I was stuck in a rut. My blogging was sluggish and I’d been working on a novel for two years with no end in sight. I was moaning to my brother over Skype about the slow path my career was taking, when he said: “So write a novel on Wattpad.” He told me his girlfriend was reading a book on the online platform which had racked up millions of hits and the author had just secured a three book deal with a big publisher. According to him, Wattpad was the way forward.

Feeling a little overwhelmed and knowing full well a free online platform would not pay me a penny for a novel, I began my investigation. I found an easy to use site where anyone could upload their writing, posting as many or few chapters of their books whenever they wanted to. The uploaded novels were indexed within a range of genres; this included a ‘Featured’ section of work selected by Wattpad organisers. The featured novels were evidently benefiting hugely from the exposure, with the top ones attracting millions of hits and thousands of votes and comments.

At first I wasn’t sure if Wattpad was the place for me since a lot of the stories appeared to be written by and for teen ‘beleibers’ and ‘directioners’, which I’m definitely not! Writing a novel is hardly a five minute job and I didn’t want to risk it if the audience wasn’t right. Despite my reservations I signed up and added information in my profile about my past publications and social networks. Next I posted a couple of short stories to test the water.

The short stories didn’t get a million hits, they got a couple of hundred. What they did do however is catch the attention of someone who worked at Wattpad who emailed me with a question. ‘Seeing as you’re a published author,’ they said, ‘would you like to put some of your work on Wattpad in exchange for some marketing benefit?’ They attached a tantalising pdf telling me of their 8 million monthly readers and assured me that if I wrote a novel on their site it would be included in their featured section and be actively recommended to their readers.

Once I’d made the decision to do it, the idea for my romantic comedy, Spray Painted Bananas, came quickly. I wanted to write something light hearted. I plotted for a month, and wrote a ten thousand word buffer before I started posting chapters. Initially one a week, then two.

The votes and comments came flooding in immediately. I’d never experienced anything like it on that scale before. Each day I woke to messages of encouragement from impatient readers wanting to know WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?! There were times when I didn’t even know the answer to that, but with such a responsive audience I found myself writing faster and harder than I had ever done before. The best bit was realising how much I loved writing in the romantic comedy genre. I knew there was no turning back. I didn’t want to be a tortured writer any more, from now on I wanted to have a laugh with my novels!

Spray Painted Bananas took four months to write. When it had reached half a million hits and with four chapters still left to post, I contacted an agent. They signed me up a few weeks later.

My novel is still online and free to read but I’ve edited it for publishers. It’s been sent out and I’m waiting. Will it a find publisher? I really hope so. But even if it doesn’t and I don’t make a penny from Spay Painted Bananas, I’m so happy I took on the Wattpad challenge.

5 Top Tips for Writers on Wattpad

– Choose a genre –

Wattpad is the ideal platform for writers of YA fiction, trilogies, series and work that will fit comfortably into their genre categories. You don’t have to post a whole series of books on Wattpad, but if readers like the first book you post, they are more likely to buy the second from a paying platform.

– Ask to be featured –

If you have had work published then contact Wattpad and ask if they will feature your novel. If you don’t ask, you don’t get! You will need a good pitch and a professional looking book cover.

– Post regularly –

Make the experience enjoyable for your readers by posting every week. What motivated me is imagining if I had to wait a month in between every chapter of a book. I know I’d have given up reading very quickly!

– Be friendly –

Thank people for their comments and votes. If you are using Wattpad to get constructive feedback on a work-in-progress, then it’s only fair to give some feedback too. But don’t feel under pressure to read every book readers ask you to or you’ll soon feel swamped.

– Link to social media –

Wattpad users tend to stay in Wattpad and rarely migrate to follow you on other social networks. Despite racking up over a million hits on my novel, less than a hundred readers joined my Twitter and Facebook. That said, I really value those eighty who did and I know they are the ones who will be interested in buying my future books. Add your social networks links in your Wattpad profile to facilitate readers finding you on them.

Digital technologies have given writers countless opportunities to experiment and play. New forms of digital writing are possible online and writers are embracing their potential. They give us a chance to reconsider our roles as writers and provide us with unexpected ways to connect with our readers.

The networked novel has emerged over the past six years as a form of digital book that is written, edited and published online. Whereas a printed book is closed, the networked novel is open.  It exists online and can include text, audio, video, links to other online sources and anything else you can imagine. Picture a piece of fiction that is constructed in the same way as Wikipedia and you begin to see how a networked novel can be possible. It is not written in isolation by a single writer. Instead, several writers work together to produce a more fluid form. As with Wikipedia, the networked novel actively asks its readers to become its writers and take part in the writing process. It is an opportunity for collaboration and innovation and a new form of narrative is possible.

In this open structure, the traditional view of who is a writer and who is a reader is challenged. A writer can potentially take on a role of editor or facilitator and support a piece of fiction to take shape. It can be a challenge, as a writer, to let go of control over the narrative but what is produced can be brilliantly unique.

The experience of both reading and writing the networked novel is a social one. As readers can actively collaborate, it turns reading from a solitary act to a social experience. What we think of as a book is challenged. It becomes a place for readers and writers to work together, a platform for invention and a space for collaboration. As this form of novel can be linked to other places online, the boundaries of what we know as a book are stretched.

Several writers and organisations have experimented with this form of digital literature – here are some you might like to explore.

The Silent History

Launched in October 2012, The Silent History is a serialised collaborative novel available as an iPhone/ iPad app. Readers are able to access elements of the story both through their digital devices and in specific physical locations and contribute their own writing.

 www.thesilenthistory.com

A Million Penguins

 Launched in 2007, A Million Penguins was a raucous and riotous experiment. Using a wiki format, a novel was written collaboratively and anyone could change it as it was being written.  It was a challenge for its editors, from Penguin and De Montfort University, to hold control over what was produced.

A Million Penguins is no longer online but has been archived by the Way Back Machine. It can be found by searching the archives of www.archive.org for www.amillionpenguins.com from 2007.

Flight Paths

In 2007, The Writing Platform’s editor, Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph launched Flight Paths, a networked novel that used stories, videos and audio to tell a story. Its aim was to make the writing process collaborative. Readers were invited to contribute their ideas and these contributions were used to shape the digital novel.

 www.flightpaths.net

Songs of Imagination and Digitisation

Songs of Imagination and Digitisation was launched in 2009 by IF:Book. Inspired by William Blake, this book contained moving images and interactive elements. It offered readers the experience of interacting with digital text, audio and video and the opportunity to contribute their ideas as comments.

www.songsofimaginationanddigitisation.net

The Golden Notebook Project

The Golden Notebook Project, designed and run by the IF:Book, ran for five weeks from late 2008 to early 2009. It documented the experiences of seven readers as they read the novel The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing while a virtual community of readers to discussed the text. These discussions became a form of networked book, one which explored the nature of collaborative reading.

www.thegoldennotebook.org

Let us know what you think about networked novels – and any favourites we’ve missed – in the comments section below.