Why Banned Books Week matters

September 26, 2014, 7:30 am

≫ Next: Banned Books – The Call of the Wild

≪ Previous: Banned Books – The Merchant of Venice

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In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde writes, “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” All of this week we’ve been celebrating Banned Books: stories that have, at one time or another, been challenged or deemed inappropriate or controversial. Banned Books Week calls upon bibliophiles across the globe to come together to support the freedom of thought, of ideas, and ultimately, the freedom to read. Wattpad strongly believes in the freedom to read, and we encourages you to be a revolutionary reader with you literary contraband of choice.

Today’s book is Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, which was once banned in South Africa’s apartheid regime.

Read Black Beauty for free on Wattpad.

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Banned Books – The Call of the Wild

September 27, 2014, 9:00 am

≫ Next: The Return of the Vampire Diaries

≪ Previous: Why Banned Books Week matters

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In recognition of Banned Books Week, every day we’ll be featuring a once-banned book that you can now read on Wattpad for free. 

Today’s book is Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, which was banned in dictatorships in Europe during the 1920s and 30s. 

Read The Call of the Wild on Wattpad.

The Return of the Vampire Diaries

October 3, 2014, 12:53 pm

≫ Next: Margaret Atwood presents: Freeze-Dried Fiction Contest

≪ Previous: Banned Books – The Call of the Wild

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The wait is finally over for fans of The Vampire Diaries. All of your favorite (and not-so-favourite) supernatural beings are back with season 6, which promises to keep fans on their toes. If you’re having trouble waiting until the next episode, why not try your hand at writing some Vampire Diaries fanfiction. You can also check out these stories that will take you to the Other Side.

Margaret Atwood presents: Freeze-Dried Fiction Contest

October 9, 2014, 12:48 pm

≫ Next: Yes Please by Amy Poehler Contest

≪ Previous: The Return of the Vampire Diaries

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Margaret Atwood, Wattpad’s long-time Fairy Godmother, has just released her newest book, Stone Matress, which features nine new short stories.

As part of the release, Margaret has shared the story Freeze-Dried Groom from the book on her Wattpad profile. It’s a dark, funny story about a man who bids on an auctioned storage space, only to find a surprise within.

The story leaves readers with a couple more questions than it answers. We’re looking for Wattpadders to answer some of these lingering questions. Write a piece of fanfiction inspired by Freeze-Dried Groom, and enter it in the contest by tagging it with #FreezeDriedFiction. The winning story will be chosen and recognized by Margaret herself.

Full details on the contest can be found on Margaret Atwood’s Wattpad profile.

 

Yes Please by Amy Poehler Contest

October 10, 2014, 11:07 am

≫ Next: Wattys 2014 Now Live

≪ Previous: Margaret Atwood presents: Freeze-Dried Fiction Contest

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In her new book Yes Please, Amy Poehler explains how she goes through life saying yes to every opportunity that comes her way. It’s opened her up to opportunities and given her chances. But what if you’re a teen girl with limited access to resources and role models, and very few opportunities come across your path? Amy has worked to make sure that girls get these opportunities through her work with Girls Write Now, New York’s first and only writing and mentoring organization for high school girls, and her own Amy’s Smart Girls.

In support of this initiative, Wattpad and HarperCollins are hosting the Yes Please by Amy Poehler Writing Contest. We want to head about a moment when your life changed because of saying yes? Share your Yes moment, and you could win a Yes Please prize pack that includes a tweet shout out from Amy’s Smart Girls.

Wattys 2014 Now Live

October 17, 2014, 12:56 pm

≫ Next: #JustWriteIt: A 30 Day Writing Challenge

≪ Previous: Yes Please by Amy Poehler Contest

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The Wattys return for a fifth year to celebrate your favorite, up and coming, and new stories. This year we have reinvented the Wattys with a brand new selection of fun awards that recognize all categories and ratings, giving an equal opportunity to works that target different ages and audiences. Wattpadders can nominate stories for the People’s Choice award, which will celebrate the most popular stories. Other awards will be decided by story activity, meaning anyone has the chance to win.

For more details on the various awards, including how to increase your chances of being recognized, visit the Wattys page.

#JustWriteIt: A 30 Day Writing Challenge

October 24, 2014, 3:18 pm

≫ Next: Take the Pledge – #JustWriteIt begins!

≪ Previous: Wattys 2014 Now Live

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Next week we will be kicking off #JustWriteIt, a 30 day writing challenge that will launch on Saturday November 1st, 2014.

This challenge is in support of initiatives like National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which encourages people who might not think of themselves as writers to try their hand at writing a novel-length story. For #JustWriteIt, we’ll be challenging Wattpadders to pledge to write a 50,000-word story by the end of November. Since this is no easy feat, we’ll be helping you along the way by sharing writing tips from popular writers on Wattpad in daily videos and story updates.

Keep your eyes on this space for more information and the first videos next week, and get ready to take the pledge!

Take the Pledge – #JustWriteIt begins!

October 30, 2014, 12:10 pm

≫ Next: Have a Spooky Halloween!

≪ Previous: #JustWriteIt: A 30 Day Writing Challenge

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The time has come to take the pledge—to accept the ultimate writing challenge of creating a 50,000 word story in 30 days as part of Wattpad’s #JustWriteIt challenge.

We’re thrilled to launch this challenge, and we encourage all of you head over to the official #JustWriteIt site to take the pledge. By taking the pledge, you’ll be signed up to receive weekly #JustWriteIt newsletters that will share inspiration and tips from writers across Wattpad. We’ll have a different writing tip video for each day of November. However, if you’re eager to get started on your own story right now, we’ve given you a sneak peek at the first three videos.

Once you’ve taken the pledge, all that’s left to do is to START WRITING, and be sure to tag your story with #JustWriteIt so we can all share in your progress.

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Have a Spooky Halloween!

October 31, 2014, 10:58 am

≫ Next: Celebrating 8 years of Wattpad

≪ Previous: Take the Pledge – #JustWriteIt begins!

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It’s that time of year when we celebrate All Hallow’s Eve, a time when things go bump in the night, and everything gets spooky, creepy, and dark. So, Wattpad would love you to join in the celebration by taking a picture of your carved pumpkins, yourselves in costume, or your spooky quotes from your stories, and post them online with the tag #wattspooks.

You can also use the tag on your story so that others can find your spooky stories on Wattpad by searching for the tag #wattspooks in the Discover bar. You can also check out our Scary Stories reading list.

And here is our own #wattspooks contribution, straight from Wattpad HQ:

Celebrating 8 years of Wattpad

November 5, 2014, 6:00 am

≫ Next: Wattpad & Internet.org: Bringing reading to the world

≪ Previous: Have a Spooky Halloween!

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Eight years ago, Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen met in the food court of the Vancouver airport and shared an idea that would grow into a community of 38 million people dedicated to reading, writing, and sharing stories (read the full story of how it all started on Wattpad).

Today is Wattpad’s 8th birthday, and we couldn’t be happier about having spent the last 8 years helping the world to share its stories. From all of us here at Wattpad HQ in Toronto, we’d like to thank all of you for having made the last 8 years so special.

However, the Wattpad Team is just the smallest part of what makes this community. If we took a proper picture of the Wattpad community, it would include all of you as well. Until we find a practical way to take a photo of 38 million people, we’re hoping you can give us a hand.

Help us complete our team photo by sharing a selfie on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook with the hastag #iamwattpad and telling us what Wattpad means to you. We’ll use the photos you share to compile a mosaic of Wattpadder photos, and we’ll share it with the community.

Wattpad & Internet.org: Bringing reading to the world

November 11, 2014, 10:00 am

≫ Next: A new My Works

≪ Previous: Celebrating 8 years of Wattpad

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One of the coolest parts of working at Wattpad is hearing about how reading can change the lives of Wattpadders. We often hear about Wattpadders rediscovering a lost love for reading when they find the right kind of story on Wattpad. The experiences that move us most are the ones about people turning to Wattpad in parts of the world where books are either hard to find or too expensive to afford.

CEO and Co-Founder Allen Lau recalls a letter he once received from a man in a village in Africa. The village had no library, no school, no landline, and no books. What people in that village did have, however, were mobile phones. The letter was sent to say thank you – Wattpad made it possible for them to read and share stories.

These stories are what made us jump at the opportunity to partner with Internet.org, a Facebook-led coalition that is making the benefits of the internet more accessible and affordable to more people around the world. As part of this initiative, Wattpad is proud to be sharing a collection of classic and public domain books via Facebook’s Internet.org app, which will be available to Airtel subscribers in Kenya later this week.

Facebook’s Internet.org app offers free basic services including health, education, finance, jobs, communication, local information, and books.

 

A new My Works

November 13, 2014, 8:41 am

≫ Next: Dan Brown joins Wattpad

≪ Previous: Wattpad & Internet.org: Bringing reading to the world

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Writers are important to Wattpad, and we are always looking for new ways to make it easier for them to share their stories. Today we’re announcing a new design for My Works that gives more information about how your stories are doing while also simplifying the organization of your stories.

The new My Works provides clear read, vote, and comment counts for each part of your story in one convenient place. It also makes the reorganization of story parts smoother as you now need only drag and drop different parts to reorder them. Full details on all the changes and improvements in the new My Works can be found in our support guide.

Over the next few days we’ll be transitioning Wattpadders to the new My Works in groups, so everyone will be receiving the new view soon. This is only the first of many updates we’ve been working on that will benefit writers, and we look forward to sharing all of these updates over the coming weeks.

Dan Brown joins Wattpad

November 14, 2014, 11:37 am

≫ Next: Wattpadders at the 2014 Istanbul International Book Fair

≪ Previous: A new My Works

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We’d like to welcome Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, to Wattpad. Not only has Dan shared a new story about how he started writing, he is also posting parts from The Da Vinci Code on Wattpad. If you’ve never read Da Vinci Code, this is the perfect chance to catch up. However, even if you have read the book, Dan has added a little something special for this Wattpad release: a special Caesar Box code for Wattpadders to crack. A new clue will be posted at the end of every chapter, and the solution will reveal a secret about The Da Vinci Code. Read it now to get your first clue!

Wattpadders at the 2014 Istanbul International Book Fair

November 26, 2014, 7:00 am

≫ Next: How we’re helping Wattpad writers

≪ Previous: Dan Brown joins Wattpad

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Wattpad is an international platform with millions of members around the world, and the Turkish community is one of the most active on Wattpad. Hundreds of Turkish Wattpadders attended this year’s Istanbul International Book Fair to meet up with one another and to support their favorite Wattpad writers. Turkish Wattpad Ambassadors had the chance to speak with some of these attendees and ask them what they thought about Wattpad.

Wattpad dünyanın dört bir yanından milyonlarca üyesi olan uluslararası bir platform. Türk Topluluğu Wattpad’teki en aktif topluluklarından biri. Bu yıl, yüzlerce Türk Wattpadçi favori Wattpad yazarları desteklemek için İstanbul Uluslararası Kitap Fuarındaydı. Türk Wattpad Elçileri fuara katılan Wattpadçilere Wattpad hakkında ne düşündüklerini sordular.

How we’re helping Wattpad writers

December 2, 2014, 1:52 pm

≫ Next: A Big Thank You to Wattpad Ambassadors

≪ Previous: Wattpadders at the 2014 Istanbul International Book Fair

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Wattpad is home to tens of millions of stories, and each of these stories is the product of countless hours of work, sweat, and effort. We work to enable the passion for storytelling of millions of writers around the world, and we’re looking to do even more to support this writing community with the introduction of new tools for writers. To that end, we’re making it simpler for readers to financially support the writers they love.

One way to accomplish this is through adding enriching, paid content to Wattpad. We’re pursuing this kind of content as an early experiment intended to improve the experience for readers and writers alike. Where we introduce paid content, it will add new dimensions to existing free stories through bonus chapters, different points of view, or full stories that expand the original narrative.

For Wattpad readers, this paid content will take the form of optional extras added to your Wattpad reading experience. Wattpad was built free and will remain that way. The app will always be free, and there will always be a wealth of stories to read for free.

If you have any further questions, please visit http://www.wattpad.com/help.

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A Big Thank You to Wattpad Ambassadors

December 9, 2014, 6:57 am

≫ Next: Read Sandra Brown’s Mirror Image free on Wattpad

≪ Previous: How we’re helping Wattpad writers

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Today we’re celebrating the fourth anniversary of the Wattpad Ambassador program, which brings together active Wattpadders to support and engage with the greater community. We are very proud of the work that Wattpad Ambassadors take on: from answering questions and guiding new Wattpadders, to representing the greater Wattpad community and their concerns to all of us at HQ.

Please join us in giving thanks to and showing our appreciation to the Ambassadors who support and engage with the vibrant Wattpad community and Wattpad Team.

For some interesting facts about the Ambassador Program, see our newest chapter in Wattpad News & Updates.

Read Sandra Brown’s Mirror Image free on Wattpad

December 12, 2014, 7:00 am

≫ Next: A look at 2014

≪ Previous: A Big Thank You to Wattpad Ambassadors

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New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown just joined Wattpad, and we couldn’t be happier. Sandra has published over seventy novels, bringing the number of copies of her books in print worldwide to upwards of eighty million. Sandra will be sharing her NYT bestseller Mirror Image throughout the month of December as a special gift to Wattpad readers. She has already begun serializing the book and will be posting two chapters a day leading up to Christmas, so be sure to read it today:

A look at 2014

December 16, 2014, 1:06 pm

≫ Next: Welcome to the Block Party

≪ Previous: Read Sandra Brown’s Mirror Image free on Wattpad

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Welcome to the Block Party

January 23, 2015, 9:09 am

≫ Next: Wattpad & Google bring you stories Now

≪ Previous: A look at 2014

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This February, Wattpadder Kelly Anne Blount is hosting the first annual Block Party to celebrate the readers and writers of Wattpad.

Every day in February, a Wattpad writer will be featured in the Block Party story. Each feature will include an exclusive post that the writer has written specifically for this event, and there will be prizes, games, social media events, and loads of interaction with fellow Wattpadders and followers each day. Two well-known Wattpad writers will even be collaborating on a unique story just for the event.

In addition to the daily features, which include New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors, there will be a massive giveaway through Rafflecopter. Wattpad writers will be giving away everything from e-books to signed covers of their stories.

To join the party, visit the Block Party story on Wattpad and find out who else will be participating.

Wattpad & Google bring you stories Now

January 30, 2015, 11:00 am

≫ Next: 100 Million Strong

≪ Previous: Welcome to the Block Party

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Wattpad has partnered with Google to make it easier for Wattpadders to keep track of their stories on Android through Now cards in the Google app. Now cards already bring you helpful info before you have to ask, and now they’ll also bring you updates about your Wattpad stories. For readers, the new Wattpad card shows recent reads from your library and catches you up on the latest updates from a story you’re reading. For writers, the Wattpad card will deliver updates about how the stories you’ve written are ranking in popularity. Never miss out noticing a change in your ranking.

In the coming days, you’ll be able to see the Wattpad Now card on your device. Just make sure you have the Wattpad app downloaded and then tap the Google app icon (make sure you have version 4.1 or newer of the Google app) and the Wattpad cards will appear just when you need them.

For more information about Now cards, see the Official Google Search Blog, or see a full list of cards.