Wattpad Rants

18. Hot Lists

"OMG MY STORY IS #1 IN [insert category here]!"

(Technically the example above is a "fake out" I love to see authors excited about their stories being promoted, it's the hotlist itself that I'm petty about.)

Now, I understand everyone aspires to be at the top of the "hot list," but it's fundamentally rigged.

Let me explain. There's three lists you tend to look at (one very much more often than the others, but you get the gist).

- The "New" list

The new list, obviously, shows you newly published stories depending on the content or category you're interested in. But that isn't exactly the end of it. The so-called "new" list also includes stories that have newly published chapters. So, sometimes a story that was published months ago and has amassed hundreds of readers can still be on the new list; they update regularly. This list—theoretically—can help you find smaller stories, but beyond that, you'll find the majority of the same behemoths at the top of the hot list.

- Your search results on your own account

These filter out differently all the time, but they tend to show you the most popular stories as well. This is really just a mix of the list above and the one below mine and is sort of a wild card depending on what exactly you search.

- The "Hot" list

This is a list that shows you stories with the tag or premise searched. This is the one I'm a bit petty about. It uses an algorithm to sort out stories that grow quickly. For example, if your story was published three days ago and has two hundred reads already, it'll probably be higher than a story than hasn't been published in weeks, but has gained a total of one thousand readers. Get the gist? If your story is popular right at the moment, it'll get more popular. So, your ranking isn't really about how well you write, you just need to write a lot quickly and—if you're lucky—already have a large following. But this has to be continuous. Constant writing and updates basically every few days. It puts so much pressure on an author because:

Self doubt: "It's not on the hot list because they don't like my story"

No, some genres like romance have TENS OF THOUSANDS of books on here. Yours isn't bad, it just hasn't been seen yet. Tons of readers are too scared to speak up about their thoughts on a story or just can't be bothered because they are actually engrossed in the book and don't feel the need to "waste" their time signing in and writing up a detailed account about two chapters.

Pressure to not get lost in the crowd: "I have to write another chapter, I can't fall behind!"

This is just a failure of this list, I'm just sorry for all the poor people who feel the pain showcased above.

Making things a competition: "Uh, why is the story with 200 reads ahead of me!"

No one's actually saying this out loud, but I know it's a pet peeve all of us competitive perfectionists have, you can admit it.

Sometimes this is even reflected in the writing itself. Am I the only one who thinks that stories on top of the hot list—sometimes these are just exceptions—are rushed near the last few chapters? Or at the very least are already completed and just happen to be in a popular genre at the moment. Or, worst case scenario, the author dropped them and gave up because of all the content they had to put out with such short notice.

Don't pressure authors. If someone follows you, look at their profile and see if they write about something interesting or new to you. Give that book that's number 157 in the hotlist a chance. Who knows, it might just be a new favorite.

~•~

654 words

"I could go so much more in depth with this one. I might be digging a bit more into the actual broken system of this site for a few chapters. Tell me if you like and want more of these sorts of chapters and comment your thoughts! I'll see you, dear readers, next chapter!"

- Coffee