Getting involved in the writing community

Update January 2016

After using critters.org for quite a few years, I started hearing about this website called Wattpad. My first exposure was from a friend who mentioned that a friend of hers had started using this strange online community writing site. My friend didn’t know much about it, but then a few weeks later, I was listening to a CBC Radio interview with author Anna Todd, and she had recently got a six figure book deal through publishing her story on Wattpad.

The interview was very sweet, and Anna Todd spent most of it gushing about her fans on Wattpad and what an amazing community it was and how she never would have written anything without all the support she received there.

Well, that was enough to perk my ears. I definitely checked the site out. Here’s what I learned: it’s an online community for writers AND readers. You can read everything that gets posted on the site for free. You can post anything you want on the site, following content guidelines, for free. That scared me! What I liked about Critters was the protection they offer. Only members can access the writing, so you don’t need to worry about losing your First Publishing Rights.

But anyways, I still checked it out. Like Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest, you make a profile and you make friends and share what you’re doing with your friends.

So, I made a profile, and installed the app on my phone, and added a few books into my library from the ‘hot list’ which is a list of popular books that are trending on the site. I added a few friends–Margaret Attwood, Corey Doctorow, Anna Todd and some science fiction writers who seemed interesting.

I started reading and was initially turned off, to be completely frank. It wasn’t very good writing. I tried searching and adding some more obscure titles by authors who looked to be over the age of twenty, or who even had a profile picture of their face. That actually helped, but for every good piece of writing I tried there were three very average or poor pieces of writing. It’s mainly raw writing, and unedited, even stories that have hundreds of thousands of reads.

I learned pretty quickly that the site is largely used by people under the age of twenty, and as young as thirteen. I would say the largest concentration is thirteen to seventeen year olds.

Next I decided to post a story, a science fiction I was calling Fat Farm at the time. I made a cover, edited it to death and posted. Since I didn’t have many friends, I didn’t get many readers, which was quite disappointing. I think maybe I thought the readers would come out of the woodwork and marvel at my genius, but they didn’t.

It was around this time that I learned about the community section of the website, where all the clubs are. I won’t get into it because there are literally a million clubs in there. Forums and clubs to talk about anything, and even advertise services and opportunities (not for cash).

My primary goal was to submit Fat Farm for traditional publishing, so I decided to find some critics in the ‘Critique Classifieds.’ That proved extremely fruitful–I received many, many critiques ranging from good to excellent quality.  The ‘payment’ was following my critic and/or reading some of their writing and leaving a comment. After a few weeks, I created an entirely new draft of Fat Farm and changed the name to The Critical Zone. I changed the cover and submitted it to Asimov.

I didn’t take it down off Wattpad–I wasn’t sure how to handle that one, actually. I liked having something posted on the site because it helped me meet other writers. I decided to submit the story to Wattpad’s ‘Featured List,’ which is on the top of the front page of the site when you log in. I’d looked at many of the stories up there and felt mine was as good or better.

Within a few weeks, I received a letter from Gavin, and I was in. My story was featured a few months later and the rest is really history. The first week it was featured was literally a bonanza. I didn’t know what to do with all the feedback. Since then I’ve received over 11,000 reads on that story, and hundreds of followers, and more than that, I discovered a whole new community.

Most importantly, I had found a place to share the rough first draft of my work in progress, The Dreaming, a young adult sci-fi series. Through my experiment with Fat Farm aka The Critical Zone, I knew that Wattpad was the place for me to get feedback on The Dreaming. I got busy with preparations. It was around January of 2014 and I chose April to start posting The Dreaming, which would give me enough time to prepare. I already had 80,000 words written of the story, so I had plenty to post, but there are other things you need to think about and prepare for before you post a major work on Wattpad.

One of the first things I learned on Wattpad is that the readers don’t just come. You do need to work for them. You need to make friends and find avenues to get your writing seen. So, my first plan of attack was to make as many friends as possible. Having a featured story really helped because that gave me a trickle of new followers every day. Next, I created a chat group in the clubs, a chat group for women writers over 35. That was amazing, and continues to be an amazing and rewarding experience in so many ways.

Next I started reading the works of people who seemed like they would return the favour one day. I found these people in the comments of stories I was reading, people who gave long, thoughtful, insightful comments. I’d go to their profile, follow them, and add a book of theirs to my library. Then I read their stories and gave long, thoughtful, insightful comments, sort of what matched their style of comments.

In this way, I collected fifteen to twenty really solid readers who I became friends with. They were more than just readers, and I was more than just a reader to them. We do become friends by becoming so intimately involved in each others writing.

When March rolled around, I was a busy girl. In one month I would start posting my major life’s work, my work-in-progress, The Dreaming, to Wattpad. It was going to be a very big moment for me and an important moment, of finally letting the world in on what I was doing for all these years. I created a cover, and found and created media for the project. In Wattpad you can add media to your chapters–videos and pictures. Then I held a title contest because I wasn’t sure what to call the story, and I had a cover contest, and had young female designers create a cover. All of this was to build up exposure.

The contest went well, and I was happy with what the girl created. I supplied the original art (a painting I’d made), and she applied the fonts. Here’s a picture

April came soon enough, and I started posting! It was amazing, and is still amazing. It’s revolutionary to have people read my writing immediately, and to share the story as it unfolds for all of us. It’s very inspiring and has helped me finish the first drafts of Books One, Two, Three and Four of The Dreaming, and I’m currently working on the last book of the series!

My posting schedule has varied, but mostly I post approximately 1500 words every three days. I find this is very doable, and a nice schedule that balances my writing and home and work life. On the 150,000 words I’ve posted to Wattpad since April 4th, 2015, I’ve had over 11,000 reads, over 3000 comments with excellent critical feedback, and I’ve ranked as high as #40 in the sci-fi category. Out of millions.

I’ve had readers from Canada, Bolivia, Ireland, UAE, Kenya, Germany, the Phillipines, Montenegro, India, England, Zimbabwe, America, Puerto Rica, Peru, Nigeria, Korea, Myanmar, Italy, China, Japan, Australia and Indonesia. And more.