Wattpad – a Platform for All
When it comes to young, unpublished writers, one of the biggest fears is that no one will want to read your work. For many, this fear is enough to prevent any kind of publishing, believing that a published book with no readers is worse than no book at all. However, what if there were some way of road-testing a book online to find out whether there's an audience for it without having it on record forever?
Well, there is. Wattpad is a writing website specifically designed with amateur writers in mind. You can publish a story with a cover image, title, description and individual chapters, and users from all around the globe can read, vote and comment on it. With real-time feedback from readers and fellow writers alike, you can edit as needed to make your work the best possible version of itself as well as gauging how much of an audience you can expect.
Plus, Wattpad allows fanfiction creators to post their content as well, thus allowing a generation of adolescent writers to hone their crafts without having to go out on a limb posting original content. Fanfiction can be a powerful tool to help establish a following before introducing them to your own work, making sure you will have dedicated readers.
Even better, there are opportunities for writers of original works to sign publishing deals and even sell the film or television licensing rights to their works via the Wattpad Books and Wattpad Stars programs. Even if you only wish to use Wattpad for short pieces, poetry or just fanfiction, it allows you to easily build a following of likeminded people to whom you can promote any works you decide to publish later in your writing career.
So what does this mean for the future? Well, with helpful tools to gauge the engagement and demographics of audiences, writers will be better able to know their markets, knowing what content sells and what doesn't, as well as honing their craft. More importantly, I see a future where more people are writing, confident in their abilities because Wattpad gave them the tools to see how real-life audiences react to their work. In short, I see a future full of creativity.
by Sophie Deakin
About the briefs and co-ops
On week 1 of the Post-Digital Content module, students where asked to respond to the brief of Writers and Hope. This piece from the De Riguer co-op was selected for publication by the editorial team of the module. De Rigueur focuses on reaching the widest audience awaits. Sophie writes about fanfiction and the tools of the trade.