Tips, Tricks, and Tools for Succeeding as a Writer

_Ahna_ - The Fates Fanbook

In my experience, one of the most incredible things about Wattpad is the platform that it provides for writers not only to build a fan base, but also to actively engage with fans. This engagement can take place in various ways through the site: comments on stories, private messages, public posts that can be broadcast to all followers. Another terrific aspect of the Wattpad forum is that interaction can take place not only between writers and fans, but also among fans. For me, it was always fun to see readers of my series The Fates bouncing ideas off of each other, bonding over common (or conflicting!) feelings about the characters, and engaging in all sorts of other communications in the comments section of each chapter. Some of my fans - fondly referred to as 'Fatefuls' - even seemed to forge meaningful online friendships in this way. As a writer, I found this form of interaction among fans really rewarding and wanted to encourage this spirit of community and companionship among my readers.

With this in mind, I found that one of the best ways to facilitate fan interaction was by providing a forum for just that: by creating a 'fan book' on Wattpad. I had seen a few other writers on Wattpad posting these types of books, and it seemed like a fantastic idea. A fan book is a non-literary book in which each chapter provides some kind of creative opportunity, activity, or other message directly to fans of a given story or series - for instance, announcing a contest (such as fanfiction, fan art, etc.) and including rules and necessary information, or presenting a personality quiz for readers to answer questions that end up yielding a fun result (such as "which character are you?" or "which character would be your ideal date?"). Chapters can also furnish a space for fans to engage with each other in the comments section, by offering prompts for conversation, inviting anyone to just pop in and say hello, or encouraging fans to support one another in various ways.

After posting a fan book for The Fates, which I entitled The Fates Fandom Headquarters, I was initially apprehensive as to whether my work was even popular enough to have earned an actual 'Fandom' - a term often reserved for the fan bases of commercially successful authors. To my very pleasant surprise, the level of interest and engagement among my fans in the forum that I had provided for them reassured me that they are indeed loyal and enthusiastic enough to merit that title. Moreover, providing a space in which they could engage with each other seemed to strengthen the fandom even further. I felt that my fans were now not merely followers of my series, but a true family of Fatefuls excited to be part of an active, supportive community, all built around something that I had created and shared with the world - and that feeling is among the most rewarding that I've been fortunate enough to have experienced as a writer. And just as a cherry on top, I suspect that my commitment to fostering such an engaged community among my fans contributed to my success in the 2014 Wattys, for which The Fates won an award for Best of Interactive Storytelling!

Ahna is a writer with a passionate love of creating and sharing new worlds through the art of the written word. Born and raised in the U.S., from the East Coast to the West and back again, she currently lives in New York City. Among her other passions are philosophy and classical mythology, both of which she studied at Harvard, where she earned her undergraduate degree.  Ahna is honored to be a member of Wattpadres, an awesome group of some of her most cherished friends on Wattpad who all happen to be super talented, and she is ineffably grateful to all of her dear Fatefuls for the support and inspiration they provide to keep her writing dreams alive!