I have been writing on (and off) Wattpad for the past nine years, and before they became “a business”, things were very good.
Wattpad used to be a great place to get organically discovered and socialize but now it’s too corporate and they pushed the monetization aspect on us all too fast, too hard, and too frequently. It seems like it wants to be Radish with free stories now and to push their own Wattpad Books, but they could have and should have implemented it all in a more justifiable way
A) Ads should not pop up after every damn chapter. Wattpad is a multi-million dollar corporation, and it doesn’t need “funded” from ads, especially since Webtoon took it over a couple of years back.
B) Please, please please make a new version of every story for a Paid Story, and please do not monetize the original version of the damn story. The original version is the first draft. No one pays for a first draft. Monetize the edited Wattpad Books/Paid Stories edited edition by all means.
C) Don’t force us to read 10+-year-old stories we’ve seen a million times before. Show us some fresh ones, and bring back the Undiscovered tab. Show us that you’re actually doing something for “up and coming” writers.
D) Fix your algorithm. I get double suggestions for Paid Stories. I’m literally staring at the same story twice:
Suggest something else different, or delete one of the suggestions? I shouldn’t be seeing two of the same thing. Who messed up the code?
E) We need some form of the newsfeed, even in a separate tab. We need something to broadcast our stories, let others see them, and spread the word. This should be opt-out. It’s nearly impossible to get reads now. And discover what our friends are reading. It’s like a ghost town.
F) Can we also have some form of chat or forums? It doesn’t even have to be like the old forums. Just somewhere we can socialize? Like, even Clubs? For a site that’s all about being social, it’s not very social. Or supportive of its writers overall. How can you find new stories for Paid, if you can’t even support and promote new authors?
Look, I know and understand that Wattpad needs to make money to keep their company going, but I think that nuking the website isn’t the way to do it, and has never been the way to do it.
Considering the fact that, in 2015, you had an After Dark App for “18+” and “sexually explicit” stories, you could easily have a Premium App with the Paid Stories that people subscribe to, for support without driving people away from your main site.
You could also, if needed, get crowdfunding, and drum up community interest if you want to launch new features. Or just ask Daddy Naver and your investors for more money, if needs be.
You don’t have to take what was once the most enjoyable user experience for writers and readers alike and destroy it to push what you deem as ‘a steady business model’ onto us all and suffocate/punish us for not being Wattpad Stars/ in the Paid Stories program/ Wattpad Books author. Not everyone has or will have the means to support you in the future.
Driving away potential users isn’t the way to do it at all. Many users have expressed their discomfort in the disgusting amount of ads you put on their stories that they don’t profit off, the fact that literally, almost all the good stories are behind a paywall, and the general lack of community surrounding the website that is all about “free stories”, “helping the author” and “writing/posting what you like”.
The lack of support and community is shocking.
If you don’t want to end up busted like any other indie start-up with became too greedy, then I suggest that you listen to your users and provide more opportunities to them.
Oh, and fix that website as well. It shouldn’t be that glitchy and unresponsive for a website fifteen years in the making with adequate funding.
TheChurroverse 