Bonus points to anyone who gets the reference in the gif above. (;

We asked people "What would it take for you to consider yourself famous?" Their answers were surprisingly striking, and we found ourselves wishing the survey hadn't been anonymous just so we could give them a virtual hug.

It turns out, most people aren't looking for astounding numbers. They're just looking to be connected with.

Not everyone responded to this question because it was open answer, but 76 honest, thoughtful people did. We sorted their answers into types, and everyone whose answer contained one of those types got put into the above buckets.

User Engagement
Almost half of the people who answered are primarily looking for someone just to talk to them. Talk about their stories. Talk on their message board. Care about what they're doing. Some participants even said that it wouldn't matter if the number of people who did this was small, just so long as they were there. And for 29% of participants, that was all they wanted. They didn't ask for engaged readers and. Just some people to enjoy their work.

Official Recognition
Seventeen percent of people in our sample believe that official recognition would make them feel famous. These people are hoping for traditional publishing, winning the Wattys, being translated to film, Wattpad endorsement, and things of that sort. And I can't blame them. I'd feel pretty famous if Wattpad chose our book to make a movie out of too.

Reads and Follows
After that, we have the numeric counts. These people feel like they'd be famous if they had a certain high number of reads and followers, or in the category below that, just a certain high number of reads. Some of these people had specific estimates and some just said "lots of". Note that if you combine these two categories, you do jump over the Official Recognition people. In that case, we'd have 30% of people who think they'd feel famous if they had high reads and follows.

Talked About in More Circles
A smaller but interesting group of people think they'd feel famous if more people knew of them or talked about them. They'd feel famous if people had name recognition with them/their book and/or if their story stirred up conversations.

Hard Work
This group of people made me glad this question was open answer because I would never have come up with this definition of famous myself. Seven percent of the people we talked to showed us that their personal qualification for "famous" is more or less intrinsic. These people are typically looking to complete a story, but some are just looking to "work hard" or "be better at writing." These participants typically had less than 500 views, but one had over 8,000 views.  I think it's really cool that for some people, fame is at least partially determined by how much work they put into it, not how much reward they get out of it.

New/Returning Readers
The people here thought that they'd feel famous if they had an established reader-base. They weren't necessarily looking for comments like the User Engagement folks, but for views. Some of them want people to notice when they drop a new story/chapter and come read. Others want readers from one of their stories to go check out their other stories.

⭑ Questions for You Guys ⭑

1. Why don't people read more than one of an author's stories? If you liked one story by an author, what stops you from checking out their others? Comment here if you have a theory.

2. Notably, all four people in the New/Returning Readers category had less than 1K views. However, I feel like this desire might be common across all kinds of view-levels (but I don't have data to back that up). What do you think? Would you feel famous if you got views quickly and/or had readers return to your other works?

3. Which category/categories do you belong in? What would make you feel famous?

⭑⭑ If No One Feels Famous, Does That Mean Everyone Is Jealous of Each Other?

Surprisingly, no.

Forty-four percent of people say they don't really get jealous of other people. However, if you do get jealous of others, don't feel bad; you're not alone. Over half of the participants also get jealous from time to time. 

⭑⭑ Does That Mean Half of Everyone's Waiting for Me to Trip Up So They Can Get the Upper Hand? 

Well, no for two reasons. First, remember we're only talking about the people we sampled, not all of Wattpad. But also no for a much more heartwarming reason.

 Not one person we talked to wanted other Wattpadders to fail. Not the person with zero views. Not the person with 10 million views. Every single one of them wanted good things for their fellow users. Not only that, but 86% of them really wanted others to succeed. They didn't only wish the best for others a little bit. They whole-heartedly want other people to do well.

Are you one of those people who want others to do well? Well then, I have a proposition: let's find ways that we can make each other succeed. So far we've been talking about definitions, but for the rest of the book, I want to talk about something more important: action. We'll take a look at:

1) Who Contests/Promotional Opportunities Should Be Open To
2) What Kind of Opportunities Wattpadders Wish Were Out There
3) How To Best Help Others
4) How To Network With Like-Minded Users

On top of talking about those things, we're actually going to give you spaces and challenges to do them. And then, to show we're not all talk either, we have some new ways for you promote your story with other users here.

Interested? Then take a look at the following chapters, and together we can begin the journey to being better Wattpadders.