So you’ve posted your very snazzy novel on Wattpad and are waiting to get the response. Every writer whether it is their first book or sixty-ninth, wishes to experience the joy of connecting with an audience that get the message their story and its characters set out to convey. While ‘write for yourself’ seems to be the keystone advice on authenticity, undoubtedly there is joy in connecting with more readers. We have a trend on Wattpad that shames writers who seek more views and I believe that is hurtful. While there is a right and a wrong way of going at it which I have described in this blog here, today I will focus on a very easy method to get recognition for your novel. Reading list features!

Wattpad predominantly is a reading app which has a feature that allows users to curate books of their choice into reading lists. When more people add your book to their reading list (whether private or public) it boosts the ranking of your book and makes it easier for people to search for them. Similarly, Wattpad has a ton of Ambassador-run profiles based on genre that serve as promoters and supporters of certain books that fit their prerequisites. For example, Romance, YA, Paranormal, LGBTQ, etc. These official profiles can be recognized by an orange badge with a tick. They are run by a cohort of ambassadors from Team Engagement of the volunteer program. They curate reading lists that writers can apply their books to and if selected, feature said stories on their profiles which are frequented by all the users who are interested in these genres. For instance, Near Touch was featured in Romance profile’s Strange Love reading list.

For a comprehensive list of profiles that have featured Near Touch, please click here. It will give you an idea of what kind of profiles you can apply to even if your book follows a particular primary genre. 

Getting featured on Wattpad’s official profiles is a sure-shot way of knowing that your book is well-written because one of the deciding factors if a book gets featured or not is that it should be grammatically sound. It’s a shiny seal of approval that authors seek as recognition for their hard work. Plus, the publicity never hurts. You get a sense of pride looking at your book being featured alongside the crème de la crème of Wattpad’s literary stars.

Getting started

Now, you’re all geared up and want to apply right away. Here are the steps you need to follow.

1. Check the genre and subgenres of your book
   If your profile has elements of a certain genre or you think that it is appropriate for the reading lists of a certain profile then make a note of that too. For example, Near Touch is a Paranormal YA book but the protagonist Amy has a killer sense of humor. So I applied to get featured in the Humor profile. Go through this complete list of Ambassador-run profiles on Wattpad to select the most appropriate ones for your book.
2. Find the submission form
   Most profiles have more or less a standardized format. Let me showcase this with an example. The Action profile has a list of books among which is the Profile Guidebook called “All About Action – Guidebook”. These profiles tend to get creative with their titles so keep an eye out. It contains a ton of useful information about the various activities, contests, reviews, and helpful tips and tricks on everything related to the action genre. We are interested in their “Available reading lists” and “Guidelines on submitting” pages. Find the reading list submission form. Most likely it’ll be well-highlighted in Wattpad’s signature orange.
3. Revise before you submit
   Make sure you’ve read the profile guidelines and Wattpad’s content guidelines before filling the form. You only get one perfect shot so might as well do it right (you can submit again but the system will know that you’re doing so and that may leave a bad impression; better safe than sorry). Checking that you adhere to Wattpad’s content guidelines is a must and I cannot stress on this enough. If you have any banned content such as glorification of sexual violence or nudity in your story then you risk the removal of your story and possibly your account. Click here to revisit the content guidelines. Now that you’ve done a thorough review and are ready to shine, hit submit and voila! You’re done.
   
   Now, we wait.

But hey… will I get in?

That’s where I work my bibbidi-bobbidi-boo magic on you. After getting featured in over a dozen profiles, I’ve learned a trick or two to guarantee acceptance. Since I work as an Engagement Ambassador, I have experience on both sides of the curtain now and these are my tips to help you succeed in getting your book the recognition it deserves.

1. Genre suitability with tags

This is a make it or break it for most books. The first thing an ambassador generally looks at is the cover, the title, the blurb, and the tags. That last bit is important. If you have the appropriate tags, the ambassador automatically gets a hint that your book is suitable for their profile’s reading list. So make sure that your tags match the nature of your book perfectly. You have about 25 of them so use them wisely. Getting your book tags and your choice of profile down to a harmonious science is very important.

Don’t be coy though. If you add tags that are nowhere near the genre of your book, not only will the ambassador know, your actual rankings will get affected too.

FAQ: What about long shots though? What if my book has LGBTQ representation but they are background characters who don’t really play any significant role in the story?

In the case of long shots like this you can still apply but then it is totally up to the discretion of the ambassador vetting your story. If they deem it appropriate, you may get featured but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

2. Whoop, whoop… it’s the sound of da grammar police

While the submissions guide do emphasize on good grammar, it is not an extremely high standard. If you miss a letter somewhere or end a sentence with a preposition, or if you (god forbid) mess up your dialogue and action tags, it’s completely okay. A few mistakes are allowed, we’re all human here and more importantly, mostly amateur writers. Allow me to clarify. A professional writer is one who gets paid for their work and most writers on Wattpad are students or hobby authors. So ambassadors are pretty chill about a few slip ups here and there. However, if there are mistakes that break the reading flow then you’re in big trouble. It’s better to make sure the readability of your novel is of really high quality before submitting. It shows that you care about your own work to make sure it is relatively up to the standards of the language you’re submitting in.

This is an accurate portrayal of ambassadors when they get their hands on a particularly juicy story and the whole team just falls in love. Rare, but it happens! The best part? Grammar is the last thing on our minds then.

3. Respect your submission form

One thing most ambassadors have agreed upon is that the way you fill your form and your ability to follow clear instructions showcases how much you care about your novel and the opportunity that is being presented to you. So if your form has incorrect or false elements, you can be sure that your entry is going to be rejected. For example, when asked if your novel is ongoing or complete and you falsely state that it is complete while it is still far from it, then you know it won’t even be read through and head straight to the rejection pile. Similarly, if you put your username incorrectly or link a different part of your book rather than the summary, that can be held against you as well. Ambassadors are fair professionals and believe in equal opportunity and deserve recognition for their hard work in ensuring that each entry is treated with the respect it deserves.

4. Ongoing stories are welcome but…

Submissions are encouraged to be completed stories or stories that are nearly finished because many books on Wattpad get abandoned because the author loses steam or life gets in the way. Therefore to ensure that the readers of the curated reading lists get the best experience, ambassadors are a bit partial towards completed stories. However, that does not mean that ongoing stories don’t stand a chance. On the contrary, ongoing stories can be a valuable addition to the serialized content enthusiasts on the platform. Just make sure that you are regular with your updates. With the new system update, the dates you publish your story parts are visible in the index below the summary of your book. One look at that and an ambassador can ascertain how punctual and disciplined you are. They can then take an educated guess whether your book will be completed or not and if at all it’s worth featuring.

My advice is to wait being at least 10+ chapters into your story before submitting your book to get featured in reading lists. And ensure that you stick to the schedule you’ve agreed to show your dedication. Remember, the system knows if you’ve submitted before so it is easier to just submit once and submit right.

5. Check the guidelines thoroughly

This is by far the most treacherous point. You may think that your story is fine but cross-checking once with the guidelines is essential. For example, you write a typical mafia story with the usual gang wars and black market shenanigans. But just to add a flair of realism to it, you use the Mexican gang Nuestra Familia and have your protagonist glorify their actions. You know we all love a good-bad boy. This is banned content on Wattpad because you are romanticizing the actions of a real life violent organization. What started as an innocent attempt at realism has now backfired with your book being banned and your account being called into question. This can affect your application into paid programs that Wattpad supports or even the Ambassador program in the future.

6. Patience is a virtue

I’ve had submissions be accepted in a few weeks and some being accepted after almost a year. You have no control over when your book might get vetted and selected so it is better to exercise every morsel of patience you have after you submit your book. Be prepared to never hear from them as well. The fastest feature I had with Near Touch was YA in two weeks and the longest was Mystery which was 11 months. That should give you an idea. I’m still waiting to be featured in Paranormal and that is like the genre of my book (laughs and cries in a corner). So even though you feel like recreating this gif with the ambassadors, please don’t. I’m sure there’s would always be a sensible reason for the delay.

Does that mean once you submit you never look back? Not exactly. If it has been over 3 months, it is okay to nudge the ambassadors a little by submitting your story again. But there are layers to this. If your story has been edited or has been updated with new chapters in that time, then it makes sense to do this. Even if there has been no change, submitting this way once is okay because it could happen that due to some technical error your entry was rejected/ overlooked the first time around (though this is an extremely rare case). But please don’t submit more than once within a short time frame. It certainly leaves a bad impression of you in the eyes of the ambassadors and trust me, we remember usernames better than actual names of people we meet in real life.

7. Some weird ways I’ve gotten featured

Now this is a very personal experience I’ve had in this journey and it may not work for everyone. You can reach out to the profile you’re interested in via different, slightly unconventional channels with a bit of creativity. For example, instead of asking the profile directly why your entry has not been selected, you can see if they’ve updated their list or not. Most profiles usually put out an announcement when they do so therefore it is advisable you follow the profile in question to stay notified regarding updates. If you notice that they have, you can resubmit your story with a note stating that you’re doing so after your book has been polished and edited even further. Ambassadors are people too behind that very official façade, so it is likely that they’ll pay a bit more attention to your entry just because you’ve been polite.

One of my most supportive readers, Silver, once commented on a hilarious exchange between Amy and Caleb, tagging Humor there. They responded that very night and promptly added Near Touch to their This Nun is Taken reading list, apologizing for the oversight (I had applied for about 6 months by then). This was such an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime event for me that I couldn’t stop marveling at the coincidence. You never know what will work so just keep a positive mindset and hope for the best. Trust me, a lot of Wattpad is luck and the sooner you accept it, the easier and more comfortable your writing will be.

May the odds be ever in your favor

Now that you’ve had a pretty extensive tour of the fascinating world of curated reading lists and how you can get into them, I’m pretty sure you have a final question. If you’re anything like me, you wonder about the probability of all things in life and this should be no different. After all, it is mathematically quantifiable. I think you’d be fascinated by the answer, if that’s the case. The odds of you getting into any reading list are pretty good if your story has original content and good grammar. They increase or decrease based on the profile you’re applying to. For example, Fanfiction is one of the largest profiles on Wattpad and understandably due to competition, it might be harder to get featured by them. It will take longer and because of limited spots, it may not even happen. But within the Fanfiction family, the BTS-Community profile has far fewer followers and workload. Therefore, it might be easier to get featured in the latter rather than the former. Sometimes due to internal issues or other events such as official sponsored events taking over a profile, you may not hear about your submission for months. In the end, after you hit ‘submit’, you really don’t know what is going to happen. All you can do is pray that it is something wonderful.

FAQ: What if I never get featured? Does that mean I’m a bad writer?

It may surprise you to know that there are a million other ways to get recognition and gain readers on Wattpad. There are so many books with a ton of views that people adore who have never even fluttered past an official reading list. Getting featured is just one of the side projects that come under marketing for your book. It should never overpower your efforts into writing it nor should it ever define the love you have for your own baby. If you need a healthy dose of motivation, just let me know and I’ll cheer you up in a jiffy. If there are any other questions you have related to Wattpad reading list features, feel free to leave them in the comment section below. I had a blast writing this one because it was the first advice I got from a veteran writer on Wattpad and it is my privilege today to be able to pass it on to you.

But before I sign out for real this time, I have one last gift for you!

Resources

1. Enjoy summer more, read books (1966) vintage poster by Bill Sokol. Original public domain image from the Library of Congress. Digitally enhanced by Rawpixel.
2. People reading books (1895) print in high resolution by Edward Penfield. Original from The New York Public Library. Digitally enhanced by Rawpixel.
3. Feig, Paul. “The Heat”. Hollywood, California: 20th Century Studios; 2013 – interrogation scene gif from Tenor.