Writers on the platform can earn up to $25,000 in compensation. A new metric called "Engaged Readers" will help writers gauge readers' interest in their stories, and a new site for writers to get tips and tricks about improving their content for the platform.
More than $3 million has been paid to writers on the platform so far. It plans to pay over $2 million to writers this year.
The guidelines for eligibility for the program are strict. Writers must have published at least one story chapter in the last three months if they want to be considered a writer.
Writers must have at least one story in eligible genres like general fiction, romance, vampire, action, teen fiction, and horror with a minimum number of Engaged Readers for that genre. General fiction and horror have different criteria for engaged readers. A team of experts vet the tags for the new program so the story can be categorized into eligible genres.
An engaged reader is someone who has spent more than five minutes on a story in the past year. Total Reads is a metric that shows the number of all-time non-unique reads on a story and Unique Reads is the daily read or view by a unique user over 30 days.
The image was taken from the book, Wattpad.
It is not the first platform to try this metric. Medium paid writers based on read time on a post.
The company has been testing the Engaged Readers feature with a few writers to see what type of readers they have. This new feature will give it more insight into where readers are spending more time, as it claims that users spend more than 23 million minutes on the platform.
As webnovels continue to grow in popularity, we will continue to build new tools for writers to do their best work, grow their fandoms, and ultimately make more money from their stories. We are planning a number of new initiatives in the years to come. The company said in a statement that they are helping to grow the global webnovel market along with their authors.
When you compare this to traditional publishing, a bookstore can tell you how many copies are sold, but they can't tell you if the buyer reads them.
She said that the feature gave writers a new metric to understand how people are interacting with their stories.
The Philippines and Spanish-language markets are expected to be added to the Wattpad Creators Program in the near future. Up to 3000 writers are expected to be included in the program this year.
The program will include editorial support, coaching for marketing and audience building, access to special writer tools and partnership discounts, and opportunities to work with brands. What kind of stories and plots are working well on the platform is something that Wattpad wants to give more insight into. Not all writers will get stipends, and there are different levels to reach the figure.
We are investing in diverse writers from all over the world. One of the things that we know to be true is how important it is for us to support our creators through a significant investment in their writing journey, which is something that we can be proud of with this program.
Even if a writer doesn't qualify for the program, they can learn more about different opportunities and techniques through the new Wattpad creator portal.
To make its platform more attractive for readers, Wattpad will launch exclusive stories from some of the best writers in the world. Jessica Cunsolo is the author of the With Me series, which has over 1 billion reads on the platform, as well as Kate Marchant, the writer of the upcomingRobbie Amell produced novel.
1,500 stories on the platform have been turned into movies and books by the company.
Medium had a new creator program last year that relied on how much time a reader spent on the story. Ghost, Scribd, and Substack all focus on the number of paying subscribers in order to distribute money amongst writers. Bulletin was launched by Facebook last year.
Wattpad wants to stand out by giving webnovel writers multiple ways to make money: paid stories, brand partnership, potential book and movie deals, and now, a new creator program.
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