My Review of Wattpad

Smashwords has partnered with Wattpad, which is billed as the “the world’s most popular ebook community” and “a social network for writers to connect with readers” according to the press release issued.

First glance, this was my opinion:

While a new partnership is great news, has anyone actually checked out the ‘What’s Hot’ section on there?

Seems to be mostly teenagers, which I guess is the right audience for YA authors.

I’ve yet to find any constructive criticism or other than ‘I love your story!’ comments while browsing around, so not sure how useful of a tool Wattpad would be for more ‘serious’ writers.

Still, after a bit of thought, I decided to give Wattpad a chance. I am trying to build a readership, after all!

I signed up, and had barely gotten my profile filled out when the ‘message board’ section of it showed two greetings to Wattpad, each complete with a request to come read their stories. In two days’ time, I received 8-10 such greeting/requests.

Just for the record, I did play the game, and go read those works as requested, plus commented. I am a player! Hah.

In roughly 48 hours, I didn’t find a single writer onsite that was over the age of 19. The average age range appeared to be 13 – 17. Great for a YA author trying to build an audience – maybe.

Uploaded five examples: The first parts of Feral Intensity, Rising Moon, Lasting Echoes (retired titles), Hunter’s Edge (in beta reading) and the prologue for Hunter’s Blood, the new first Shadow Connor series title (rough draft).

The results were over 100 reads total on all five; one comment and one fan.

The fan made the comment and was one of about four teen writers I read that showed real potential. She also responded to my comment on her work, thanking me for giving her constructive criticism. Sweet and talented girl.

No, I didn’t play the game that far, leaving ‘OMG, I LOVE THIS, PLEASE COME READ MY STORY!’ comments. I left constructive criticism: “Good start here. I liked ______________. You might consider doing ______________.”

Yeah, I suck at the sucking up/back scratching thing. Sorry ‘bout that.

There were a several stories written in LOLzspeak, y’all. Titles were stuff like: ‘I’m a girl in love with the hot boy next door who happens to be a werewolf!’ (I didn’t actually see that title, but some came awfully close to it).

To be honest, I’d never heard of Wattpad before. Ever. Never saw it in a search result nor heard another author mention the site. So I’m not quite certain how it can be “the world’s most popular ebook community”.

In fact, the only person I saw mention ebooks was myself.

Short summation:

Wattpad isn’t really a site for authors who are striving to be professional.

It is a site for beginners to gain confidence, and maybe if they’re lucky, to learn to handle constructive criticism gracefully – if they ever receive any from other members.