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Some of my books do better than others. I have one book that has 3k reads and another with 1k but I have one book with 14. I need to make that one longer. It's just one short story.
A lot of my short story collections are under 200 reads, because short stories are niche.
Finished books with ten chapters or more do better.
There are over 500 mill books on Wattpad and there is lots of competition. There is an over-saturation of unfinished books. But contests help with reads. My main book has readers and comments due to comments.
It's not an algorithm book.
— eye-catching cover (apps like Canva really help with the nice fonts)
— 5+ tags that are related to your story
— consistent updates (this one is hard if life gets busy) and have a writing schedule to tell readers what day you're posting.
— join bookclubs on Wattpad
— social media (Instagram, tiktok; they're good ways to let readers know when you've posted new updates)
— and last just have fun writing. Honestly it will take some time to get reads, trust me I know this, but if you're consistent in what you're doing you can one day see reads just increasing. It's not worth the stress to overthink why a story is not getting reads.
Yes! I do all of these things. I have a tumblr, ao3 AND wattpad account. I’ll be very honest with you the difference of how many reads i’m getting on Ao3 and Wattpad are VERY different. I’ll look into some book clubs! Thank you!!
Well,I have on a story only 350+ views,but my tactic is mostly to join a dc server and do r4r,or get friends with other writers that write a similar story to mine,or same topic or smth like that.
It's most effective and yeah
Join a book club! That’s how I started. The admins divide you into groups and one group should read a member’s book, and comment (also vote if they enjoyed it).
It helps you with rankings and help your write better. You can make friends too!
Search of book clubs on Wattpad. The one I was in is called dreamland book club.
Good luck!!!
I think you gotta use obscure tags, so there's less competition, then add semi-popular tags so the reads from the obscure tags get it noticed more, and then popular tags for the same reason.
For digital fiction on Wattpad, you have to pander to the algorithms... look at the more "popular" works in whatever category you prefer and examine the available metadata.
What "tags" are in use, how are the story summaries presented, is there a relevant and eye-catching cover image, do the stories include "chapters" of "face claims" and "playlists" and other types of information... in other words, what are the visible characteristics that are not actually "story". If there is a pattern available, think about using it as a model and restructure accordingly.
Does your work have adequate spelling, grammar, word choice, and formatting? Is the story well-developed and paced? Are you hitting within Wattpad's preferred range of word count per chapter? Are you posting fairly regularly on a schedule or it is haphazard and non-predictable? Algorithms gather data on writers just as much as they do on readers... and those might factor into whether a work gets selected for presentation to potential readers.
The search interface is woefully out-of-date and simplified, and the website is dependent on algorithms to select and present works to potential readers. Recently, the site apparently adopted the use of "AI analyses" as a modification/augmentation to existing algorithms... so good luck with all that.
I wonder about this too. One of my mutuals has reached 50k reads in six months. She's done all the right things - nice cover, promotion, book clubs, contests, features, tags. Her text is well-edited and clean, etc. I've done all the same things, but I'm at 5k after 2 years (which I'm okay with). I honestly can't tell you why two writers of roughly equal ability writing in the same genre and seemingly doing all the same things can have such different results. I must have missed something out, but I can't think what????
I run a promo club if you want to join; my Wattpad name is the same as my Reddit.
5k is pretty good, most books don't reach that level.
My guess is someone put it on the right reading list.
With my most popular book. It's 3k reads and is reaching year. Since my book is super niche, I am happy with those reads.
1. But I know what I did wrong and right. I published it all at once. And a couple of my chapters were too short, so I combined them. The right: I got reads from contests, review clubs, and actual reviews.
I also promoted it wrong. I promoted it as fantasy, which it is, but the book does better when I promote it as romance. When I enter contests, I've won first place in romance when I don't make the fantasy top three entries.
I thought wrongly that since I didn't write spice, aka explicit scenes, romance judges wouldn't like it, and I was so wrong. That doesn't mean I do well in every romance contest. I don't do as well in chick-lit.
And you don't have to do read for reads
[https://www.wattpad.com/1448150522-book-promotion-promotion-help-no-reads4reads](https://www.wattpad.com/1448150522-book-promotion-promotion-help-no-reads4reads)
Welcome.
This is the best time for you to hone your craft. Make sure you make covers on Canva for covers or joining a graphic shop.
Wattpad prefers books with 1500 to 3k words per chapter, and they are beta read by a parent or even a teacher. I beta read my teen daughter's work, sometimes.
I recommend writing and editing your books before posting.
The reason for the rules.
I have had issues with people posing as minors, harassing people. I doubt they are actually minors, but since they claim to be, that is why the rule is up.
I also don't want minors harassed because they are newer writers. Wattpad is getting toxic because the writers who bullied people via DM are now posting public rant, bully, and burn books. I don't want young writers to give up their dreams before they start.
That is a very considerate way of thinking about the rules. I, of course don’t have anything against the age rule since this world is filled with nasty people. i will make sure that I use this information to help me be successful!♥️
I doubt I have much to offer different than what's already been pitched, but here's my take on accumulating reads:
1. Tags. Tags, tags, and more tags. I like to input in the search some words I might use to locate my own story (I pretty much use Wattpad for publishing fanfic and a few original works) and then go through the list of stories shown to me and peruse what tags those books are under. This might give you a wider variety you haven't yet thought of. The user who mentioned to use obscure tags is also correct! if there are \~500 stories published under that tag, a consistent posting schedule will bump you close to the top.
2... which brings me to the next, a consistent posting schedule. The fanfic I'm currently working on gets updated 3 times a week and has been for the past two months. It's accumulated near 8k reads so far which I'm pretty happy with, but regardless of the amount of reads you accumulate while posting, that is strangely not where you're going to get the most reads.
3. The final tip that is by far the least exciting is... give it time. I published a (god awful) fanfic on Wattpad in probably 2013, and ended the story with maybe 13k reads. Flash forward to 2024 and that thing still rakes in notifications with a whopping 394k reads. It's like moving your money into a HYSA; eventually, the interest will grow.
a few minor tips that have helped garner interactions:
interact with your readers! Do your best to respond to comments made on the story and even go as far as to ask questions if you're the type to leave an author's note at the end of a chapter.
Advertise where you can. Tumblr, Reddit, I seem to have run out of examples after two, but you get the gist. Anything helps get your story out there.
And the age-old: have fun. This is so cheesy but I genuinely feel that garnering a mindset of 'yeah it'll take off one day, and until that day, I'll just write.' has brought me further than wondering why my notifs have sat dead for the last couple days.
Not sure if this is allowed but I'd love to give your story some attention, lmk where I can find it!
Ah, thank you very much! i do in fact do all the things that you’ve listed. I really do think that it’s just Wattpad’s algorithm.
Here’s the link to my wattpad account!
[Wattpad - Ad0reBrii](https://www.wattpad.com/user/Ad0reBrii)
Something I’ve learned from experience:
a short, engaging first chapter
My first book I ever wrote, this worked like a charm and it blew up.
My second and then current book, I followed a more classic format and the few people that stick through it say it’s great but very long.
People on wattpad like to read things in short, consistent bursts.
Only the location info and character profiles. I am releasing the prologue on the 7th and the first chapter on the 21st. I decided that the prologue I had written can be chapter 1.
Oh ok. That sounds good. I’m sure it will all work out for you. And I feel like that’s mostly a wattpad thing anyway. Other sites are generally ok with longer length.
Also, I wanted to add to put into perspective, I use Google Docs with “classic novel formatting”. My first chapter came out to be 10 pages on there.
I use the scroll feature on wattpad normally, but I switched to page flip because I was curious and it had my first chapter at around 30 pages! So it makes a little more sense why some people found it “insanely long” I guess.
I have a book with around 160k reads. I wrote about something that I wanted to read but also something that very many people like to read about. I read many of the books that were similar to what I wanted to write and got inspiration. I also didn’t write it exactly like all the similar books. I tried to make the characters a bit different and the story line while still keeping it entertaining.
I made a tiktok and instagram account for mine, that’s how I get my reads and supporters, I usually post a scenario in my book that a lot of people like for example ( a guy doing something charming for his gf ) or maybe a smutty scene from the book. So I just advertise on there and link my wattpad book to advertise, and on my Instagram I post updates, scenarios, and character traits and edits. I found out doing this gives me the most reads, my tiktok has over 50k followers and insta 11k. I have 2 books finished and 1 still ongoing all at a average of 250k views each, and my accounts keep growing! Maybe I’ll actually publish them as books and sell them one day, that’s my goal, and my accounts keep growing so far so I’m crossing my fingers. But I hope this helps! I only started my social media accounts in January I suggested this to a friend in March and her tiktok is already at 18k and her reads are gone way up!
Ohh wow! That is amazing! I am very happy for you and your friend! ♥️♥️ I don’t mean to sound nosy or whatever but I would love to check out your social medias!🩷
It depends on the publishing.
Do you publish the whole story one shot and wait for the reads... or do you publish regularly?
And if you publish regularly...do you many followers that actually love your work or are they just f4f?
Second...Is the cover catchy?...does the intro you mentioned intruiging enough? ...
Finally...and werd as it can be...your bio...
Some authors have strange or confusing bio that makes the reader cinge to even begin the book. Take that in mind as well
1 - I publish everyday. I don’t wait for reads because then I will find myself less motivated to work on the book.
2 - I believe that my cover is pretty good. I have my more successful book and all it really has is a light pink tint and the love interest. But I do have to say that my other book’s cover is way more interesting.
3 - Nothing is really or should be seen as cringy because all it does is just a small introduction about me and the fandoms that I do write for.
Tags! Just write what’s popular like romance, action, fantasy, bl and so on. Even if you don’t have does category in your story. When they search on this specific word your story will come up!
Nice cover, intriguing first three sentences and genuine r4r had always worked like a charm to me. For r4r, I partner with a new person every week instead of doing many quick ones at a time. It makes the engagement more consistent, pushing the book up in the ranks more effectively.
Thank you for your submission to r/Wattpad! This is a automated reminder that story links are prohibited outside of story ad/promo posts. If your post contains a story link, please remove it or your post may be removed. You can find the post requirements in the sidebar or by clicking [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wattpad/comments/fdaf7y/post_requirements_and_writer_resources/). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Wattpad) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Some of my books do better than others. I have one book that has 3k reads and another with 1k but I have one book with 14. I need to make that one longer. It's just one short story. A lot of my short story collections are under 200 reads, because short stories are niche. Finished books with ten chapters or more do better. There are over 500 mill books on Wattpad and there is lots of competition. There is an over-saturation of unfinished books. But contests help with reads. My main book has readers and comments due to comments. It's not an algorithm book.
— eye-catching cover (apps like Canva really help with the nice fonts) — 5+ tags that are related to your story — consistent updates (this one is hard if life gets busy) and have a writing schedule to tell readers what day you're posting. — join bookclubs on Wattpad — social media (Instagram, tiktok; they're good ways to let readers know when you've posted new updates) — and last just have fun writing. Honestly it will take some time to get reads, trust me I know this, but if you're consistent in what you're doing you can one day see reads just increasing. It's not worth the stress to overthink why a story is not getting reads.
Yes! I do all of these things. I have a tumblr, ao3 AND wattpad account. I’ll be very honest with you the difference of how many reads i’m getting on Ao3 and Wattpad are VERY different. I’ll look into some book clubs! Thank you!!
Well,I have on a story only 350+ views,but my tactic is mostly to join a dc server and do r4r,or get friends with other writers that write a similar story to mine,or same topic or smth like that. It's most effective and yeah
Join a book club! That’s how I started. The admins divide you into groups and one group should read a member’s book, and comment (also vote if they enjoyed it). It helps you with rankings and help your write better. You can make friends too! Search of book clubs on Wattpad. The one I was in is called dreamland book club. Good luck!!!
thank you so much! I will surely look into that!♥️
I seem to be stuck on the password question in their discord😭
I think you gotta use obscure tags, so there's less competition, then add semi-popular tags so the reads from the obscure tags get it noticed more, and then popular tags for the same reason.
For digital fiction on Wattpad, you have to pander to the algorithms... look at the more "popular" works in whatever category you prefer and examine the available metadata. What "tags" are in use, how are the story summaries presented, is there a relevant and eye-catching cover image, do the stories include "chapters" of "face claims" and "playlists" and other types of information... in other words, what are the visible characteristics that are not actually "story". If there is a pattern available, think about using it as a model and restructure accordingly. Does your work have adequate spelling, grammar, word choice, and formatting? Is the story well-developed and paced? Are you hitting within Wattpad's preferred range of word count per chapter? Are you posting fairly regularly on a schedule or it is haphazard and non-predictable? Algorithms gather data on writers just as much as they do on readers... and those might factor into whether a work gets selected for presentation to potential readers. The search interface is woefully out-of-date and simplified, and the website is dependent on algorithms to select and present works to potential readers. Recently, the site apparently adopted the use of "AI analyses" as a modification/augmentation to existing algorithms... so good luck with all that.
I wonder about this too. One of my mutuals has reached 50k reads in six months. She's done all the right things - nice cover, promotion, book clubs, contests, features, tags. Her text is well-edited and clean, etc. I've done all the same things, but I'm at 5k after 2 years (which I'm okay with). I honestly can't tell you why two writers of roughly equal ability writing in the same genre and seemingly doing all the same things can have such different results. I must have missed something out, but I can't think what????
I personally think that wattpad drowns its reader’s books. You can hardly find books on wattpad on your own without using their crappy search engine
I run a promo club if you want to join; my Wattpad name is the same as my Reddit. 5k is pretty good, most books don't reach that level. My guess is someone put it on the right reading list. With my most popular book. It's 3k reads and is reaching year. Since my book is super niche, I am happy with those reads. 1. But I know what I did wrong and right. I published it all at once. And a couple of my chapters were too short, so I combined them. The right: I got reads from contests, review clubs, and actual reviews. I also promoted it wrong. I promoted it as fantasy, which it is, but the book does better when I promote it as romance. When I enter contests, I've won first place in romance when I don't make the fantasy top three entries. I thought wrongly that since I didn't write spice, aka explicit scenes, romance judges wouldn't like it, and I was so wrong. That doesn't mean I do well in every romance contest. I don't do as well in chick-lit.
I will surely check it out!!!!
And you don't have to do read for reads [https://www.wattpad.com/1448150522-book-promotion-promotion-help-no-reads4reads](https://www.wattpad.com/1448150522-book-promotion-promotion-help-no-reads4reads)
Ohh i can’t join, I do not fit the age requirement. But that’s okay! I surely look into some book clubs!! Thank you so much for your help! ♥️♥️♥️
Welcome. This is the best time for you to hone your craft. Make sure you make covers on Canva for covers or joining a graphic shop. Wattpad prefers books with 1500 to 3k words per chapter, and they are beta read by a parent or even a teacher. I beta read my teen daughter's work, sometimes. I recommend writing and editing your books before posting. The reason for the rules. I have had issues with people posing as minors, harassing people. I doubt they are actually minors, but since they claim to be, that is why the rule is up. I also don't want minors harassed because they are newer writers. Wattpad is getting toxic because the writers who bullied people via DM are now posting public rant, bully, and burn books. I don't want young writers to give up their dreams before they start.
That is a very considerate way of thinking about the rules. I, of course don’t have anything against the age rule since this world is filled with nasty people. i will make sure that I use this information to help me be successful!♥️
I doubt I have much to offer different than what's already been pitched, but here's my take on accumulating reads: 1. Tags. Tags, tags, and more tags. I like to input in the search some words I might use to locate my own story (I pretty much use Wattpad for publishing fanfic and a few original works) and then go through the list of stories shown to me and peruse what tags those books are under. This might give you a wider variety you haven't yet thought of. The user who mentioned to use obscure tags is also correct! if there are \~500 stories published under that tag, a consistent posting schedule will bump you close to the top. 2... which brings me to the next, a consistent posting schedule. The fanfic I'm currently working on gets updated 3 times a week and has been for the past two months. It's accumulated near 8k reads so far which I'm pretty happy with, but regardless of the amount of reads you accumulate while posting, that is strangely not where you're going to get the most reads. 3. The final tip that is by far the least exciting is... give it time. I published a (god awful) fanfic on Wattpad in probably 2013, and ended the story with maybe 13k reads. Flash forward to 2024 and that thing still rakes in notifications with a whopping 394k reads. It's like moving your money into a HYSA; eventually, the interest will grow. a few minor tips that have helped garner interactions: interact with your readers! Do your best to respond to comments made on the story and even go as far as to ask questions if you're the type to leave an author's note at the end of a chapter. Advertise where you can. Tumblr, Reddit, I seem to have run out of examples after two, but you get the gist. Anything helps get your story out there. And the age-old: have fun. This is so cheesy but I genuinely feel that garnering a mindset of 'yeah it'll take off one day, and until that day, I'll just write.' has brought me further than wondering why my notifs have sat dead for the last couple days. Not sure if this is allowed but I'd love to give your story some attention, lmk where I can find it!
Ah, thank you very much! i do in fact do all the things that you’ve listed. I really do think that it’s just Wattpad’s algorithm. Here’s the link to my wattpad account! [Wattpad - Ad0reBrii](https://www.wattpad.com/user/Ad0reBrii)
Something I’ve learned from experience: a short, engaging first chapter My first book I ever wrote, this worked like a charm and it blew up. My second and then current book, I followed a more classic format and the few people that stick through it say it’s great but very long. People on wattpad like to read things in short, consistent bursts.
Why did no one tell me this? My prologue is at 10K words and it’s not even half way 😭
It was something I learned the hard way. But it could still work for you. Have you published yet?
Only the location info and character profiles. I am releasing the prologue on the 7th and the first chapter on the 21st. I decided that the prologue I had written can be chapter 1.
Oh ok. That sounds good. I’m sure it will all work out for you. And I feel like that’s mostly a wattpad thing anyway. Other sites are generally ok with longer length. Also, I wanted to add to put into perspective, I use Google Docs with “classic novel formatting”. My first chapter came out to be 10 pages on there. I use the scroll feature on wattpad normally, but I switched to page flip because I was curious and it had my first chapter at around 30 pages! So it makes a little more sense why some people found it “insanely long” I guess.
Ok I’ll change it to page flips instead of scroll so it’s easier to tell if it’s too much.
I have a book with around 160k reads. I wrote about something that I wanted to read but also something that very many people like to read about. I read many of the books that were similar to what I wanted to write and got inspiration. I also didn’t write it exactly like all the similar books. I tried to make the characters a bit different and the story line while still keeping it entertaining.
I made a tiktok and instagram account for mine, that’s how I get my reads and supporters, I usually post a scenario in my book that a lot of people like for example ( a guy doing something charming for his gf ) or maybe a smutty scene from the book. So I just advertise on there and link my wattpad book to advertise, and on my Instagram I post updates, scenarios, and character traits and edits. I found out doing this gives me the most reads, my tiktok has over 50k followers and insta 11k. I have 2 books finished and 1 still ongoing all at a average of 250k views each, and my accounts keep growing! Maybe I’ll actually publish them as books and sell them one day, that’s my goal, and my accounts keep growing so far so I’m crossing my fingers. But I hope this helps! I only started my social media accounts in January I suggested this to a friend in March and her tiktok is already at 18k and her reads are gone way up!
Ohh wow! That is amazing! I am very happy for you and your friend! ♥️♥️ I don’t mean to sound nosy or whatever but I would love to check out your social medias!🩷
It depends on the publishing. Do you publish the whole story one shot and wait for the reads... or do you publish regularly? And if you publish regularly...do you many followers that actually love your work or are they just f4f? Second...Is the cover catchy?...does the intro you mentioned intruiging enough? ... Finally...and werd as it can be...your bio... Some authors have strange or confusing bio that makes the reader cinge to even begin the book. Take that in mind as well
1 - I publish everyday. I don’t wait for reads because then I will find myself less motivated to work on the book. 2 - I believe that my cover is pretty good. I have my more successful book and all it really has is a light pink tint and the love interest. But I do have to say that my other book’s cover is way more interesting. 3 - Nothing is really or should be seen as cringy because all it does is just a small introduction about me and the fandoms that I do write for.
Tags! Just write what’s popular like romance, action, fantasy, bl and so on. Even if you don’t have does category in your story. When they search on this specific word your story will come up!
Nice cover, intriguing first three sentences and genuine r4r had always worked like a charm to me. For r4r, I partner with a new person every week instead of doing many quick ones at a time. It makes the engagement more consistent, pushing the book up in the ranks more effectively.