The Wattpad Experiment

day 1 - newbie tings

I realised I needed to make a new gmail account, something I haven't had to do in years. I was greeted with the unfamiliar sign up page on Wattpad, it hadn't looked like this last time I made an account. The first few usernames I tried to put in were already taken, typical, but I finally settled on one, and the project began.

I didn't just make an account for the sake of this project, in fact I had been wanting to do this ages, but now that I was here, 0 followers to my name and a whole lot of work to do, I felt a little out of my depth. How does one even go about something like this? I began work on my profile, making sure I got my aesthetic right, trying to come up with a witty bio, popping a little joke in the location section. It was set up. I stared at it for a minute, wondering whether I wanted to go through with all this work, whether I had time for this seeing as I could barely manage my main account. Yep, the story idea I had was bugging me.

Then began the first stage of any good hustle on Wattpad - it was time to follow. I knew who my target audience was. I found a few people who looked right down my street and followed them, at this point not looking for large gains of followers but instead some meaningful connections. Step two of the hustle is always establishing friendships, also it's pretty nice to have friends on Wattpad.

I left the account, and began to work on the book. This needed to be catchy. Music pumping in my ears, I began to write like a madman. I'd had this idea for a month now and it needed some release. I didn't abide by all my golden rules - I hadn't planned. But at this point it didn't really matter, because I was on a roll. First chapter done, I went ahead and started trying to make my perfect cover. This needed to be good, I didn't want some ugly half-assed cover.

The daily struggle of a cover maker - I couldn't find a picture that fit. I spent an hour searching the web for anything, but nothing seemed to fit right. I settled on something average, knowing that I would remake the cover the next day anyway. Going back onto the account, I saw that I already had 7 follows back! Score. Time to be nice and polite, because first impressions count. I said my thank yous, engaged in some small talk with one person, and then continued to craft my perfect book launch. I needed the book out there and fast, because when more people decided to follow back I wanted to entice them with my story.

Posted. The adrenaline rush was still the same, and I left the account because I knew I would fixate on it too much. An hour later I checked back and saw that it has 8 reads, and even two comments! Wowza, I was impressed. There truly are some lovey people on Wattpad. And that friendship I made earlier on? They had also read my book. First day was a success.

Statistics at the end of day one:

8 reads

10 followers

Lesson learnt: Make a good first impression.