Thoughts on Wattpad?

[Silvertongue]

Does anybody actually like how Wattpad is laid out? It's not exactly the best place for fanfiction; it supports more original fiction than anything. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing but would anybody here post their HP Fanfics on there? I was trying to search through it but the system is terrible for finding certain things and it seems like too much hassle to try to find anything decent.

What are people's thoughts on the site? Will any of you be posting on there?

[Serena R. Snape]

I use it for my fanfiction as well, and I like it - even though it doesn't have an advanced search system like ff.net. You can interract with your readers a lot more there than on ff.net - since you have a message board on your profile that lets you communicate with them. And you can see how popular your book is - how many times it was read, who voted on it. You can also chat with some of your readers via chat and that's pretty cool.

If Wattpad had the same advanced search/category/characters sorting, it would have been my preferred fanfiction place.

I've been using Wattpad since 2010 and the community is really nice. There's a lot of contests for winning prizes. And they have the Watty Awards - where your stories get to compete against others and then the readers vote for the best one. Wattpaders say it's like Oscars for books published on Wattpad. A lot of authors have published their own works from Wattpad as well. I think one of those books is "Wait, he's real?!?" or something like that.

Anyway, I actually prefer Wattpad to ff.net because the administration is quite nice and interracts with the users a lot more than ff.net does.

[Kitty279]

So far I had only a rather short look. What I noticed was that I could find the possibility to search by categories like romance, but not by fandom. As I don't really look for these categories (couldn't tell you which one any of my favourites is belonging to!), that's not very helpful. If they could add the fandom search, it wouldn't be so bad, I think. But if some stories I like are continued only there, I'll just follow them there. At the moment I'd rather deal with some such inconveniences than FFN wherever possible.

[Silvertongue]

That was my problem with it. There's no way of searching through fandoms. But I'll probably stick with it. Might even post my own original book on there if I get around to writing it.

[Kitty279]

Maybe someone could suggest to try and add this search feature? When they get enough new users, they might consider it?

[Serena R. Snape]

I just sent them a message! Hopefully they'll read it and reply to it.

[Kitty279]

Thanks! Maybe they see that it would make the site more attractive. And in the current situation, that could get them a number of new users ...

[Silvertongue]

It should do. It's definitly one of the more attractive sites when it comes to looks and layout.

[biakit]

wow, I just checked wattpad and it seems a really nice site, but I found the search engine a bit poor as it could be a lot better.

[G. Novella]

I have used wattpad as well, but I think it's better for original stories. I'm not too keen on posting fanfiction on there either since it's not generally used for it. Also from a brief view of the fanfiction page to refresh my memory, it's mostly one direction fandoms dominating the top scene. A few generic ones like Hunger games and Twilight, but yeah.

[Silvertongue]

Most of the HP fics I've seen on there are about OC's like Harry's twin sister (which I'm really not keen on).

[Serena R. Snape]

I remember the time when my fanfictions were domineering the Hot List. XD I had five of them on the same page. But lately I haven't been writing a lot so I couldn't update my stories and they went down on the popularity.

But it's a good thing in my opinion - you can actually see how popular your story is - with the counter for how many times it was read, how many people voted on it and so on. I always feel happy when I see that the numbers go up.

[mountaingirl777]

I'm actually going to post an original story on there......if I can figure out the process to publish it.

[Serena R. Snape]

It's actually pretty easy. Just go to My Worlds and you have a link to "New Story" in the right upper corner. If you want to add a new chapter, just click on the + sign next to your story. I really like the fact that you can upload a book cover - and in time of Watty Awards you can also choose look-a-likes for your characters. I also really like the fact that you can edit your chapter whenever you want, while ff.net deletes it after a while.

[mountaingirl777]

Anyone know how to use the copywrite thing in the posting process? Also, do you know how to separate the Story title from the Chapter Title? When I try to change the chapter title it changes the story title! *pulls hair in frustration*

[Serena R. Snape]

You add another chapter, might even be a blank one and save it as a draft. Then you're able to edit the first chapter's title, because the story is then considered a multi-chaptered one and not a one-shot. I think so at least.

And about copywrite I have no idea. I put All Rights Reserved for original stories and Attribution (Creative Commons) for fanfics.

[mountaingirl777]

ok, thanks. I figured out the chapter thing before I came back here.

I've just posted my fic "A Different Shell Cottage" if anyone is interested. Decided to post on there too, just in case. The story is still on FFN.

[The Stag Patronus]

i've made an account there a few days ago, and the reception's between quite nice.

however, i don't think it's the best place for reading the books fanfiction though? i mean i saw there's a great amount of those in the fanfic category, but are the book excerpt parts on those stories being censored by the site as copyrighted material not allowed too? one of my chapters got restricted/became private due to some copyright thing... :/

[Serena R. Snape]

I've put the entire Hoping for a Better Future there and the response was really good. They keep reminding me to write the next one and the story even went into the final 5 for Watty Awards last year. It was a pretty popular story. I was in the top 3 for months when I was writing it. Most of the time, I was placed 1st.

EDIT: I just got a response from the Wattpad team!

Hi SerenaSnape, these are all really great ideas! What we would suggest is to submit these to us at support.wattpad.com so we can have it in our records and keep track of what other features we could work on in the future! Thanks for sharing!

What do you think of this response? I really like it! It means that they read my message, replied to it and are open to new features for their site (unlike ff.net where they ignore you).

[Kitty279]

That response alone is already more than you'd ever get from FFN. And even in a reasonable time! I'm impressed! And if they actually follow on some suggestions, that would be great. Sure, there are probably suggestions that don't make much sense or are too difficult to use, but some would really improve the site. And I believe searching by fandom would be a good one. Let's see if they do it ...

Thanks for doing this! I am sure many readers (and authors!) will appreciate it.

[Silvertongue]

That's brilliant! I think I will definitely be spending more time on that site. It sounds like they really listen and they probably will make the change.

Also, the original fiction on there might get me back into reading books.

[Kitty279]

Jun 5, 2012 10:29:17 GMT -5 Silvertongue said:

Also, the original fiction on there might get me back into reading books.

Another one who is neglecting the books over too much playing in the fandom?
Have packed 4 books for 5 days of holiday, that should be enough!

[Silvertongue]

Holidays seem to be the only time I DO read books. I hope I can get back into books, nothing feels right without Harry in it now.

[Kitty279]

LOL - know the feeling. With two fandoms to keep track of - LotR and HP - it is hard to balance everything. And I get my hands on way too many tempting books!

My friend and I joked the other day that we should go on a three week holiday on some island. Baggage: one suitcase for clothes and a second one for books!

[Silvertongue]

HAHAHA! I need to do that! I'm so behind on my books and people want to borrow some but I haven't even read them yet -.-'

[Kitty279]

Then imagine my situation - I am a librarian, cataloguing books all the time. All the new novels go over my desk. That's such a temptation! And then add the non-fiction and the ones I buy myself because we won't get them ... *sigh* Needless to say, I've heaps of unread books.

[Silvertongue]

Oh god. Don't know how I'd handle being a librarian. Way too much temptation. The same with working in a Pet Shop. I'd end up taking everything home with me and become a crazy cat lady who happens to have dogs, snakes, ferrets, tortoises and parrots too.

[Kitty279]

It's a great job, but the temptation is even greater! 50+ books per year are still normal - and that is cutting my earlier amount from pre-internet-times down considerably.