Chasing Wattpad

Don't pay the writers

Like I am not unpopular enough on Wattpad. 

Wattpad should not pay writers. Ever. 

There are a couple of reasons for this but the main one is that that was never the deal. You were supposed to come on to Wattpad and write your stories for free and people were supposed to read them for free. It was a plain and simple agreement. A deal is a deal. If you don't like it nothing stops you from leaving Wattpad and going somewhere else. There are dozens of sites out there now similar to Wattpad that pay writers in some form or another. Wattpad shouldn't be turned into one of them. 

But of course as people started getting really popular on Wattpad they started thinking that maybe they should be compensated for it. I get it. If that had happend to me I might have thought the same. The single biggest problem with writers all of sudden wanting to get paid on a free site was Wattpad was not about to lose money. Wattpad would never pay and has never paid a writer on Wattpad. They did what any business would do. They passed on the cost of paying writers on to the readers. The same readers they promised a million times that Wattpad would always be free. How could it remain free if everyone with a few followers all of a sudden have their hand out waiting to get paid? Not that Wattpad would not have found other ways to make readers pay for the site eventually. It's a business and businesses make money or die. But having to pay writers was never part of the deal and now that it is I am the one paying for your writing. That wasn't the deal when I signed on either.  

What's a million reads worth?  

Things are never what they seem on Wattpad. Especially all these Wattpad Stars and others getting millions of reads and votes. Why give them money to write? To make it easier for them to write and eat at the same time? Nonsense. We all have to eat and there are tens of thousands of writers writing just as much if not more on Wattpad without compensation. That was the agreement. We said okay to that.  And here's the thing. Seriously, pay attention to this one: IF GETTING MILLIONS OF READS ON WATTPAD MEANS ANYTHING IN REAL LIFE WHY DOES WATTPAD NEED TO PAY ANYONE? Seriously? There are so many writers here getting 100k followers  and millions of reads and they can't make money from it somewhere else? That is telling. 

The truth is that Wattpad writing is not a measure of anything outside of Wattpad. Either the writers with millions of reads can move on to publishing outside of Wattpad (if that is what they want) or writing on Wattpad is meaningless to those who were led here with the promise of someday taking their writing to the next level. Take some time to think about that. There are likely are many dozens of writers on Wattpad with tens of thousands of followers and millions of reads here who can't get 100 people outside of Wattpad to buy their book. And many of those who have had their book taken to the next level did it only with the help of Wattpad playing manager/agent for them out in the real world, and you and I are not on that list, not that they are making any money either. 

For all it's tens of millions of readers and writers on Wattpad, most writers on the bookshelves at the bookstores or at places like Amazon Kindle and others will have never heard of Wattpad. They don't know what it is. They didn't need it to get where they are. Why would you?

Wattpad was just supposed to be a kind of conduit for your writing. Come and go as you please. But now people want to be paid to stay. I would argue no. If you don't want to stay and write on Wattpad for free than go. There are countless other writers out there who want to be read. When you leave you will be replaced by another that the readers will turn into a million reads author. The readers made you. You forget that. 

Unless of course you can't leave. Because when you do leave you are afraid you will just dissappear. You will cross the line that leads out of Wattpad and find yourself alone because no one followed you out. That's possible, probable even.  And if that is you true you have to ask yourself if you were ever really where you thought you were in the first place? 

Readers, don't let them make you pay for anything here. 

Writers, take control of your own writing.