Not another story that you're proud of, not a new genre that you tackle, not all the effort you spend stepping out of your comfort zone to write something else.
Scenario #3: You're a big author with thousands of fans. Then life catches up and you're forced to go on an extensive hiatus. But when you return, you realize that the spotlight's gone. That readership you thought you had seems non-existent now. Where you previously had no trouble climbing the charts, you're struggling to even get your story ranked.
My answers are, in order—been there, been there, still there. You see, I've been writing online since 2009, and the one thing that still gets to me after all this years is the reception to my writing (or the lack thereof). When I started out, Scenario #1 was the hardest thing for me to deal with because it seemed like all my friends were getting published. Then after books like Slow Dancing and Draconian, Scenario #2 hit really hard and reception to the subsequent books I write have been lukewarm ever since. And now, due to a lengthy hiatus last year, Scenario #3 is what I'm currently stuck in.
You see, the thing is that no matter how much everyone tries to stigmatize it, there is nothing wrong with wanting recognition for your work. Popularity on this site means having a huge following, a dedicated readership and more feedback on your works. It is not a bad thing to want it. When you're a new author, you want the recognition that you don't yet have. And when you're a big author going through a slump, you want the recognition that you once had. So whether you're a new or veteran author, regardless of your following, this is something a lot of us struggle with at some point or other.
But we can all sit around with the woe-is-me attitude, or we can do something about it. Over my years of writing online, I've gathered five very important tips that I myself abide by, and here's hoping that they can help you too.
***
#1—HOOK, LINE, SINKER.
Title. Cover. Synopsis.
Those are the three most important things when it comes to a Wattpad story. You might argue that it's the plot or narrative or characters that make a good book, and you're right. But you're looking at a demographic with a huge portion of teenage readers, or readers who read on-the-go. They're not at a bookstore and they don't have the time to browse through your book before they decide they want to pick it up. No, they're going to take one glance at it and either drop or add it to their reading list.
Let's start with story titles. On Wattpad, titles can go two ways—they can be entirely unique, or they can hitch on a trend. The first is fantastic, especially if you've got yourself a catchy title. However, if you pick a strange title (e.g. supercalifragilisticexpialidocious), then it might be difficult for readers to remember it. Alternatively, hitching on a trend (e.g. bad boy, mr arrogant, you're mine!!!) might make your title extremely common, but it can also work to your advantage because a lot of potential readers will be searching for titles with said trends in them.
My advice would be to go for something in between. Nothing too complex for your readers to understand, but nothing too mainstream either. And do watch out for your abbreviations. Funny story—I once titled a book "Under the Influence", which is catchy and everything, right? Except a reader pointed out that the abbreviation to my title would be UTI, which meant that I either had to find a new title or switch the plot to something related to a girl spending hours in the bathroom... It was all very tragic, really, so don't make the same mistake I did.
Anyway, on to covers. Forget everything you know about not judging a book by its cover. Look at it this way—you are competing against hundreds and thousands of books on the genre lists. And on those lists, only your cover, your name and a teeny bit of your synopsis will be shown. So if you're not a brand name (i.e. not recognizable by your username), then you must find another way to stand out. It will take you five minutes to go to clubs and request a fancy one from multimedia design, so get to it!
Finally, your synopsis. There is nothing more frustrating than finding a book with an incredible amount of potential, only to be let down from the get go with the synopsis. It could be bad grammar, spelling or over-capitalization—simple things like these could make or break readers' interest in your story. The other thing I'd advise against is lengthy synopses. Not many people are aware of this, but lengthy synopses (i.e. anything more than five paragraphs) usually becomes too tedious to reel Wattpad readers in. Instead, leave a short paragraph in the description of your work, and then have the official lengthier synopsis within a chapter of your story.
The bottomline is this—your story is like a product that you're trying to sell. So if you don't package it nicely, people aren't going to be interested in unwrapping it and seeing what's inside.
#2—ACTIVITY = ACTIVITY.
As I mentioned above, I went on a very lengthy hiatus last year to focus on my studies. So prior to that, I had about 1'000-1'500 per chapter. But when I returned, my readership had depleted so much that I could only hit (and still am hitting) about 200-300 per chapter. For some of you, that might still seem a lot, but the stats show that it's only 20% of what it originally was.
This is the point I'm trying to make: Activity breeds activity. Don't let your page remain stagnant because if you do, then it will be difficult for you to maintain or increase your readership.
I know that keeping your morale up isn't always easy. Every Wattpad author faces a plethora of factors that can keep them from writing. A new author will feel discouraged with so few readers, an old author might feel equally as discouraged if they're unable to achieve the same readership as before. You might be stuck with writer's block, hate a current story that you're writing, or write a new story that no one seems to like. And, of course, when real life comes catching up, Wattpad will (and should) take a backseat.
Notwithstanding the last reason, you should try to keep your page active in any other circumstance. If you're not able to maintain a quick update schedule, then keep it to one chapter every alternate week. If you're suffering from writer's block or hate your current story, then try working on something fresh. If you're unable to find the time to write, then doing other stuff on Wattpad is fine too. Leave comments on someone else's book, interact with your followers, or edit an old work. As long as there is some form of activity on your page, your followers will not forget about you.
Here's how to look at it—if your story's a product, then think of your profile page as a business site. Building a customer base is difficult and time-consuming, but losing it is frighteningly easy. And if you stop putting out new products or keeping your page active, then your customer base will decrease.
One of the cheat methods I use is to cut up my chapters. Some of my chapters have 2-3 scene breaks and instead of posting the full chapter at one go, I split the chapter into 2-3 parts and post them scene by scene. So every time I write 1 chapter offline, I have 2-3 updates that I can post across the span of the next few weeks. I know that this seems unorthodox and there are Wattpad authors who disapprove of how unprofessional this is. But it is the only way I can simultaneously maintain a busy life and a regular updating schedule.
So find a way to maintain balance between life and Wattpad. Once you have that, keeping your profile active becomes a lot easier.
#3—FOLLOWERS ≠ READERS.
Tell me if this situation sounds familiar: you see a Wattpad author post a message wondering where their readers are. "I have one thousand followers," they'll say, "so why am I only getting twenty votes per chapter? Come on, guys—read, vote, comment!"
This is the biggest misconception that some Wattpad authors have. They think that just because they have a thousand followers, they should have a thousand readers. And then they become very discouraged when less than a fifth of said readers comment on their story. They'll either believe that the remaining eight-hundred readers are silent readers (might be true) or that no one's interested in their work.
The truth is that having only a fraction of your followers be readers is completely 100% normal. I can even throw out some statistics from my own account to back this up. I'm currently sitting at over 200'000 followers, but my stories have only ever raked in 200-3'000 votes per chapter. And here's the icing on top of the cake—when your following increases, the percentage of active readers you have decreases because a lot of users follow for the sake of following.
It's as simple as that. When you started out on Wattpad, you probably followed a famous author or two because you were inspired by their works, or a friend of yours followed them. Over time, those authors either stopped writing, wrote stories that you were no longer interested in or stories that you no longer had the time to read. But you're still following them anyway because you have fond memories of their works and you want to support them, even if in the most inconspicuous way.
So always keep this in mind: the number of followers you have is not a representation of your readers. If you want to look at how many readers you have, then look at the demographics or vote count. I personally like looking at the vote count because those are my active readers (the silent ones just add to your read count).
And never, ever take your readers for granted.
#4—GREEN-EYED MONSTER.
Jealousy between authors is perfectly normal, more so on Wattpad because the success of an author is so glaringly obvious. You can literally see it everywhere—in the following count, the reads / votes / comments, the What's Hot and Featured lists, etc. It's okay to feel this slight sting of envy when looking at the success of another author. But when this envy begins to threaten the more important things, such as your friendships or love for writing, that's when you need to do something about it.
The easiest thing to do is to focus. on. yourself.
What I mean by this is to just stop paying attention to the things that make you unhappy. If the books on the What's Hot list are bothering you, why are you looking at it? Why are you going to famous authors' profiles just to compare their read count with yours? Why do you torture yourself by scrolling through your news feed where your friend is celebrating the fact that she's received another publishing deal? If these things are making you so jealous that you can no longer remember why you started writing, why would you even pay attention to them?
Some time ago, when I found myself constantly comparing the success of my current work to the more popular ones like Slow Dancing and Draconian, I stopped looking at my profile altogether. I would just go straight to 'My Works', post my latest update, and log right out. For awhile, I wouldn't even track the reception on my latest work, because I knew that the lack of it would just discourage me. It eventually became a habit, such that even till today, I hardly ever look at my profile. I don't think I even know how many reads I have on my profile right now.
This fourth tip is a lot easier said than done. I know how compelling it is to track your book as it makes its way up the What's Hot list. I know how much you admire famous authors and want to be like them someday. I know you first started tracking your friend's success because you care about them. But it is so easy to cross the line between admiration and fervour into jealousy and obsession.
So if you find yourself picking up habits on Wattpad that are making you miserable, then you really need to take a step back and stop whatever it is you're doing.
#5—THE GOLDEN RULE.
The difference between popularity in real life and on Wattpad is that the latter has statistics. When you look at your page, you have your following count, reads, votes and comments. Wattpad's home page has its genre lists, and each genre has its ranks in Hot, Rising and New. With the addition of the new ranking system, you can have ranks in each of your tags. You have the Watty Awards and the Wattpad Stars, the outside publishing deals and deals from other writing websites.
It is so easy to get lost in everything.
Therefore, I'll end this post the same way I've ended all my Wattpad Block Party post. Whether you're sinking ships, genre hopping, dealing with plagiarism or going through an unpopularity slump, there is only one thing you need to ask yourself—
Why do you write?
If your sole answer is "to be popular", then you're going to have a very tough road ahead. Popularity on Wattpad is like a dying streetlamp. It flickers on and off, and sometimes it completely stops shining. You may feel like you have the world at your feet when it's on you, but when it stops being on you, what then? You've lost the only reason that you write.
So really think about why you write. Maybe you have a lot of ideas, maybe you were inspired by someone, maybe it's just something you like to do. As long as your answer is something well-intentioned, then keep that in mind always. Remind yourself of that so that even when you do not have the reception to your works that you deserve, there will still be a reason to keep going.
***
PROMOTIONS
There will be two promotions this time round:
1) Hosted by KellyAnneBlount
I will be promoting 3 winner to all my followers. To participate, visit the giveaway links below!
2) Hosted by me (hepburnettes)
I will be promoting 2 authors AND their stories to my followers. To participate, in-line comment HERE to tell me a) your struggles with gaining a readership on Wattpad and b) the link to your book that you'd like me to promote!
***
WATTPAD BLOCK PARTY GIVEAWAY LINKS: http://kellyanneblountauthor.blogspot.com/2018/07/wattpad-block-party-giveaways-summer.html