Authors - How Wattpad Can Grow Your Audience

If you're an aspiring author you may be wondering just what Wattpad is. You also might be wondering what the benefits are of joining another social media site. Wattpad in many ways has done for writers what Youtube has done for video makers. It's created an area for writers to share their stories and build an audience, and for more established authors to share snippets of their stories to promote books they're currently working on. It's not only a wonderful community of writers, but also readers who gobble up stories like crazy.

Wattpad has grown such a great audience of both readers and writers that Anne Rice has spoken about it on Facebook, Margaret Atwood has dipped her feet into Wattpad land, and writers such as Amanda Hocking have become members of the site. This doesn't even begin to touch upon the numerous success stories of published authors that got their start on Wattpad.

Wattpad was launched back in 2006, and as of 2014 they recorded over 100,000 stories being upload a day. As far as users, they record 35 million unique visitors a month. That's a huge possible audience for any new writer to tap into. Unlike Facebook, they also make it extremely easy for others to find your work. Once you're followed, your followers see updates to your stories and anything you post on your wall. Because the website is basically a social network for writers and readers, you don't have to worry about searching and finding people with similar interests.

On top of Wattpad being a great network specifically for writers and readers, they also have contests that run fairly consistently such as the Watty's. Harlequin has also teamed with them on occasion which resulted in book deals for its winners. In the past they've also teamed up with independent publishers such as Sourcebook. This creates a great opportunity for anyone hoping for a publishing deal and the chance to be discovered.

It doesn't stop there though. Many Wattpad authors have found publishing deals through the site. Authors like Beth Reekles and Abigail Gibbs have signed huge publishing deals and are enjoying the success they found from having a large fanbase on Wattpad. Another Wattpad author, Nikki Kelly, turned her million readers and thousands of comments into a publishing deal within several months of joining Wattpad.

Others have chosen to go the self publishing route with great success because of the audience they found on Wattpad. In that realm there are those like Linda Poitevin who struggled with her traditional publisher and the sales of her books. Instead, she found Wattpad to be an amazing platform to build her audience and success. Others like Brittany Geragotelis debated going the self publishing route before being picked up by the traditional publisher Simon & Schuster.

That's one of the great opportunities that Wattpad brings to its writers. While the publishing possibilities are nice, it's the audience that it helps its authors build that is the most valuable thing an author can have. By having a great audience, it opens the door to self publishing and a market already happy to purchase your books. For those who can't find a publisher, that's a huge advantage. The bonus is that it is that already built in audience that publishers also look for.

Other benefits of joining Wattpad include their forums and groups where writers and readers share tips, advice, and discuss different aspects of writing. There are even groups of writers that review each other's stories and offer their take on what's written. All in all, it's an amazing community of people that offer huge opportunities to those who are curious to try their hands at writing. If writing isn't your thing, you'll still have a plethora of stories to read through and add to your favorites.

When all is said and done, Wattpad is one of the best websites a writer can join. With publishers roaming the site looking for the next writer to sign, it's another reason for the writers to sign up. If you're a reader, you can discover a wide range of stories and writing styles that you're sure to enjoy. There's a huge community filled with people who delight in talking about books and writing them. There's really something for everyone and anyone who has an interest in writing and reading. If you're still reading this article, then I have to ask why? You should be signing up for Wattpad right now! Though we do recommend checking back from time to time as we hope to have interviews to post from some of our favorite Wattpad authors in the coming months. Otherwise, get to that reading and writing!