Stuck on the subway? Forgot to take a book to the doctor’s office? Plane’s delayed?
Read A Reason to Live on your phone!
I’ve just entered into an agreement with mobile content distributor Wattpad to participate in their Writer Partner Program. This is my second tango with Wattpad, but the first with a full novel. I’m excited to see where it goes!
You can read ARTL in its entirety, optimized for your smart phone, for free! This doesn’t take the place of reading it in paperback or on your favorite e-reader, but it might get you through that wait at the doctor’s office…
matthew, this is interesting, is this something different than just being able to read it on my iphone with either my kindle or itunes app? what would be the advantages for the author and can an author be invited, or just opt in?
thanks, sounds like you had a great trip to france too 😉
Hi Adan, sorry for the late reply. Wattpad is a phone-optimized reader site.
For readers, the advantages:
1. The phone optimization means readable chunks. Of minimal interest if you’re used to reading with Kindle reader or iBooks.
2. All content is free and (they say) will remain so.
3. Voting, groups, comments, lists, etc. help create a community around an author or a book.
4. Huge pool of content to choose from.
For writers:
1. Exposure.
2. Did I say exposure?
3. Free to join, unlimited uploads, no restrictions on content type (i.e, shorts vs. novel, etc.)
4. The main demographic is teen and young readers, so for YA writers, it’s a goldmine. For crime writers, it’s more like a…copper mine.
Disadvantages for writers
1. You’re giving your book away (in bits and pieces). There’s no evidence that this cannibalizes your sales (different demo and slightly diff. use), but it can be a harrowing experience to toss it out there for nothing.
2. Wattpad asks that you work with them to guide readers to their site if you partner (the Writer Partnership program). This prohibits, for obvious reasons, participation in KDP Select.
Anyone can post at any time. I only jumped in because I was contacted by Wattpad to join their Writers Partner program, which guarantees increased promotion by the company itself, opportunities to write blog posts for them, etc. Without that push, it would be difficult to get noticed.
No problem at all Matthew, great info. I do have several pieces that I’ve made free indefintely, so this might be good.
Does WattPad divide up the book? Or follow the authors sections, for the small segment postings?
Thanks Matt 😉
Unfortunately–and I didn’t understand this when I originally posted 2 short stories on Wattpad, for obvious reasons–the most damning thing about Wattpad is their antiquated upload system.
I definitely don’t want to discourage anyone from trying it, but it took me 3 days of applied effort (along with many other tasks, of course, but I only had patience and stamina for a little bit at a time) to get my full novel up on Wattpad.
Each “part” (1/2 a chapter or so) has to be rendered as text, so it’s copy-and-paste, then re-format, for every part. My novel 350+ page novel ended up being 100 parts, every one of them requiring reformatting and some proofing (they have some space-smashing issues even with a copy and paste).
For smaller works, it’s no problem. For a novel…I was seriously questioning the commitment. 🙂
i think i ended up as “Anonymous” when i posted via my iphone 😉
anyway…thanks for the additional info, very helpful for considering using the avenue, thanks matthew 😉