Simple, quick tips for improving both your writing quality and your Wattpad experience. Open, friendly, and conversational, this book will give you that little info boost you need to tackle common problems and often-overlooked issues.
Wherever you a...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Editor's Note: Both links mentioned in this article are posted in inline comments to be clickable on desktop and copy/pastable on mobile.
Tag rankings on Wattpad are the rankings that show up on your book. There are many tags you can rank in. The 'big' tags are the genre tags, and the popular ones like Werewolf, Vampire, Hate-to-love, etc.—just anything that does really well on Wattpad.
The 'best ranking' is displayed at the bottom of the book's page on the mobile app, and on desktop, it shows up on the embedded pop-up when you click on the book. A hyperlink leads to 'see all rankings' of a book.
This link (https://support.wattpad.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000769623-Tag-rankings-FAQ) talks about rankings. However, the rankings are extremely nebulous things and not even remotely easy to understand. The algorithm behind the rankings is draped in mystery and now, I am going to attempt to peel back some of that curtain. Most of this is speculation based on observation, and it comes from a lot of threads I've read about rankings on the now-terminated community and another user-run community.
As a trend, it's been observed that newer books do much better in rankings than older books, even if both books are updated regularly. But, newer books also have a harder time holding onto their ranking, are much more likely to fluctuate in their ranking, and fall fast. Older books, in contrast, hold on to their rank much better and much longer and don't fluctuate anymore.
The algorithm also favors ongoing books over completed books (which is crazy, because the Wattys asks for completed books, but... *shrug*). So if your book is completed, adding some bonuses to it might boost rankings.
Also, updating a book frequently and regularly does seem to make a difference. Using the Inkitt model shorter chapters with more updates seems to work, according to some users, although I'm unsure about this. Go ahead and try it out, though!
Another thing about the rankings is that the algorithm really hates hiatuses. If you leave your book not updated for a long period of time, you will see a drop in the rankings of your book, and the book would possibly be 'soft-banned' from the big genre tags. As in, even if it got more readers than your other books after you started updating, it would probably not rank in the big tags at all, ever again.
Another speculation I'm unsure of is that reader engagement is a boost to the algorithm. As in, if your readers click on the update as soon as it's updated, and vote on the chapter as soon as it's updated, that gives a boost to the ranking of the book. So try asking your readers to click on the update as soon as possible, even if they're going to read it later. Might help your book out!
If you want to know more about rankings, read this thread (https://forum.wackywriters.com/t/more-notes-and-a-observations-on-algorithm/8381) over on the user-run forums for writers (which was opened up after the community was disabled by Wattpad. I'd love it if some of you joined, too!)
One last thing: the tag rankings are really unpredictable and nebulous, like I've mentioned above, and it's really hard to predict anything. The above are general consensuses that multiple discussion threads have arrived at. The best bet way to promote your book(s) will always be read for reads, bookclubs, awards etc. I would advise not placing much stock in the algorithm.
Happy Writing!
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Want to submit your own Tip? Comment in this book and email your entry to avadelauthors@gmail.com. We'll review it, and if we think it's well-written and helpful to the Wattpad community, we'll post it! Your entry may be something you have written previously, even if it is published elsewhere. (=
Have a Request? Comment on the first chapter with the topic you'd like to see. Your suggestion might just turn into an article!
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
