sapphicauthor:
pen-and-sword-writing:
Does anyone have advice on publishing on wattpad? If I’m...
Does anyone have advice on publishing on wattpad? If I’m looking to traditionally publish, is it a safe way to gain an audience without losing first publishing rights? Just general thoughts on your experiences as a writer on the platform?
Hiya!
So a lot of publishers won’t have any problem at all with you publishing on somewhere like Wattpad because it can easily be taken down once you get traditionally published (as opposed to somewhere like Tumblr where reblogs prevent you removing it). That way it won’t impact their sales particularly and indeed, you having built up an audience beforehand will make sales better.
Plus, chances are you’ll be posting a relatively early draft on Wattpad and by the time it gets published traditionally the book will barely be recognizable so chances of it causing problems are incredibly slim. There’s a relatively well-known YA author who still has the first draft of one of his books up to illustrate how much first drafts and finished drafts differ.
As for general thoughts on my experience while I was writing there… like any platform like that it’s very easy to get buried. You have to put a tonne of work into interacting with people in order to get readers. Wattpad can also be pretty glitchy, and the moderators aren’t all that fantastic. It definitely has flaws but equally, it’s by far the best (and biggest) platform for writers to post their stories I’ve ever come across.
tl;dr: like any platform it has its issues, but its the best i’ve ever found and most publishers don’t have any problem with it
