I like to complain, a lot. So much, in fact, that if I got a euro for every time I ranted about something, I'd have enough money to go on a cruise, at least twice a year. Salty is my middle name, so if your food is ever lacking that sodium chloride...
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I'll just throw this out there:
Wattpad fame =/= Real fame
Having 10 million reads on a book here does not necessarily mean that you'll sell 10 million copies in the real world. The demographics on this site allow for certain genres/tropes to be popular over others (I won't go into detail about that because y'all know what it is), while others get gunned down and buried in the mass grave that is now English literature.
That is not to say that there haven't been Wattpad famous authors who've gotten contacted by publishing companies and had their dreams come true or whatever, but realistically, most people who are "famous" here never really get any further than that. If they did, you'd have a lot more trashy 1D and Twilight fics gracing the bookstores. They've already published After, I think it's crap enough to encompass a lot of the works that are currently topping the Hot lists.
Think about it this way: Game of Thrones is wildly popular out there in the published world, with a TV show that's just as popular (if not, more) but if the author had decided to debut the series here, it NEVER would've fared well. Ever. Fantasy just isn't as popular here as let's say, Teen fiction or Romance, whilst the series itself contains adult themes (like *ominous voice* politics) that twelve-year-olds here would read and run off to their mothers screaming bloody murder. If Wattpad contained a more mature audience, "Mature" works wouldn't get banned from the search bar and kids wouldn't refer to dicks as 'peepees' and vaginas as 'kitties'.
I've actually seen some published writers create an account on this site (you know they're published because their profile picture looks like it was taken by a professional photographer, and they don't use broken English and emojis in their profile) and they're nowhere near being what we call "Wattpad famous", because the audience for their work just isn't on this site.
I always hear people who say, "my goal is to become Wattpad famous!!!!!" Bitch there's people who've had works peak at 4 million reads with shitty grammar and dodgy plotlines, but what's the point in that? Realistically, are nitwits as your reader-base the kind of fans you want to have? What's the point of being famous when people call your grammar flawless when you can't differentiate between "you're" and "your"? It's much better to have a couple thousand reads, earned through blood, sweat, and tears, through editing your work over and over again, than have a million reads for a work that's as good as toilet paper to wipe your dog's ass.
Spending every waking moment fretting over your low follower count and reads takes the fun and enjoyment out of writing because you're focusing more on gaining some sort of "recognition" than writing a good story, one that you can really look at and say "I'm proud of this." The grass is always greener on the other side, there's always going to be someone that has 1k reads more than you or three more followers, so if you constantly look at those who're better off than you, you'll never be satisfied/happy with yourself and your work.
That is not to say that everyone who's Wattpad famous has written trash. By no means is that the message I'm trying to convey. A lot of my friends (or ex-friends, fame has gone to a lot of people's heads) have written amazing stories and have gone from 1k reads to 500k and been featured, simply through hard work and dedication to their craft. It's a lot more satisfying achieving fame the hard way than writing something generic and automatically gaining reads because of its appeal to a specific demographic of readers.
Bottom-line is, don't strive to be Wattpad famous, at least, don't make that your goal on this site. Wattpad is a place to share your works with other people, and although it sucks sometimes to see your message board dry and your reads stagnant, keep working hard on your writing and keep doing the things that help you get exposure, because a lot of the time, the readers are there, they just don't know that your work exists.
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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!
