Presentation of a book is as important as it's content.
The presentation, or in simple words, how a book looks to the reader, demonstrates the amount of effort that the writer has put in the book to make the reader's experience worth the time they invest in the book.
In my opinion, the presentation of a book is equivalent to the direction of movie or show...
"Directors are the creative leads of the film. They hold the creative vision throughout the whole process, from pre-production through to the final edit."
A writer publishing on a platform like Wattpad has to be a good presenter too. The ultimate goal is to make the reader's experience flawless. These are some simple yet very crucial points that can be followed to have an overall good presentation of a book.
1. A Good Title.
A title is a story's first impression.
Go to Chapter 0.5 of this book for a refresher on how to come up with a good title for your book that captures the attention of the reader while giving a good first impression.
2. A Good Cover.
What looks good, sells good!
Let's admit, good eye catching covers do make us take a peek inside. The reason why a good cover is must have.
Wattpad is filled with talented people who make a lot of these covers for others. Do explore, Book Cover Shops/Galleries to find someone to make you a cover that is sure to catch a reader's eye.
> If you can't find anyone, I can make simple covers based on requests.
3. Chapter Names.
You don't necessarily have to give it a name. But please do keep it as simple as "Chapter 1" or maybe just a number —1 / i / 0.1
Personally, I don't prefer the Roman Number system because sometime remembering the chapter on which a reader stopped at can be a little difficult to recollect. If a reader loses read progress it may get annoying to skim through to find which chapter you were on.
Chapter names are a nice way to tease the reader's imagination before they get to the contents of the chapter. Dialogues from the chapter, song lyrics, or simple phrases that reflect on the chapter content make good chapter titles. Also, they'll help you find a particular scene in the story quickly of you want to go back and refer.
4. Good Description
What makes a good description? This is debatable.
The description box of your story is the part that is viewed by way more eyes than the chapters of your book. This is like the dp of your book. You should definitely work to deliver the best here.
If the reader likes your description, they're likely to move to chapter 1 of your book.
Avoid typing out messages and phrases like — "I suck at descriptions" in this section.
Also, avoid using this place to describe the Wattpad ranks. They change every other day and are algorithm based. Personally, I don't bother opening the book if they have a list of tag ranks. You Amy choose to keep one or two relevant ones. No one needs a list here!
Utilize this text box for writing a good description that will make the reader want to open the book.
Golden Rules :
☆ Avoid emojis in any of the above.
☆ Avoid SMS short forms in any of the above.
Extras :
Quoting wattpad support article :
Wattpad allows you to add pictures and videos to your stories to help bring them to life!
There are two places you can put media:
Header media: in the header of the story part (above the text)
1 photo and 1 video limit
Inline media: in the text of the story part
20 photos or videos limit
You can utilize this media option to enhance the presentation of your stories by using trailers/ mood boards / headers / footers. (Don't overdo it!)
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Hope this helps!
P.S.
In the next chapter, I will take requests for reviewing the presentation of books. There will be limited slots and it will mostly be FCFS basis. So watch out for that.
♤
Until then, let me know if there's anything you'd like me to cover.
Or any questions pertaining to writing you have to ask me.
- Anami!♡
