@milk19082006 yes, I knew this writer well. Loved his first book and I was getting invested in the second. We never did R4R deals— he read my book and I read his.
Doing things like this can help:
1. Having a decent quality cover with a title and author’s name.
2. A captivating summary that gives information on main characters, the main character’s goal and obstacle, and a minor spoiler.
3. Having frequent updates— writers who only have one or two chapters and then start promoting won’t get many readers. Start out with 3-5 chapters and update frequently, whether it’s once, twice or three times a week.
4. Make sure that the content isn’t hard for readers to read.
5. Make sure your dialogue looks right. When it changes to a new speaker, create a new paragraph. Some readers don’t do that, and it makes it difficult to follow the characters’ conversation.
6. Use tags for audience, locations, genre and subgenres, topics and themes, and tropes for examples. The more you use, the better. Max number you can use is 25.
7. Join communities— there are so many. HollyShmit’s Discord is one and The Dreamland Community is another.
8. Post character images, covers and chapter updates on Instagram, TikTok (BookTok is a thing). Post the link to your books or profile in your Instagram bio.
9. Be a member of the community— talk to people, get to know them and their interests. If they’re a reader only, they may consider reading your book if they’ee interested in the topic you write about.
10. Super important— no self promotion of your books in the Comments section of a more popular writer. Many writers find that rude, and will not read your book. I’m not trying to be harsh— it’s just something I learned when I first started writing books on here in 2017. I try to share what I learned with new Wattpadders to see if anything I know can help, even though Wattpad in 2017 vs 2025 is a BIG difference.
Hope these help, and I wish you the best of luck!