A Collection of Short Stories

Why Wattpad Authors Should Get Paid (Not A Short Story)

(Written: 2-10-22)

I'm going to be completely honest, I love writing fanfiction. I know it sounds kind of ridiculous and immature, but I actually love doing it. I started writing fanfiction in the 6th grade when I discovered a wonderful app called Wattpad. There are tons of stories on there (fanfictions and original stories) and at first, I only read the stories.

Although, one day I got inspired to write a BTS fanfiction because I was really obsessed with them at the time. The story actually got 163K reads. Which was very surprising. That fanfic is still on the internet, as well, and looking back on it, the story wasn't that good. So, I'm doing some editing on it.

After that story got popular I continued to write because I realized that I loved doing it. So, I've been writing fanfics on that site for 5 years! And I just reached 2,245 followers! It was a big deal for me. I don't really tell that many people about my Wattpad account because it can be a bit embarrassing sometimes. Only my closest friends follow me and read my stories.

I've gained a pretty big following and I keep in contact with a lot of my followers to see what kind of stories they would like to see from me. I've also made lots of amazing internet friends through Wattpad.

Now, obviously, there are some downsides to the app just like there is for everything. There are some people on there that can be rude, but most of the people on Wattpad don't tolerate that and immediately report that person. Another downside is if you tell people you have Wattpad or that you write fanfiction they will usually think it's cringy.

I think it would be amazing if you could get paid to write fanfiction. Because you do almost everything that a real author would do, despite the publishing process. I, just like many other people, read over my chapters multiple times before uploading them to the site. I edit my old stories when I think they need fixing. I take recommendations and suggestions from my followers to make sure they continue to like the content I'm putting out. I have spent hours working on new chapters and stories before, as well. I remember one time I wrote an entire story of a fandom I wasn't in and wasn't interested in, just because one of my followers asked me to create it and I didn't want to disappoint them.

Another thing, Wattpad puts ads onto people's stories that the readers have to watch so they can go to the next chapter. On YouTube, if an ad plays the YouTuber gains money from that. But, Wattpad authors don't get any money from the ads and they don't have any say on if the ads are put onto their stories or not.

I think it would be amazing if Wattpad authors got paid for the hard work they put into their stories. I would personally love to get paid for doing something I love and something that I work hard on.