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How can I make money on Wattpad?
The best way to make money writing on Wattpad is by becoming a part of the Wattpad Originals program with an Ongoing story. Ongoing stories are serialized stories that meet the following requirements: released on a weekly cadence, have strong hooks, have characters with goals, motivations, conflicts, and stakes (GMCS), and boast the ability to keep audiences hooked.
To pitch an Ongoing story to the Wattpad Originals team, you must be part of the Creators Program. You can qualify for and join the Creators Program by meeting a regular posting requirement. Click the links to learn more about the Wattpad Originals program, and the Creators Program. If you’re interested in how to write an ongoing story, check out our Story School videos and writing resources.
What is the Wattpad Originals program?
Wattpad Originals are a diverse collection of high-quality stories from Wattpad’s top creators, giving readers the chance to indulge in top-tier content and support their favorite creators. The program is by invitation only, curated by our editorial team. Our scouts review stories and pitches from the Creators Program according to our Wattpad Verticals. Once signed, writers and editors work together to get the story ready for release during a period of pre-development work (typically around four months). Once the story has launched, new story parts are posted at a regular cadence (minimum of weekly), with the most recent chapters being posted behind a paywall. When a new chapter is posted, the oldest posted chapter becomes free. Writers earn money by readers unlocking Wattpad Originals with Coins or a Wattpad Premium+ subscription. Learn more about Wattpad Originals.
What is the Wattpad Creators Program?
The Wattpad Creators Program provides writers with educational resources and editorial support as they work on their ongoing stories. By posting a minimum of 500 words a week and meeting our entry requirements, a writer becomes eligible to join the program. The Creators team will reach out at that point with next steps to join the Program. Program writers who maintain the entry requirements receive editorial assistance through our Oracle story ticketing system, access to writing resources, exclusive webinars, workshops, our Creators Discord server, and the ability to pitch Wattpad Originals. Please note: the Creators Program is here to support writers in honing their craft, and does not directly provide marketing support or assist writers with promoting their stories. Learn more about our Creators Program.
How can I prepare a story for the Watty Awards?
The Wattys will be announced later this year, but if you want to get started on planning, begin by checking out our Story School videos and writing resources. We recommend familiarizing yourself with important concepts for webnovel writing including: Immediate, Engaging, Commercial (IEC) and Goals, Motivations, Conflict, Stakes (GMCS) as these are the things that we’re always looking for in stories on Wattpad.
You can also consider entering some of our Ambassador-led contests that help creators build up to the Wattys, such as the 8-Chapter Challenge and the Open Novella Contest (ONC).
How do I stay motivated to keep writing?
Start by considering why you wanted to tell this story in the first place. There was a reason you set out to tell it and focusing on that reason can help you stay motivated. Know that there are many different factors that might affect your writing motivation. Learn about them in this video on Writers’ Block and this guide on avoiding creative burnout.
You can also check out this blog post from hit Wattpad writer Kate Marchant (Float) which shows that even our biggest writers struggle with motivation. As Kate says in the opening to the blog, ‘whoever said being a writer is a marathon and not a sprint was right.’
What is the difference between writing a novel and writing a webnovel?
Webnovels are written with the experience of reading digitally in mind. The experience of scrolling while reading or choosing a story to read from an app is very different from turning physical pages or picking a book off a shelf. Webnovels are more immediate than novels. Hooking readers’ attention immediately and having optimal chapter lengths of 2500 words are two keys to providing the best digital reading experience. To learn more, check out the keys to effective webnovel storytelling.
What are completed stories?
Completed stories (which are identified as finished, no new chapters, and are marked ‘Complete’) are a popular format on Wattpad. These stories may be of a more traditional webnovel length (around 50,000 words) or might have been an ongoing story that has reached its conclusion. Completed stories can be Wattpad Originals (though they cannot be pitched at this time) and are eligible for The Watty Awards. Completed stories can, however, be scouted for Originals or added as a result of a Watty Award win. Writers of completed stories selected for Originals will be contacted by the scouting team.
Because we know abandoned stories are a major concern for readers, our search algorithm favors serialized ongoing (regular posting cadence) and completed stories over stories marked ‘ongoing’ that are not regularly updated. If you’ve got a story-in-progress that you can’t update regularly, consider using our Publishing Scheduler to create regular updates, or take the story into Draft mode until you’re ready to update it more regularly.
How can I get more readers to read my story?
When planning and writing your story, it’s important to keep the concepts of Immediate, Engaging, and Commercial in mind to provide the best reading experience. Check out this Story School video for an introduction to them, or click each word above to read the full guide. It’s also important that your story has strong Goals, Motivations, Conflict, and Stakes for the plot and characters. Including all these elements will strengthen your story’s ability to attract and retain readers.
Once you’ve posted your story, check out these tips for how to promote it from our marketing team.
Are there any new features for writers on Wattpad that I may not know about?
The most exciting feature we’ve added recently is our Publishing Scheduler. It’s easier than ever to publish ongoing stories using our scheduler, which will allow you to set a story part to publish on a specific date at a specific time.
We also want to make sure that writers know about the Wattpad Verticals. Verticals make it easier for YOU, our writers, to know what we are currently looking for. They offer a way for us to be more transparent in which genres we are currently monetizing stories in. Writers are welcome to write in any (or all!) of the verticals they wish. The categories will also help readers, who will have interest in specific verticals, find stories and writers they are interested in more easily. Check out this article for a full guide to our Verticals.
