The Wattpad Experiment

day 10 - writing

Now that they had started up, the reads seemed to be dealing with themselves. The next day I was already on 303 reads by the time I had woken up, but only on 92 followers despite the fact that I had followed at least eight more people the day before. It seemed like these last ten followers were really making me work for it.

I hit that post button again, coming out with my twelfth chapter. Now that my book had a substantial amount of chapters, people seemed to be more engaged with it. I had at least three very loyal readers who would vote and comment, plus around 6 regular silent readers. With more chapters also came a surge in reads, just purely due to the fact that I had more parts to gain reads on.

But Ella, I just don't have time to upload!

I was pretty certain this would be my problem too when I began this challenge. I, like a lot of you guys, have school everyday plus extracurriculars, hobbies, a designated two hours each day to watching YouTube. I was pretty sure that my only downfall in this experiment would be falling behind on uploading. But because I pushed myself to write chapters, I found that I got them done so much quicker. So far, writing this book had been nothing but a joy. I had loved writing it, and I think this is really key to getting any sort of success on Wattpad. To do well quickly, you need to love writing your story. You need to be invested in writing it! Because with this investment not only comes the fact that you can write chapters quicker, but also you have a burning desire for it to do well.

At this point in the experiment, I was still very unsure of whether I would be able to meet my goal in the time I had given my myself. Sure I was 30% there, but it had taken a week and a half.

While things did seem to be speeding up, I wasn't sure whether they were speeding up enough. To some people, gaining 300 reads in 10 days is nothing, in fact some of you reading may be thinking why I thought this was so good. What you have to remember is I was coming at this with a completely fresh account. I had to build up my own community and fanbase from scratch, something experienced Wattpad writers tend to forget how hard it can be.

Statistics at the end of day ten:

335 reads

96 followers

Lesson learnt: With passion comes determination.