Salty Rants

How to be Unsuccessful on WP (#1 Covers)

Ever since I ran out of ideas for my Uhm, Can You Not? series, I've decided to start a new one.

(Unless y'all got any more ideas for that, then hit me up. I'm desperate.)

This one is titled How to be Unsuccessful on WP, and it's basically just a SATIRE of all the Writing Help books you see out there in the orange sea that is Wattpad. Has this been done before? Yep. So has your mom. But because I'm hilarious and y'all love me, I'm going to go ahead and add to the trash.

Don't take any of the advice here seriously if you want your works to have more than 10 reads, but if you want to fail miserably and throw your manuscripts to the dogs, then absolutely go for it. After all, I'm here to make your life worse, not better. This series will be updated alongside other rants, so if you think you're some sort of Wattpad guru and know every dirty little secret like your dead poodle's first name, then go ahead and ignore these.

I know you won't, but I'm giving you that option because I'm adorable. ✨

(Lessons are held on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday). 

-:-

Friday, June 3, 2016

*clears throat*

Goodmorning, class! Today' topic is: Book Covers. 

We always hear about those lame popular author nerds talking about how your covers need to be visually appealing and whatnot, but you know what I say? Fuck them and their stupid beliefs! As we know that people judge books by their covers, let's give them the ugliest looking monstrosity on the block. Let's repel potential readers with a cover that is so hideous, their mouse pointer will catch on fire just by getting in its vicinity. 

~Don't waste time scouting for a good cover.

Ain't nobody got time for going in the MDC thread and asking for one! Only wannabe losers do that. Take it from me—graphic designers are greedy bastards. They ask for payments (on a free writing site?? Despicable!) such as comments, dedications, or dare I say...follows. You have a 0% guarantee that the cover they will give you is even remotely close to what you wanted, or something decent-looking (Don't rely on the examples they display in their threads. All lies). If it's not, you'll have wasted five minutes of your time—which you could've spent productively, like jerking off, or harassing some pour soul on the Internet.  

Vouch for the easy way instead! Wattpad has tons of resources to make your life easier, such as...*drumroll*...default covers! Don't know what they are? Well just hop on Tumblr and look at one of those hipster accounts where amateurs slap big blocks of text on random blurry pictures of objects, such as dragon dildos, teens smoking weed, or traffic. The default cover is practically the same thing, except that as a background, you have your blurred user icon!

~Have a snapshot of a porno as your cover.

Alright, so maybe you want to put in some effort for your cover after all (*cough* dweeb), but you know what really reels in those potential readers? Porn! Everybody loves porn! Spend that alone time effectively by screenshotting scenes from your favorite porn movies, upload them onto Wattpad, and slap some text onto them! You can bet your right kidney that the readers will come pouring in, hormones araging, hands asweating. It doesn't matter if the only thing "steamy" about your story is your characters staring intensely and smirking at one another, people love smut, so give them smut!

Disclaimer: this mostly applies to books in the Romance, Chicklit, and Teenfic categories.

~Use a cover that has nothing to do with your story. 

Related covers are sooooo last century. It's better to just mislead people into thinking that your story will be about one thing, when in reality, it will be about something completely different!

Cover: Crudely-drawn unicorns battling for dominance by shooting rainbows out of their horn. You have explosions in the background and hyperrealistic kittens flying above the unicorns using jetpacks. 

Actual story: In which a basic Becky falls in love with her 60-year-old pedophilic math teacher.

There's nothing wrong in that, really, because that's what advertising is all about! Does vaccinating your children cause autism? Of course not, yet, with the power of great advertising, you have thousands of idiots in America that believe it! Does that new weight-loss pill really burn your back-fat? Hell no! It just gives you cramps, intense diarreah, and vivid hallucinations! 

Also, if your story contains a protagonist that is a POC, make sure that the girl/boy on the cover is white!

People are stupid enough to take things at face value, so follow the example of your cunning advertisers and you can't go wrong.

~Give your story a generic title. 

There's no point in trying to be original, because any idea you might have has already been done by someone on the other side of the globe, so just research the most frequently used words in your genre and string together and use it as your title.

Werewolf genre: Alpha, Mate, Beta, Omega, rejected, chosen, possessive, predator, abusive, bully, rogue, werewolf, etc.

Potential titles: The Alpha's Mate, Rejected by the Alpha, Stolen by The Alpha, The Alpha is Abusive, He's a Werewolf, The Alpha's Beta Omega, Mating with the Alpha's Sister, Wolf, Claws, Deer Carcass.

It's a little daunting as a new writer to put your work out there on a public site, but by using a title that has been employed thousands of times before, you can guarantee yourself the invisibility that you so desperately crave (as well as the Alpha's dick). 

~Use a cover that looks like a giant clusterfuck.

Throw random, non-related things together in a collage worthy of a gold star in Kindergarten. Use a multi-colored title with each letter in a diffrent font, mix kittens with gorillas, salads with graffitti, actually, you know what? Just regurgitate your meal onto the floor, take a picture of it, and use that as your book cover. Nobody will understand what the fuck is going on, and if they turn their noses up and attempt to talk shit, just tell them that it's called modern art, and that their peasant-asses wouldn't be able to understand it even if it kicked them in the face. 

~Use a random dictionary word as your title. 

Here's a fun game to play if you have absolutely no idea about what the title for your new Vampire book should be. 

Items required: A D cup bra and an English dictionary.

Step 1: Break into your grandmother's house, dig through her underwear drawer, and steal the biggest bra you can find.

Step 2: Then, once you return home, go to your book shelf and select the thickest English dictionary in your collection.

Step 3: Ensuring that you're completely alone, take a seat at your desk, place the dictionary on it, and tie the bra over your eyes (no peeking!)

Step 4: Open the dictionary to a random page, and viola, that's your new title!

Oh, and make sure that the word is as complicated and obscure as possible. A lot of people have the IQ of a chicken, so it's more than likely that they will have to resort to a dictionary to understand what egonoia means. 

*bell rings*

Today's lesson is concluded, students, but I won't let you leave without some homework first! Please read from page 45 to 47 and complete all the exercises in the Did You know? bubbles. Monday's lesson will be on blurbs, so make sure you complete all the reading by next week! 

Have a lovely week-end.

🍟🍟🍟

Is there something that you're itching to complain about, but have the good sense not to do so on a public forum? I can do it for you! Feel free to PM me with the topic you want me to rant about, and I won't think twice before adding it here. I'll be waiting!