Wattpad | FictionPress
Asking for a friend — I have questions about each. Those of you who have experienced either or both:
- Have you uploaded your writing works to either?
- What has your experience been like — pros and cons?
- Is there a good community — is it legit?
- Do you use the Wattpad app or FictionPress mobile on your phone/tablet?
- Overall, have you found your association with either to be beneficial to your writing, or to you personally, or your quest for readers — beta or actual?
Wattpad looks like a serious platform for the serious, dedicated writer and perfect for serialized storytelling/publishing. Meanwhile, FictionPress looks like a kind of successor online workshop for aspiring writers — a platform not too much unlike what we had at the Zoetrope Virtual Studio in the late 90s and early aughts — except it’s postings are open to the public (unlike the ZVS).
Any info you can provide will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Lost Signal 
I saw your message to me on Twitter, and honestly, I don’t advise any writer to use Wattpad. The only writers who I feel will do well on Wattpad are YA writers, Teen Fiction Writers, and Romance writers. And even then, it has to be a cliche, poorly written story to get any attention there. However, that’s just me. As for FictionPress, it’s mostly a dead website, but you can always test it and decide for yourself.
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Thanks A.M. Yeah, having mostly sat on the sidelines of fiction writing/workshopping/publishing the last 6 or so years while focused on editing and journalism (and music), I’m a bit late to the party on these newer online communities and platforms. I’m an old dinosaur from the original online community of the Zoetrope Virtual Studio (b. 1997, essentially died in the late aughts). A lot of us congregated together in the small press realm before moving on to Smashwords. From my view Smashwords (which I’ve used) and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) seem to be the best options for the D-i-Y author, though mainly for complete packages, not serialized chapters and such. But when you’ve been away for years and need to build or rebuild an audience, other options become necessary.
Thanks again for stopping by. Hope all is well with you and your writing.
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Btw, the reason these two sites came to my attention was because they were listed and described in the latest edition of the Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market.
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I understand, and I feel these online writing websites are becoming a must in our modern day age. In some ways, it’s a little annoying that as writers we need to have a platform for everything. If you only want to build up your following and post your story in serial format, then you can use Wattpad. Fictionpress is pretty much a dead site, so I don’t advise using it.
In a way, it makes me sad that Wattpad is listed in the Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market considering it’s such a drama-filled website and the company is corrupt.
If you ever have any further questions about Wattpad or Fictionpress.
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I noticed you haven’t recommended writing.com. Do you like that site and what it has to offer in terms of portfolio and etc.?
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I’m not going to recommend it because Writing.com is a private writing site focused on improving the craft. It’s not a website designed to grow your readership like Wattpad. If you’re looking for a website to grow just your readership, then you can try Wattpad or Tapas. To a lesser extent, maybe even try FictionPress. As I mentioned before, FictionPress is basically a dead site. And Wattpad is full of cliche stories and it’s hard to grow a readership. I advise researching which site you want to use and then trying it for a year. If you get somewhere in a year, then stay and see how it goes.
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I should probably be clearer here: I’m not a newbie who is in desperate need of a new online home – regarding writing.com I was asking specifically about the portfolio as a promotional tool. However, I do believe in general that a good writer’s site is a good writer’s site, regardless of what function a person may be after at a given time. From past experience I know Inspiration or support can be drawn from any community if one immerses themselves and becomes truly active. Despite my curiosity and research into modern communities, I’ve personally come to realize I’m not actually all that interested in a new community. I’d only be trying to replicate what I used to belong to one and two decades ago and that’s simply not possible. Instead of forging new relationships, I should remain socially disconnected to a degree to avoid that particular distraction that comes with online socializing. I’ve published 15 stories but it’s been three years since I finished and published one and so I need to continue on as a hermit because that’s the only way I’ll get the words onto the page. I miss drawing inspiration from the gang of old, but we ‘graduated’ from the workshop a long time ago and we’ve all had to go it alone at some point. That’s what writers do after a certain amount of seasoning.
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Hmm, I wouldn’t say Writing.com is a promotional tool, either. I’m sorry if my response came off a little strong. I think it’s because I’m tired of these online writing communities myself lol. It’s like you said, really, they are nothing more than a distraction to focusing on the craft.
While I agree it’s fun to draw inspiration and support from communities, I’ve found them to be full of drama, cliche stories, big egos, and corrupt companies that are killing the craft of writing. I wish I had a better viewpoint and advice for you, but I don’t =(
The reason I gave a timeframe is that I personally don’t believe in investing in nothing. So if my readership doesn’t grow after a year, then maybe it’s not the place for me.
Ah, I agree with leaving the online writing world behind. After a while, it seems to be the best choice to protect our work and ideas.
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There’s actually a reason why poorly written stories seem to get more traction on Wattpad. This is because a lot of Wattpad readers are ESL, and prose is much harder to read than having a poorly written story that tells you what’s happening instead of showing it. Or the writers themselves are ESL too writing their story in english.
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I can understand that, but it surprises me that Wattpad, being an English speaking company, helps to promote such books. Writers, especially ones that spent years perfecting their craft, get little to no recognition on Wattpad even from the staff. However, I digress, as I feel this conversation is better suited in a blog topic than comments on someone else’s blog.
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Yeah, and it doesn’t help the way the algorithm works either. If you want to be popular on Wattpad you basically need to write either Fanfiction(either BTS or 1D) and write pretty badly.
If you write it I’ll be sure to check it out. 🙂
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