7 Reasons to Consider Wattpad Alternatives
Wattpad is a platform where people can share stories for others to consume. On it, you can discover excellent and terrible writing, recycled plots with cheesy plot lines, and ones that keep you on the edge of your seat.
As great as the website is for creative expression, it also harbors more than a few issues every Wattpad writer faces. Let's talk about some of them.
What Is Wattpad?
Wattpad is a storytelling platform. It houses countless tales with diverse characters and plots under every genre you can imagine. You can go to Wattpad as a reader and consume the content shared there. Or you can visit as a writer, and be the one to share it. It's not the only platform that offers a space for writers, but it's among the most well-known.
Wattpad offers a perfect way for a novice creator to establish a fan base and connect with their audience, or a professional to test out their ideas and see which one is more liked.
Wattpad allows you to read its stories for free online, and also offers a free app for Android and iOS. The site supports over 50 languages and boasts impressive numbers. Over 55 million people worldwide use the platform monthly, and you can find over 375 million stories already on it.
Common Issues Wattpad Users Face: Are There Any?
The answer is: Yes, a lot.
There are other platforms that work on the same principle as Wattpad, but it remains the most well-known website for sharing stories and consuming them. That popularity comes with a lot of issues. Since the website attracts all kinds of people, it's easy to find yourself in a whirlpool of toxicity and negativity.
Not only that, but Wattpad is over saturated with stories, there's a ton of competition, and some of the most popular stories on the page sound the same, with minor changes.
Wattpad is rife with issues its users face daily. Let's explore some of the most prominent ones.
1. Competition on Wattpad
Going on Wattpad with your stories doesn't mean that you'll immediately get flooded with fame, success, book deals, and sales. As mentioned earlier, the platform is brimming with other users–competition in other words. With so much competition around you, you might find it difficult to stand out and garner an audience.
Breaking through all the other titles and catching readers' eyes can prove more than a challenge. You have to continuously devote time, energy, and new ideas in the hopes of creating a fan base that craves your updates.
As one individual among an ocean of others, you might find your dreams of making it big buried under hundreds of stories. Competition on Wattpad is fierce.
2. The Need for Consistency
If you want to make it on the platform and establish yourself as a popular and sought-after creator, you must be consistent. If you're to garner an audience, you have to feed it new content without fail. One slip in your schedule can cost you a ton of progress.
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Your fans have to know they can rely on new content to come up regularly. Otherwise, they'd feel neglected and move onto other writers, leaving you behind. You have to engage with your audience every chance you get and craft a connection with them, keeping them coming back to you for more.
3. Wattpad's Core Demographic
Despite Wattpad being open to all, its core demographic consists of young people. That's why young adult (YA) fiction thrives on the platform.
That means that if you wish your stories to garner the most success possible, you have to keep that in mind. If your stories don't cater to the YA genre, the chances of immediate success decrease.
That doesn't mean that you can't write anything you want. It only means that you'd become popular more easily if your writings adhere to the YA standard.
4. Tropes and Clichés on Wattpad
It's a challenge to decide whether, as a writer, you'd follow what's popular or try to cut through the norm. If you do one, you face fierce competition and have difficulty making your story stand out, and the other risks not getting noticed in the crowd. Of course, all writers face this challenge, but it's particularly problematic on Wattpad.
Currently, YA fiction is the most popular category on Wattpad. Especially stories with fantasy and myths sprinkled throughout. Does that mean that you should dive into all the tropes related to that? No.
But it stands to remain that YA stories that contain the usual clichés remain the most sought-after. So, as much as you may detest tropes and clichés, Wattpad may force you into giving in to them for the sake of success.
5. Finding Your Niche
Standing out or fitting in—that is the question. If you decide to break off the familiar tropes and clichés, it's a more difficult path to walk, but it's not an impossible one. You have to find your niche, your 'people,' so to speak.
To do that, you have to be highly proactive. You can roll the dice and write whatever you want, or you can do some research and try to figure out what people on Wattpad are starved for but aren't getting.
If you manage to discover your niche, create an audience, and consistently engage with it, you'd be paving your way to popularity. But that's a tough thing to do. There are countless stories already on the platform, and countless more pop up daily. So, you'd have to make quite the impact if you're to stand out on such a popular platform.
6. Writers Inspiring Writers
It's not uncommon to read something and decide that if one aspect of it were different, it'd be better. So you decide to write it as you wished you'd read it, not quite copy-pasting but pushing the limits.
One of the worst things a writer can experience is getting their intellectual property stolen. Sharing a story, which gets copied, is a horrible experience, but it's one many creators on the platform face. There's nothing wrong with getting inspired by something, but some people choose the lazy route and just copy the original concept.
Of course, this can happen to any writer, but it happens a lot on Wattpad where copying and pasting is easier than retyping most of a novel. And, as a writer there, it's something you're going to have to accept might happen.
7. Wattpad Popularity Doesn't Equal Book Sales
If you 'make it' on Wattpad and get your book picked up by a publisher, that doesn't guarantee further success. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but it's true.
Your story can get huge on the platform, but that doesn't equal book sales. Sometimes people want to get what they can for free without pursuing anything further. So even if you get discovered by a publishing house, get your book printed or converted to an audiobook, and into bookstores, it guarantees you nothing.
Do the Pros Outweigh the Cons?
When it comes to Wattpad, it's difficult to say whether it's worth using. There are plenty of negatives surrounding the platform, but that doesn't mean there aren't positives, too. Overall, Wattpad is a platform that allows people to explore and share creativity.
That chance Wattpad offers to help you break out in the world of writing may be worth overlooking the issues that go hand in hand with the platform. So, delve right into it and be creative.