@ForwardingMyDrafts It was a very slow build since I’m awful with marketing. My first year on Wattpad I pretty much had no one following me, but I kept writing anyway. I think it’s so important not to get bogged down by numbers. They will destroy your confidence. Some might find number crunching can help fine tune what content gets responses, but that’s just too much for me. So I looked at my presence on Wattpad as a sort of binder of rough drafts. It was there for myself and if anyone else got entertainment out of it then great. A little after my first year, my Christmas romcom “A Bachelor for Christmas” got featured on a Wattpad reading list. I still don’t know how my story made it on there since I only had 1k reads at the time, but I think that’s just an example of how if you have quality writing, Wattpad’s algorithm will find you. Anyway, that feature drew a lot of readers to my story and then a small percentage liked the book enough to want more from me, and because I had been writing everyday that first year, I had multiple completed stories those readers could go to. From there, I started to collect committed readers and the more stories I added, the more readers I slowly reeled in. Now becoming a Wattpad Star (now Creator) in 2020 certainly boosted my following. Once I was a Star/Creator, I had opportunities to have my stories join the Wattpad Originals program (including that Christmas romcom that was first featured). With that there’s more visibility on Wattpad’s homepage and so more people find me.
I’ll also say, I do try to interact with readers the best I can. I like to think saying thank you or joking along with readers when they post a funny comment also helps with maintaining readers. And I think it’s important to be authentic about it and not engaging just to engage, if that makes sense.
