This chapter may not completely focus on the techniques of writing, and more on how I managed to get the number one spot on the horror and the thriller category, and also about how I started gaining followers.

Sooo...

I seriously started writing in 2013. My cousin read a few chapters of my first novel Damaged Beyond Repair and suggested me to put it up online. She suggested this website called 'Booksie' which is a small community of some thousands of writers. When I look back I think it was easier to gather readership on Booksie than on Wattpad. 

Anyhow, I realized Booksie didn't have much of a growth as compared to Wattpad, and I'd seen a lot of writers move to Wattpad so I jumped on the bandwagon and signed up on Wattpad in 2014. During the year that I'd been on Booksie, I'd gained some loyal readership who followed me on Wattpad.

It took a few months to get about 100 something followers. I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING. The book that I thought everyone would love was sitting in the unnoticed pile for an entire year. It didn't even get to the 900th rank. It gained around 500 or some reads by then, most of the reads would probably be from me refreshing the page. 

I tried to advertise my book on some readers private messages, (Yeah, been there, done that).

But GUESS WHAT?

NO ONE FREAKIN REPLIES.

It was already hard waiting for those reads to go up. 

That was the most frustrating thing because here about 90% of the people don't want you to tell them what to read.

Then I saw in wattpad rules that it was not recommended to ask people to read your stories. (I spammed their inbox a lot by the way) I joined the Forums (which were called clubs at that time) and used to post about my story there in the advertising thread every single day. It was then that I met some more readers and made friends. We read each others books and exchanged reviews.

That helped quite a lot, but it wasn't giving the story the readership that I was looking for. When I opened my books to check the reads, I heard the sound of crickets. 

All I did was wait. 

That's when I got tired of trying and bored, truthfully, it was discouraging—the feeling when you pour your heart into these stories, bleed your soul into the words but no one appreciates it.

I totally get that feeling.

And then life happened, I got a job that took up most of my time. When I came home I was too exhausted to write, much less advertise my work on wattpad so I took a break from writing in general.

In 2016, I came back to wattpad and decided to start writing a new story.

That is...

*Drumroll*

Psycho Billionaire

Yes, that story changed everything for me on wattpad.

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, I decided to write a story that was based off a cliché theme (A billionaire and a damsel in distress) but I decided to make it different. I asked myself a question. What if that Billionaire was downright psycho instead of being a cliché cutepie? What if he gifted roses but also murdered people sometime? I thought that was a story that I would love to explore.

When I wrote the story, I didn't think of people on wattpad in general, or if anyone would enjoy the story or not. Basically, I wrote it for myself because I enjoyed writing about romance with dark themes.

Okay, here's where you pay attention. As I started posting the chapters, twice a week mostly, the book started to climb the Mystery/Thriller category. It went from 800th rank to the 400th rank in three weeks, and I was posting the story in the Mystery/ Thriller advertising thread every single day.

It was like magic. The readers started flooding in within 3-4 months. You may think I'm exaggerating, but really there's no trick on how to bring the traffic to your story if you do the right thing which I will get to soon enough. In fact, I started to wonder where the readers were coming from. 

When you write a story for wattpad, you need to remember some things. The general population on wattpad is female. The Reader demographics of my most popular story says 78% are female readers, and only 3% male while 20% are private and that is a proof that wattpad caters to female writers more, so the stories that are likely to get popular here are the ones with Billionaires, Bad Boy's or Fanfiction (of a popular fandom).

I know you will say "But Kash, a lot of other popular stories on wattpad don't have bad boys or billionaires in it."

Yeah true, and that's where luck plays the part.

The stories here that have millions and millions of reads are mostly categorized either Romance or Teen Fiction. That's the genre that works far better than any other.

If you write Anime Fan-fiction stories, chances are your story will take time to become popular. Don't be offended, I love anime too, but I know the majority audience here probably don't.

There is also the Fantasy genre, historical fiction, science fiction, Action, Adventure all these categories are really hard to gain popularity in. You can gain readership in it only if you have a really engaging story and amazing writing skills.

Ask yourself.

Are you writing for yourself or to make it big on wattpad?

If you want to become really really popular than you're supposed to work really hard on your writing.

Personally, I read loads of books and different genres. And I mean books outside of Wattpad. Books by Stephen King, R. L Stine, L. J Smith, J. K Rowling, John Green, Meg Cabot, Jennifer L Armentrout and I experimented reading different genres and noticed how they wrote and executed a story and it was helpful. (My bias always remained thriller and romance, I should add).

There's really no easy way out of this. To write a good story, you're supposed to be an avid reader and keep practicing your writing. 

Here are some Do's and the Don'ts on gaining followers and popularity on your novels.

Do's :-
1. Refer to chapters 1. & 2.
2. Write an engaging story
3. Add cliffhangers for your books that readers cannot put down. (Trust me, cliffhangers work)
4. Update frequently. (Twice or thrice a week)
5. Post your stories in the threads advertising section
6. Make friends as much as you can (the type that would love to do a read for read and give you honest feedback)
7. Make sure your grammar is as good as it gets, if not the best, with paragraph indents. No one wants to read a book that reads like:

Today Sherry don't want to go to school because she slept at house. Sherry is in college, tall, blonde, blue eyes. Kerry and Merry are Sherry's best friends. Sherry eats pancakes and goes to class. Terry says hi. Berry says—
if you write like this, please stop!
8. Update mostly between Friday, Saturday and Sunday (because it's a weekend and everyone is free)
9. Run your story through a grammar check. (my personal favorite is Grammarly)

Dont's
1. Don't advertise your book on people's walls, or the comment section of books. Especially popular authors. You probably think 'what's the big deal?' Here's the deal, they would block you. If you want to advertise your book, message them in the private inbox.
2. Do not put sunsets, landscapes, ugly drawings as the cover for your book.
3. Do not add boring dialogues in the novel.
4. Do not introduce too many characters into your books in the first chapter.
5. Do not put wrong tags.
6. Do not ask for follow for follow.
7. Do not add too many confusing events in your book.
8. Do not upload 4-5 chapters in a day (you're screwing your chances of getting your book noticed)
9. Do not write excessively long author notes (readers get bored)

•••

Today's Q&A from readers

Q. 1

Answer:
Honest answer, if you're starting out, you don't have a choice than to do a read for read to gain popularity. If you've been on the website for a long time, have a decent amount of reads but still can't get people to read it without your asking them, then unfortunately you're doing something wrong.  Maybe try switching the preferred genre you're writing in? I did that. I started as a Teen/Romance writer, but switched to Mystery/Thriller and that worked really well for me. Also, work on your cover and most importantly on your writing. If your story is good, the readers come in automatically.

Q. 2

Hmmm...I never thought of that. For my ideas, I draw inspiration from music and movies or something that I have seen on the news. There's really no right answer to this question. You could try googling 'Prompts' in your favorite genre. What type of story is most exciting for you to write? As a reader, what would you love to read that no one has written before? Ask yourself these questions. You can take a cliche, or used idea and turn it into something different. (and I don't mean plagiarism)
For example: I'm totally fascinated by mermaids, and I always loved Disney's 'Little Mermaid' and I wanted to write a mermaid story myself. So I thought to myself. What if a mermaid were to meet a bad boy instead of a prince? And what if that bad boy is struggling through life? I started to write a modern comedic and romantic take on a mermaid and a human and was surprised that people actually liked it. So my point is...there are tons and tons of ideas waiting to be made into story plots. You just need to figure that out

***

In the next chapter, I will be writing about starting your first chapter. If you have any questions about writing, or anything else you would like me to cover in this book, feel free to drop your questions in the comments :)

xx Kash