Wattpad Block Party - Summer Edition IV

Hepburnettes Presents: THE ART OF BEING (UN)POPULAR

(Huge thank you to KellyAnneBlount for inviting me to the best Wattpad event of the year again. I am ever grateful for your dedication and support.)

In the past Wattpad Block Parties, I've talked about sinking ships, genre hopping and dealing with plagiarism. But I thought I'd get real this time and talk about something very close to heart. So welcome to my most controversial post yet:

THE ART OF BEING (UN)POPULAR

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To kick things off, let's begin with a quick survey of sorts. Leave a "+1" comment if any of the following applies to you—

Scenario #1: You and your friend started out on Wattpad at the same time, perhaps two or three years ago. Somewhere along the line, she made it—millions of reads, dozens of publishing authors, a wide adoring fanbase. But you didn't. While she's sitting at thousands of votes with every chapter she uploads, you're still struggling to hit ten.

Scenario #2: You've had one big hit—one story that shot you to fame. Everyone's talking about it, which is great, until you realize that it's the only thing they're talking about. Nothing else matters. Not another story that you're proud of, not a new genre that you tackle, not all the effort you spend stepping out of your comfort zone to write something else.

Scenario #3: You're a big author with thousands of fans. Then life catches up and you're forced to go on an extensive hiatus. But when you return, you realize that the spotlight's gone. That readership you thought you had seems non-existent now. Where you previously had no trouble climbing the charts, you're struggling to even get your story ranked.

My answers are, in order—been there, been there, still there. You see, I've been writing online since 2009, and the one thing that still gets to me after all this years is the reception to my writing (or the lack thereof). When I started out, Scenario #1 was the hardest thing for me to deal with because it seemed like all my friends were getting published. Then after books like Slow Dancing and Draconian, Scenario #2 hit really hard and reception to the subsequent books I write have been lukewarm ever since. And now, due to a lengthy hiatus last year, Scenario #3 is what I'm currently stuck in.

You see, the thing is that no matter how much everyone tries to stigmatize it, there is nothing wrong with wanting recognition for your work. Popularity on this site means having a huge following, a dedicated readership and more feedback on your works. It is not a bad thing to want it. When you're a new author, you want the recognition that you don't yet have. And when you're a big author going through a slump, you want the recognition that you once had. So whether you're a new or veteran author, regardless of your following, this is something a lot of us struggle with at some point or other.

But we can all sit around with the woe-is-me attitude, or we can do something about it. Over my years of writing online, I've gathered five very important tips that I myself abide by, and here's hoping that they can help you too.

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#1—HOOK, LINE, SINKER.

Title. Cover. Synopsis.

Those are the three most important things when it comes to a Wattpad story. You might argue that it's the plot or narrative or characters that make a good book, and you're right. But you're looking at a demographic with a huge portion of teenage readers, or readers who read on-the-go. They're not at a bookstore and they don't have the time to browse through your book before they decide they want to pick it up. No, they're going to take one glance at it and either drop or add it to their reading list.

Let's start with story titles. On Wattpad, titles can go two ways—they can be entirely unique, or they can hitch on a trend. The first is fantastic, especially if you've got yourself a catchy title. However, if you pick a strange title (e.g. supercalifragilisticexpialidocious), then it might be difficult for readers to remember it. Alternatively, hitching on a trend (e.g. bad boy, mr arrogant, you're mine!!!) might make your title extremely common, but it can also work to your advantage because a lot of potential readers will be searching for titles with said trends in them.