Why Your Story SUCKS | Writer's rants & discussions

Gaining reads and R4Rs/F4Fs

Getting reads and votes on wattpad is harder than prostituting on the corner on a Tuesday afternoon.

If you're new and post a book with no followers and you never promote it anywhere you'll never gain much of anything very quickly. Heck, even if you have followers, 10% of them interact with you, 20% of them actually read your book, 10% actually vote or comment, 30% forget you or your book exists, and the other 30% is inactive accounts that you're too lazy to go through and unfollow.

One day I posted on my message board about how wattpad is pretty much the only platform you can have followers on yet still have to lick crumbs for any sort of engagement. A lot of people agreed it's like that for them too.

Isn't it kind of fucked we all have the same issues of not getting engagement... it's- it's almost like it's because we don't engage with each other or something. Idk. Weird. On a serious note, I know it's hard to engage with some people but then again, why follow each other if you don't interact?

It took three years for this book to gain only 5k reads. (Not saying I'm not grateful for those reads cause I am but 5k isn't a ton and 5k in 3, almost 4 years is a very slow progression) I had to let it gain completely naturally cause I can't exactly promote or make people read a book of personal opinions. Although this year this book has both gained and stayed in the ranks pretty steadily so thank you.

And I thought the reason this book gained so slow was just that it's a rant book. Though my actual novels have never grown any quicker even with the help of read for reads or self-promo either. Self-promo books are pretty useless, your book just gets buried by the hoard of others unless you spam it, plus I feel like not many people genuinely look all the way through them. most people just come to them to post their book, not to find stuff to read because finding content to read on wattpad is pretty easy with reading lists and such.

Wattpad doesn't really have an official or proper space to promote yourself (well, the forums but that shit Houdini'd faster than a dad getting milk and probably won't return until years too late), promo spaces are books run by regular users. And now that the forums are gone it's even worse. Many many people just resort to posting their work on the message boards of wattpad official accounts that are run by ambassadors, good luck finding posts by the actual account that contain information on stuff.

Wattpad says you should read their guide on how to get reads but that means nothing, it just tells you basic tips. Sure, having decent grammar, posting regularly, having a nice cover, and stuff helps, but that alone isn't enough to get you out there into the algorithm. What boosts you in the rankings is votes and comments, which as I mentioned and what my last rant was about, a lot of readers don't do.

But if your natural readers don't engage much, surely read for read readers will do the job since its a mutual exchange, right? Yes and no.

The read for read scene is the most frustrating section on wattpad. If you've never done a read for read, congratulations, you've dodged stupidity. If you do read for reads, you might've ran into some people who either lie, don't give a fuck about you, or can't follow basic instructions. I know I have and so have a lot of my friends, followers, and fellow R4R people.

I don't know how many times I've searched the comments of R4R books to find a story that isn't fanfiction or cliche garbage that's barely readable and think I've scored only for the other person to be a self embarrassing asshat.

How many times will we agree to actually READ each other's books only for you to vote spam me and message me back saying you're done in only under a minute? Do you think I'm your level of stupid to believe you or do you really just not care despite saying you wanted to do a READ FOR A READ? Do you have some sort of condition? Is that why you can't follow basic instructions? How did your family handle your diagnosis of Dumb Selfish Bitch syndrome?

And let's not forget about the ones who agree to do a r4r with comments yet will just comment vague compliments on the writing and not anything in the actual chapter to make me believe they're actually reading it. Or the ones who claim they're currently reading it and don't vote or comment because "they just get so invested in the story they forget to vote and comment hahaha" even though we agreed on votes and comments and I've done it to theirs.

Now, I actually like to play naive with people and go along, because then people get too comfortable spewing bullshit and it's a great laugh. But trust me, you're glass bitch. I may suck at a lot of things but detecting when people are being manipulative is something I'm typically pretty damn good at. 

None of you are slick, we know you're just desperate for reads, votes, and comments on your own books, you don't have to pretend. But I respect an honest thirsty thot more than one who tries to hide under the guise of being genuinely interested in my work when they're not.

As I've said countless times in this book, people only want to be popular. You throw together a zero/low effort story and beg for reads for that sweet dopamine release. You don't actually care about writing or have a true passion for what you create and it shows loud and proud. I believe when you have true passion for something, that will outshine popularity and numbers.

While on this topic of thirst, let's talk about a similar one, follow for follows.

I occasionally do follow for follows and I've actually discovered a lot of cool people and a lot of people who ended up checking out my work, hello you lovely bitches, I'm talking about you. Though whenever I go to these follow for follow books, I can't help but feel like I'm in the Krusty Krab and the anchovies are coming.

People say "follow @/user for a follow back from this account!" and they'll spam it like twenty times, elbowing others out of the way like a crowd of fans trying to get to their celebrity idol first. Some people even cross platforms, if you follow their TikTok, Twitter, or Instagram account they'll follow you back on wattpad. Just... stop, please. Imagine wanting TikTok followers so bad you go to an entirely different platform to try and get people to follow you by agreeing to follow their account on said platform.

I could follow someone and comment 'done' and someone else will go underneath that person's comment, follow everyone and say "I followed you, follow back *insert user here*" and other users just go along with it like this person didn't just lowkey urge you to follow a person you never even agreed to follow in the first place?? If I never followed you in the first place I'm not doing shit hunnybun.

But following someone's main account so they can follow you back from their account dedicated to following users back and that they don't actually use is the dumbest shit to me. It's basically fake followers, but doesn't having thousands of followers and following only 5 profiles look so cool?!?!?! Like, it makes you look famous!!!!

"wElL i DoNt fOlLoW tHeM fRom My mAiN bEcAuSe I dOnT wAnT aLl tHe NoTiFicAtIonS!!!" is what people usually say. So, you admit you just want followers that you don't actually care enough about to support/engage with back but you want them to support you? What does the other person gain by getting followed by your unused account other than an empty, dead number of a 'follower' that will never do anything at all for them or their work? Oh right, nothing.

Obviously, it's impossible to engage with everyone, especially if you don't have the time. But still, not any of your thousands of followers you want to support? I see accounts still spamming for followers that I've seen for literal years. They spam just about every single f4f book daily all to get followers that they don't really have an interest in.

Going through f4f books feels like a shark pit, everyone's just trying to get hollow numbers. r4rs are becoming that way more now too and it's frustrating. And I do get it, having numbers is nice.  But disingenuity all for numbers isn't.

Instead of spending every single day trying to get empty followers, maybe take that time to improve your writing. Or ask yourself why you feel so desperate for likes and follows and work on that issue.