Introduction:

I've been a writer since 2017, and things have changed so much. I've been seeing more posts about R4R/V4V/C4C, but I've never seen the point of those. They're transactional, and those requests can be disrespectful if they are executed incorrectly. They do not always work out because people won't reciprocate, and it's unfair to make someone read something they don't like.

Authors like Holly Shmit, Aiden Summers, and Isaak Finn have gained organic readership without any of those deals because they write for themselves. Slow growth over months of posting is better because those readers stay with you.

How to be a Successful Writer and Community Member:

1. Creating a Beautiful Profile: Use high-quality profile and background pictures that either correspond to the genre(s) you’re writing in, or that represent you. Your bio should tell people about you as a person, like your books, the genres you read, other interests, social media, and email to contact you. Also, include what made you write in the first place.
2. Joining and Finding Wattpad Communities: Use the Profiles tab under Wattpad's Search feature to find some. Two of them are the Dreamland Community (the most popular) and Astania. Talk to people, read and comment on stories genuinely, and offer feedback (if asked). I've provided links to both profiles. Link to Dreamland: Dreamland Community (@DreamlandCommunity) - Wattpad and Link to Astania Astania Community (@AstaniaCommunity) - Wattpad
3. My Stance on Self-Advertising: Don't do it on an author's Conversations Tab or in the Comments of the Author's books. Those areas are for the author to interact with readers or give their followers updates. Many authors ignore reading requests.
4. Correct Self-Advertising: If you have book accounts for Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, TikTok, X, YouTube, or Pinterest, you can create character/chapter images, covers, and trailers, and on most, you can share your Wattpad profile link or your book links in your bio. If you don't have socials, talk to people— they can create profiles, add your book to their Library, and read, vote, and comment on your books.
5. Book Cover Design: Craft book covers with a decent-quality image related to the genre, and use a pretty, decently sized font. For example, a romance novel could have a pair of lovers in an embrace and a fancy cursive font for the title and author’s name. You can use design programs like Canva or ask someone to design a cover for you. Don't use AI!
6. Create a Captivating Summary: Introduce your main OCs by first and last name, occupation, and write about their lives. Then write in the story goal, motivation, conflict, and stakes. The story should have one big question that the readers want answered. Look at the most notable books in your genre for inspiration.
7. Putting Good and Relevant Tags: You can have up to a maximum of twenty-five tags in a story. The more tags you have, the better chances of discoverability in the algorithm, and do a mix of broad and niche tags. The best categories are: 1-3 for genre/subgenre, 2-3 for character identities, 4-6 for tropes, 1 for era, 1-2 for audience, 1-2 for location, 8-15 for topics and themes related to the book. That's a mix of broad and niche topics, so you can at least rank in a few categories. (Tags with multiple words should not have spaces/punctuation-- style them as ONE phrase.) My link for tag examples: How to Choose the Best Tags for Wattpad Story
8. Book Lengths & How Well They Do: Many writers who write 30-60 chapter novel-length stories do the best when it comes to readership. Almost every story I've read that's thirty chapters or more and updated regularly gets more consistent readers than those that are shorter or updated inconsistently. Many of my friends have stories that are 40, 50, 60 chapters, and so on, and have many Engaged Readers.
9. How to Begin the First Chapter: Don’t bore readers with the character getting ready for the day. Start with a memorable event. Get readers emotionally invested in the characters, whether you want them to be loved or hated. Have it short to experiment and see how well it does. Just don't write it too short. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to give the reader adequate information.
10. The 5-Chapter Launch: Many experienced authors post the first five chapters of their story at once. That gives their readers a better impression of their book, helps them gain more traction, and gets them a better start with the algorithm than posting 1-3 chapters. Those writers make sure they're engaging by showing the character's emotions, the stakes, the suspense, and editing to improve readability. It also helps to get picked up by YuenRank.
11. Updating Schedule: For the best chances of ranking with the algorithm, I would post 2-3 times a week, consistently. Pick 2-3 days throughout the week and try to stick to them. It also helps if you have 10-15 chapters backlogged-- that way, you can schedule chapters to post. The only time I'd recommend posting daily is if the book is already complete and edited. The best times for posting chapters are early in the morning, late in the afternoon/evening, or at night. It also depends on where your audience is from.
12. Details to “show”: Build us a picture of your characters’ appearance like their hair type/length/color, eye color, skin tone, height), their clothing, and body language/emotions (all of these determine a character's personality), their interests and hobbies, sensory use (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste), specific actions, and character reactions during different situations. You can even use the environment around them to tell you what they're feeling in the air, like temperature.
13. Things to "tell/summarize": Passages of time, backstory/context, unimportant details, and repetitive actions like a morning/evening routine. Many people will find those boring if you go into specific detail about them.
14. Cliffhangers/Good Chapter Endings: Leave interesting chapter endings to intrigue readers. Don't always end the chapter with the character sleeping or other generic endings. It would make some readers stop reading. Some good examples of this are the characters getting caught doing something, in a scary situation, or having a secret. Don't use them all the time, but do use them every few chapters.
15. My Stance on V4V: Vote trading used to be illegal, even though it isn't heavily policed. It's just mainly frowned upon by many older, experienced writers. I don't do that because I don't see how it helps my story gain authentic visibility in the long run. If you go on Wattpad, look for the old Archived version of the Code of Conduct, and you'll see what I'm talking about. This is the link Code of Conduct (Archived) – Help Center
16. Prompting Comments: Author's notes do work if they’re short, occasional, in bold text, and to the point with a question at the end of a chapter. If people comment on your story, reply to them—chances are, they’ll come back. Engaging with your audience is important.
17. Chapter Lengths: Keep the first 5-6 chapters at 1.5k words, then go to 2k words, and if the story is going well, you can go to 2.1k, 2.2k, and so on. Some people I know have written chapters later in their books that are 3k, 4k, 5k, and even 7k-9k and kept readers’ attention. It also depends on the genre—some require longer chapters for relationship/character/world building, fight scenes, love scenes, and tension. Some are shorter. Don't make a big jump in word count, such as from 1k to 3k. It can be jarring to some readers.
18. Paragraph Lengths: Most, if not all, readers are on their phones or tablets. Keep them at least 1-5 sentences. Seriously-- not a lot of people are going to read stories that are massive blocks of text or dialogue that is altogether.
19. Dialogue: Make sure to write it in a way that's easy for the reader to understand when the speaker changes from one person to the next. Always start a new paragraph or line when a new speaker talks, and the first speaker stops. Dialogue that’s a big block of text with multiple speakers can be a big turn-off for readers.
20. Grammar/Punctuation: A major turn-off for readers is bad spelling, grammar, and punctuation. You can fix this by looking up how to spell something, reading articles or watching videos, asking for help, or using Microsoft Word/Google Docs' built-in spelling/grammar review. Even reading it aloud to yourself after doing something else for a few days can help you spot mistakes. Read books in English (helpful for non-native English speakers). Do not use AI for grammar & punctuation.
21. Your Main Character: Give readers a good reason to get behind the MMC/FMC and love or hate them. If they’re the hero, they need to be intelligent, caring, or both. Describe them physically, mentally, and emotionally in the first few chapters.
22. What's Your Goal? If you're writing for fun, you shouldn't be pushing feedback and comments so much. You're writing for you. As long as you're happy with your book, an audience shouldn't matter. If you're writing to build a career, Wattpad is not the best place to be looking-- you're better off going through Amazon KDP, Draft2Digital, IngramSpark, and others, or even traditionally publishing.
23. Website Features: You can add stories to a series, do Story Notes, see different sections in Story Stats (how many reads/votes/comments per chapter, the ages/genders and nationalities of your Readers, how many Engaged Readers on a story, and how many Unique Readers you get daily). You also have access to Wattpad's new Genres system, where you can choose up to four genres & subgenres for your story (it'll soon be available to the app too)
24. Writing Contests/Review Shops: Look for Writing Contests and review shops and enter them. That way, you can have a chance to win a contest, or get your book reviewed by someone else, so you know your weak & strong points in writing.
25. Practicing Polite Wattpad Etiquette: Be respectful to authors. As I said earlier, unless they say it's okay, don't self-advertise your content on their page or in their books. (Many authors hate this.) If they haven't updated in a while, you can check on them, but if they don't answer you, don't spam them with messages asking when they'll update their stories again. Many authors have responsibilities, plus people do need breaks because things in life happen (and they should not have to explain themselves)
26. Poll Option: Use the Poll to give readers an interactive experience and encourage them to give you an opinion on what should happen next. The next few chapters can have multiple outcomes.
27. Reads vs Readers: Reads are the number of times people click on a story or chapter, but they don’t always read all the way. It’s counted if they click on chapters, vote, and then leave. The numbers you see outside your books are NOT the total number of readers. It's how many times it's been opened/clicked on. It's also counted if the author does the same thing. Now, readers, on the other hand, actually read, vote, and comment on chapters.
28. Saving Your Story: All Wattpad writers should have more than ONE copy of their book saved in a document processing program. Wattpad isn't one, and they shouldn't be responsible for what happens to your stories. "All Rights Reserved" means the story belongs to you. Write it in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Notes, or even in a notebook. That way, you have backups if something happens, and you're not complaining to Wattpad about losing your book. It is your fault if you lose it. Have accountability!
29. Social Feed: It's a good way to see what your followers are adding to their Reading Lists and voting on. It should help with discoverability (which is what many writers have been asking about). I know people complain about it invading their privacy-- they will eventually introduce options to make things more private.
30. Publishing for Money: Wattpad is mainly for established writers who have been on the website for years in the Mafia, Werewolf, Billionaire, and Fantasy Romance genres. Many users are teens/young adults who don't want/can't afford to pay for content. If you're looking to publish professionally, do it through KDP, Draft2Digital, and traditional publishing houses.
31. Write for Yourself: Don't write for the views; it'll take the passion out of writing. If you're patient, you'll find the right readers.

Final note: If this post was helpful, please share it on your page. I'm trying to help people understand what Wattpad should be about (having fun and building communities)

Hola.

Estoy escribiendo un archivo personal. Es una autobiografía de una depresión clínica.

Qué les parece la forma de escribir?

Archivo personal

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