I like to complain, a lot. So much, in fact, that if I got a euro for every time I ranted about something, I'd have enough money to go on a cruise, at least twice a year. Salty is my middle name, so if your food is ever lacking that sodium chloride...
If you're someone like me, who likes to procrastinate by lurking in the threads, then you've probably seen all there is to see on Wattpad. Nothing fazes you anymore. Someone could slap you with a cold slice of baloney and you wouldn't even flinch. *shudders*
Think of Wattpad like a virtual community centre, except that instead of learning how to save a deteriorating marriage, fry an egg, or bury a body, you learn about writing. It's a wonderful, magical place, and once you push the double-doors open and take a step inside, you're sucked into it for hours on end. Until you realise that it's all just a big illusion and you practically wasted hours of your life arguing with a twelve-year-old girl about how problematic 5SOS is.
Anyway, there are a plethora of clubs: there is a Multimedia Club, an Improve Your Writing Club, a club for almost every genre...in short, there's no way you can't fit in. There's even a Café where, over a steaming cup of hot chocolate and a plate of cookies, you can spill the tea on those around you (mostly about how there are boys on Wattpad. Shocker, I know.)
Unfortunately, the threads are also littered with desperate new writers, who are willing to sell a an eye and a kidney for few "omg dis is de best thin i evr red!"'s on their Harry Styles fanfiction. These newbies literally saturate the threads with the same fucking questions, which makes me wonder whether the search bar at the top of the screen is only there as a decoration. Got a question about something? There is most likely a book there to answer it for you. Just use the goddamn search bar and type in the keywords. It's not that simple—your parents didn't buy you a smartphone at the age of six for you to be so ignorant about technology.
So being a Wattpad grandma, and a thread stalker, I've compiled a list of frequently asked questions by newbies in the threads. Oh, and if you're a new writer, then:
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Let's get started, shall we? *clicks on the IYW thread logo*
1. How do I get more readers?
Fuck me. Really? Y'all don't know how many times this question gets asked. There are usually one-two threads open about this, simultaneously. Also, usually, the users who ask this question have joined the site about three days ago, have posted only twice in the thread (once for this stupid question and another bashing a 1D hater) and aren't active at all. Like you could go on their feed and it's completely blank. They aren't following anyone, haven't commented on anyone's works, nothing. Nada. Zilch.
So how the fuck can you expect to just have more readers? Readers aren't plants. They aren't sold at the local market and can be planted in your backyard. They won't come raining down the sky, especially when there's millions of other books out there. Your shitty fic on alpha mates and horny vampires is but a drop in an ocean of books.
"Okay, Dora. So how do I get more readers?"
My hand tightens around my vanilla milkshake, but that little rational voice in the back of my head begs me not to spill it all over the place. It wasn't cheap. Actually it was. I'm just trash.
