Fandoms Assemble! On Friday, Marvel fans will flood theaters across the world to watch Captain America: Civil War.

We know that fans use Wattpad as a way to connect with their favorite characters, storylines, and universes in the lead up to major theatrical releases, and Marvel’s Civil War is no different: Time spent reading Marvel fanfiction on Wattpad increased 90 percent since the release of the first movie trailer last December. In total, fans spent roughly 200 million minutes reading related fanfiction since the last epic Marvel blockbuster, Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Since Civil War is all about conflict, we also looked into the number of stories shared on Wattpad to determine which superhero team wins with fans in the community. As well, we identified the most popular ships (romantic pairings) to figure out who wins the Captain’s heart. Is it Stony (Steve Rogers + Tony Stark) or Stucky (Steve Rogers + Bucky Barnes)? Check out the graphics below for the results!

If you’d like to learn more about how Wattpad data can support your next news story, get in touch through press[at]wattpad.com. Brands and entertainment companies who want to leverage Wattpad’s powerful data insights can get in touch with us through business[at]wattpad.com

If you’re following the news in places like The Hollywood Reporter, Bloomberg, and Mashable, you may have heard about our entertainment division, Wattpad Studios. With all the buzz around this exciting announcement, it was easy to miss some other exciting launches from Wattpad. Check them out below:

Meet The Harry Bot, quite possibly the world’s greatest virtual boyfriend

Look out gentlemen, there’s a suave new bot taking Kik Messenger by storm and he’s probably more charming than you are. Wattpad’s massively successful engagement project and story recommendation bot interacts with fans by channeling the perfect Harry Styles.

This collaborative Hack Day project, spearheaded by Amanda, Samantha, Emily, Jen, and Alessandra at Wattpad, has resulted in over 6.7 million Kik messages since it’s inception. That’s a lot of story recommendations! The average user on Kik messages the Harry Bot about 16 times a day. That puts Harry in the upper tier of success and engagement on Kik.

Bots are back and better than ever. You can check out Wattpad CPO and Co-Founder, Ivan Yuen, dish on this interesting topic with Parmy Olson of Forbes.

Imagines introduces the real world to an internet phenomenon

A few weeks ago, we teamed up with Gallery Books and 33 Wattpad Stars to make history with the release of a first-of-its-kind anthology, Imagines: Celebrity Encounters Starring You. The collection of imagines puts readers into the story through second-person adventures that feature some world’s favourite celebrities.

Our friends at The Daily Dot released an exclusive excerpt from the anthology while Caitlin Dewey, The Washington Post’s digital culture reporter, penned this feature about the release.

You can check out some great interviews with the writers involved in the project on Fangirlish and hear from two of the Canadian Wattpad Stars featured in the anthology  on CBC Books.
We have many exciting things underway this year. If you’d like to be one of the first to know about our latest announcements and projects, get in touch with us through press[at]wattpad.com

On Friday, June 10th at 4:00 PM PST, Wattpad will host a session at Social Media Week LA called How Social Storytelling is Changing Entertainment Marketing. The session, hosted by Wattpad and moderated by Wattpad’s Director of Brand Partnerships, Jordan Press, will be a candid discussion about how entertainment brands have been tapping into new ways to engage audiences.

With the rise in digital influencers, the ways in which we think about promoting movies and television series have been rapidly changing, and Wattpad has been on the cusp of that change since launching Brand Stories in 2015.

Great social storytelling is a powerful way to connect emotionally with millennials and Gen Z’s and is often the key to lasting brand affinity. Working with great storytelling influencers in a native way can also dramatically increase reach and prompt fans to connect over a shared love of story. Learn about how social storytelling addresses the unique marketing challenges faced by the entertainment industry today.

This session will feature one of Wattpad’s own digital influencers, Wattpad Star Zoe Aarsen and include 360 Management Executive Dean Schnider, Innovation Manager Elena de Sosa from Ignition Factory, and Wattpad’s Director of Brand Partnerships Jordan Press as moderator.

Oh and by the way, if you didn’t get a chance to join us for Social Media Week NY earlier this year, here’s a preview clip from our panel: Your Brand, Their Story: Exploring the Shift in Content Consumption and Creation.

Enjoy…

Like this video? Wanna see more? You can watch the full panel here.
Stay Tuned for more!

The Wattpad community loves a good story. What many people overlook, however, is that the stories they love are often serialized, episodic, and collaborative. On Wattpad, almost 90 percent of the 250 million uploads shared are serialized.

As Megan Garber of The Atlantic points out, serialized storytelling is going through a bit of a renaissance. Today’s audiences enjoy serial narratives on-the-go and on their terms. A few minutes of pure escape can be found every time you open up the Wattpad app. It’s part of why 90% of Wattpad traffic comes from mobile devices.

Modern writers also leverage the new tools available to them and the power of today’s socially connected world. When writers serialize on Wattpad, a push notification brings their audience back every time they update a chapter. Audience feedback also helps writers gauge how cliffhangers, one-liners, and epic passages are received. Inline comments on Wattpad stories reveal the words that spur the most reaction from readers. Passages can also be highlighted and shared on social media, resulting in greater reach for a Wattpad story.

Audience feedback, along with tools like writer analytics, helps writers tweak chapters where they see reader drop-off, or improve upon scenes that got the most comments. The positive comments from passionate fans are also something that many Wattpad Stars credit as inspiration.

The breakout success of Anna Todd’s, After, perfectly sums up how to win at mobile, serial storytelling. Anna often wrote chapters while in line at the store. She updated regularly and engaged with her fans. Together, they formed a passionate community and connected through a story that currently has almost 300 story parts.

Anna serialized After over the course of a year. As her fan base grew, she aimed to update more regularly. Today, Anna Todd’s After has been read over one billion times on Wattpad. The print edition of the work is also an international best-seller with a film adaptation set to hit screens soon.

Today, many Wattpad Stars like Rebecca Sky, Ali Novak, Rachel Meinke, Shaun Allan, Ninya Tippett, Kassandra Tate, Kevin Fanning, Leigh Ansell, Alex Evansley, Emma Szalai, Greg Carrico, and Blair Holden, use these techniques to connect with massive audiences. Combined, these Stars have a total of 2.3 million followers, 6.7million unique readers, and 1.4 billion reads on their stories.

Serialization and social storytelling set modern writers up for success. Writers who leverage these techniques on Wattpad have the potential to reach a massive audience. After all, every month, an audience of 45 million people spends 15 billion minutes with the stories they love. If you’d like to learn how to reach new audiences on Wattpad, it’s as simple as checking out our writer’s page.

Steamy scandal. High drama. The monarchy. These ingredients combine to create the types of stories that satisfy the insatiable appetites of many members of the Wattpad community.

When E!’s breakout first original scripted series The Royals was set to return for another drama-filled season, they looked to Wattpad to engage with fans through the creation of a unique profile and two five-part stories exploring the lives of the most loved (and loathed) characters in the show.

During the campaign, a concurrent takeover on our sister app, After Dark, positioned The Royals among the key 17+ female demographic as must-see TV for fans of risqué romance. This was a first branded takeover of After Dark and it resulted in some great lifts in awareness for the series.

The community devoured the exclusive Royals stories on Wattpad and in total spent 4.5 million minutes engaging with The Royals-branded content throughout the season. Throughout the campaign, The Royals’ official profile garnered 33.3 thousand followers—followers that can be retained and engaged with for future campaigns for the show.

Our community uses Wattpad to get even closer to their favourite characters. So when The Royals on Wattpad offered both established series fans and prospective new viewers a look into the secret lives of characters like Queen Helena, Prince Liam, and Princess Eleanor—the community embraced the chance to get up close and personal.

The Royals campaign was a huge success, demonstrating that, when it comes to entertainment, brands on Wattpad—native content reigns supreme.

Now that Wattpad has gone hollywood, we thought it would be a good idea to shine the spotlight on some of our brightest stars. These writers are the engine of Wattpad Studios, but more importantly, they’re passionate members of our global community.

This week we interviewed Shaun Allen, a horror-thriller writer who joined Wattpad in 2011. Since then, he’s shared 23 works, gained 18 thousand followers, and accumulated over 810 thousand reads across all his stories! Like many new members of the Wattpad community, Shaun joined to promote sales of his books and increase the visibility of his writing.

After discovering the excerpt of his story, Sin, the Wattpad team asked him to share the full story serially and invited him into the writers program, a precursor on the road toward being a Wattpad Star.

“At first, I wasn’t sure about serializing the full book. I didn’t want that to hurt book sales by letting the whole story be available for free. But there was something about Wattpad. I liked how it worked. I liked that it was a community.”

It was that communal, social-nature on Wattpad that hooked Shaun. For the first time, he was able to interact with readers: “I was meeting new people and the reach was far greater…it’s a much more fulfilling experience, and is, in fact, addictive. Wattpad is like walking into a vast library where all the people reading your books are sitting there in comfy seats, chatting to you about your work.  And there’s no uptight librarian telling you to SSHHH!”

After his first feature on Wattpad, things really started to take off. “I was blown away by the response,” said Shaun, “When one of my stories hits the top ten in its category, such as Mr. Composure reaching number one and Suffer the Little Children climbing to number three in the Horror category, it doesn’t just make my day, it makes my week. ”

The momentum carried forward for Shaun. After an explosion in followers and read counts, he was invited to join the Wattpad Stars program. “It was an evening and I think I’d just finished dinner…I was genuinely pleased but definitely didn’t grasp what was to come...I didn’t realize, at the time, how amazing the Stars experience would be.”

Today, Shaun has worked with some of the biggest names in entertainment, including Universal Pictures and DC Comics’ Vertigo Imprint. “I can still remember, so clearly, when I received that email. I had to read it over and over. I was stunned. The initial email, asking if I’d care to join the campaign, was almost casual.  When I saw what was being asked, it was like Christmas but a hundred times better.  I was going to write for Universal!”

Despite all his success, Shaun still finds the time to interact on Wattpad. He’s currently reading When the Black-Eyed Children Knock by Ben Sobieck and offers up this advice to new writers: “Don’t let those around you tell you you’re wasting your time. Write. If the words are there, put them down. The more you write, the better you will get. Enjoy it, and write for yourself.”

Like any good story, Shaun’s includes a bit of luck and a great deal of foresight. “About 20 years ago now, I ran an online magazine which received submissions from all over the world and was invited to take part in a debate on Sky TV between myself and someone from the agent Curtis Brown about online versus traditional publishing.  I said that online and digital publishing would take off.  They said no way. People will always want a physical book. Maybe that’s the case, but Wattpad has proved me right…With Wattpad and the support from both them and the readers, I feel the worlds I create, though they’re often very dark, are a kind of light in themselves.  They’ve made people laugh, shudder and smile all within the space of a few words. I think that’s pretty cool.”

Stay tuned for more instalments of this on-going series. If you’re a brand looking work with these Stars or an entertainment studio hoping to partner with Wattpad Studios to find your next hit story, you can get in touch with us through business[at]wattpad.com

Every month, over 45 million people connect with original stories on Wattpad—but for many members of the community, Wattpad is about so much more. In the Philippines, with a user-base of 5 million and counting, Wattpad is one of the country’s most popular social networks. Wattpad is also a major player in primetime entertainment, and while the rest of the world curls up with a story before bed, people across the Philippines watch Wattpad stories on TV.

Wattpad Presents is a weekly series produced by leading Filipino network TV5 in partnership with Wattpad Studios. Each week the series adapts stories from within the Wattpad community for the small screen. It may seem like an unlikely partnership, but with over 250 million original stories by more than 2 million creators, Wattpad has a singular ability to deal in entertainment at its most atomic level—stories.

To date, Wattpad Presents has aired nearly 265 episodes comprised of nearly 65 original Wattpad stories. The show has reached over 2 million viewers with an average audience of 1.6 million per episode. Through the popularity of Wattpad Presents, TV5 has already seen a 30 percent jump in total viewership year over year from 2014 to 2015, including a healthy increase from the elusive teen market of which the show captured 12.6 percent.

What makes Wattpad Presents such a success? The stories! More than 24 hours of reading material is posted to Wattpad every minute, and Wattpad stories are available in over 50 languages. These original stories reflect the experiences, tastes and imaginations of the diverse and talented Wattpad community. Through Wattpad Stars, we’re able to identify and work with our top-tier writers to help them promote and monetize their work. Wattpad Studios is always on the hunt for engaging, culturally relevant stories and creators that appeal to local markets, and is actively partnering with entertainment leaders like Paramount Pictures and United Talent Agency.

Want to learn more about how Wattpad Studios can help your next entertainment project? Get in touch!

In the second installment of our Wattpad Star series, we introduce Ninya Tippett, who joined Wattpad in 2013. Today, Ninya works with top brands and her sensational works have amassed a whopping 54 million reads!

Like Wattpad Star, Shaun Allen, Ninya got started on Wattpad to get feedback on her work and connect with other story lovers. “I’d moved from the Philippines a few years earlier and lost the small audience of friends who used to read my work and give me real-time feedback.” After taking the leap onto Wattpad, Ninya stories only picked up a small readership.

Her humble readership wouldn’t stay that way for long, however. Ninya’s passion for reading helped her writing gain momentum – her steady follows, votes, and comments on other writers works got her stories noticed. A bit of serendipity and a lot of love from the Wattpad community made her a runaway success: “For some reason, another author (@cheamcat) stumbled into my story, The Mischievous Mrs. Maxfield, and liked it. She had a very successful story at that time and she dedicated a chapter to me with a little note sending many of her readers over and it exploded from there. It’s amazing how one small gesture could open doors for other people. I am still so grateful to her to this day.”

That small gesture ultimately led to Ninya’s induction into the Wattpad Stars program. “It didn’t sink in on me how far I’ve gotten until I got contacted by Wattpad. I started working with them on some projects here and there and then suddenly, the Wattpad Stars program was born and I was in it.” After receiving the news one night at dinner, Ninya had to put down the fork to digest the news, “…it occurred to me that out of the millions of writers on the site, I was among the select group they asked to take part. It meant something and even at that time, not having quite envisioned all that it entailed, I knew that. And I was like, heck yeah!”

Heck yeah, indeed! As a Wattpad Star, Ninya’s focus on writing has evolved from just a hobby. She has this to say on working with brands on Wattpad: “I love the fact that I’m producing more content for my page that’s still very much in echo of my brand of writing. It just has the fun, cool little twist of partnering up with big brands and movie launches.” Ninya says that this style of work has made her a more disciplined writer, conscious of deadlines and mindful of deliverables.

It’s also opened up her eyes to the power of social media and how the game has changed for modern writers. “Gone are the days of writers and artists holing up in a tower somewhere, secluded from the world and forever remaining a mystery to their audience…I find that if used correctly and with a good amount of balance, [social media] can really bring you closer to your followers and give you a better grasp of your work. It gives you feedback straight from the streets and helps you find the pulse of your audience to know what works and what doesn’t. From a creative perspective, it’s hard to listen to feedback but it’s critical to keep an open mind. It helps you evolve and innovate.”

For writers who want to evolve and innovate, Ninya offers this advice: “To help grow my own readership in the early days, I personally thanked every person who voted, replied to every comment and encouraged conversation…I also went and joined different groups and forums on Wattpad. I worked with some other writers I truly admired and dedicated chapters to them, recommending them to my readers. It’s a slow process but hard work can pay off. ”

Ninya remains inspired by the potential of online storytelling and has this to say about the current state of the world: “We’re at a time and age when nothing is conventional anymore—including reading and writing. Wattpad wasn’t where I pictured I’d find my writing someday but one look at the site..and you’ll know that this is the future right here. If I’d closed my mind to how technology would cause our lifestyle and age-old habits to evolve, I would’ve never gotten here and stuck around. People still love reading and writing as they long have but it’s no longer book, pen and paper anymore. So don’t be afraid to evolve along with it. You could be pioneering the future, after all.”

Stay tuned for more instalments of Meet The Wattpad Stars. If you’re a brand looking to work with these Stars or an entertainment studio hoping to partner with Wattpad Studios to find your next hit story, Get in touch!

Today we introduce you to Jen Wilde, Aussie fangirl extraordinaire with a penchant for zombies and the paranormal. Jen joined Wattpad in 2012 and was instantly hooked. Today, her stories have received over four million reads and her writing has been featured in the epic anthology, Imagines: Celebrity Encounters Starring You, produced by Gallery Books in partnership with Wattpad Studios.

When asked about her start on Wattpad, Jen had this to say: “I started posting my first story, As They Rise, and made friends with other writers whose stories I loved. In the years since, I’ve made more friends and written five stories. I self-published my zombie series, my paranormal romance is published by Limitless Publishing and I landed a dream-come-true deal with Swoon Reads. It’s been an amazing experience so far and I have to say joining Wattpad is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made!”

For Jen, the decision to join Wattpad would ultimately result in her acceptance into the Wattpad Stars program. A milestone moment that left Jen buzzing. “I was at home, in my kitchen, staring at my laptop screen in jittery excitement. I’d been wanting to be a part of the Wattpad Stars since I first heard of it, so it was an amazing feeling to know I’d made it.”

Jen is truly unique in her approach to storytelling. Her fiction plays with the paranormal in a way that appeals to variety of audiences. For that reason, her works have been used to promote films like The Fifth Wave and Pride, Prejudice, & Zombies on Wattpad. “I loved having the creative freedom to create my own story based on those worlds and had a lot of fun writing them,” says Jen. “These projects helped me grow my writing skills and also introduced new readers to my work.”

Aside from working with the biggest names in entertainment, it’s the connection with new readers that keeps Jen coming back to Wattpad. “I think social media has provided more opportunities for creatives to express themselves and gain recognition for their work. It also creates a direct line for writers to connect with their readers, which I personally love. Being able to talk with readers and get to know them – whether we’re talking about my stories or the latest episode of The Walking Dead – is so much fun for me.”

Jen is currently working on Queens of Geek, a story set to be published next year. Astonishingly, wIth so much on-the-go Jen still finds time for her favourite Wattpad Stories: “I have so many Wattpad stories that I can’t wait to catch up on, like Spook by @jeepersgigi and Paper Wishes by @spencerhoshino.”

Like many of the Wattpad Stars, Jen advises people on Wattpad to stay active and engaged within the Wattpad community. “Try not to judge your worth or the worth of your writing on how many reads or votes it gets.” says Jen, “I’ve found the best way to reach people on Wattpad is to keep writing, keep posting chapters, and make friends. Read other people’s stories, give positive feedback, and make genuine friendships with people.”

Perhaps the best piece of advice Jen can offer writers aiming to reach the Stars program, however, is this: “If writing is something that makes you happy, don’t give up on it.”

Stay tuned for more instalments of Meet The Wattpad Stars. If you’re a brand looking work with these Stars or an entertainment studio hoping to partner with Wattpad Studios to find your next hit story, Get in touch!

As part of Social Media Week Toronto Wattpad will host a panel session about  How Brands + Influencers Can Create Story Magic Together.  The panel examines how brands can work with influencers to drive higher engagement for their brands.  The event takes place at Wattpad’s head office in Toronto from 6:00pm – 8:30pm.  

We have a top tier panel lined up and are looking forward to hosting many of the city’s top marketers, influencers, and advertisers for some engaging discussions.

Panel: 6pm – 6:30PM

Networking Mixer: 6:30 – 8:30PM

Where: Wattpad HQ – 36 Wellington Street East, Toronto

Panel Moderator / Chris Stefanyk, Business Ops & Strategy Lead @ Wattpad

Panelists:

Peter Verlinden / Senior Associate Manager, Media & Content Development, North America @ Mondelez

Romi Moondi / Wattpad Star + Influencer

Azia Merilynn-To / Wattpad Ambassador + Voracious Reader

Please RSVP for this event as capacity is limited.

Social Media Week Toronto delegates and non-delegates are welcome.

RSVP here to reserve your seat.

Admission is free

Thank You to our Incredible Sponsors

This event was made possible with tremendous support from the following sponsors:
    

On Sunday June 12th the Banff World Media Festival, a conference that brings top leaders from across the media landscape to the Canadian Rockies kicks off in beautiful Banff Alberta.

Recently Wattpad announced the launch of Wattpad Studios. Operating as a multi-channel network (MCN), Wattpad Studios will partner with the entertainment industry to co-produce Wattpad stories for print, film, television and digital platforms.

To add further to this dialogue and to highlight how entertainment companies are working with influencers to guide programming and promotion, Wattpad will host a panel at Banff World Media Festival called How Entertainment Companies Are Winning Big With Influencer Content.

The panel will be moderated by Head of Wattpad Studios, Aron Levitz and will feature guest panelists Justin Williams – SVP Digital Ventures from Turner Broadcasting, Damon Berger VP Business Development from Fullscreen, and Wattpad Stars and influencers Leah Crichton and Ninya Tippett.

This panel aims to highlight how influencers, entertainment companies and innovators are leading the curve by embracing a new programming methodology that is changing the face of entertainment.

Panel Date: Monday June 13th, 2016

Time: 2PM

Location: Cascade Ballroom, Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

Join us for this exciting panel and some exciting announcements.

Just over a month ago, we announced an exciting new chapter in the Wattpad story: The launch of Wattpad Studios, a new division that will partner with the entertainment industry to co-produce Wattpad stories for print, film, television, and digital platforms. Today, we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve teamed up with Turner, the global content leader, for a first-of-its-kind partnership where select Wattpad stories will be adapted for the Turner networks.

The initial focus of the partnership will be The Tales from the Crypt, the eagerly anticipated horror programming from Turner’s TNT and executive producer M. Night Shyamalan.  TNT and Wattpad will invite writers around the world to bring their story ideas forward through contests and other opportunities that will be announced on the official Turner profile on Wattpad and on social media.

“Our partnership with Wattpad is a perfect intersection of content and fan engagement, where fans actually have the chance to directly influence and, in some cases even have their material optioned and developed by our networks,” said Justin Williams, senior vice president of digital ventures for TNT and TBS. “We’re especially excited to kick off our collaboration with a focus on TNT’s Tales from the Crypt horror block, which will tap into Wattpad’s strength in the horror genre”

In addition, Turner will also tap into Wattpad’s sophisticated, data-driven models to help identify fresh new talent and ideas from the Wattpad community.  TBS and TNT’s development teams will review stories with an eye toward finding great ideas for television, digital and/or mobile platforms. The networks will also work with Wattpad to share story ideas and other material with the Wattpad community in order to receive immediate feedback from audiences around the world.

With insights on approximately 250 million original story uploads and access to over two million creators, Wattpad is in a unique position to partner with the entertainment industry. “There are many ways we can help the entertainment industry zero-in on new voices and stories with massive, built-in fan-bases. Through our partnership with Turner, Wattpad’s powerful insights, roster of influential writers, and hyper-engaged community of fans will help define the new scary,” said Aron Levitz, head of Wattpad Studios. “The eagerly-anticipated Tales from the Crypt horror block marks the future of television where leading networks source content from fans and build programming together with the audience.”

Wattpad’s partner in the entertainment space, United Talent Agency, helped structure the deal with Turner.

If you’d like to learn more about how Wattpad Studios can help you uncover new talent and diverse content, please contact us.  

Last year, The Wattys became the biggest online writing competition on the planet. Our annual writing celebration brought in over 75,000 entries from 180 countries to completely smash records from previous years.

The Wattys provide a world of opportunity for writers of all levels and launches this month on Monday, June 20th. Today, we’ll outline the top five reasons to get involved with the 2016 edition of The Wattys.

1) Exposure

Taking part in The Wattys is a great way to get started on Wattpad. A story tagged #Wattys2016 will help people find your work and help you get to the reads, votes, and engagement necessary to get your works discovered. Last year, The Wattys supported seven languages and people spent almost 1.2 billion minutes reading Wattys entries in English alone.

2) Instant credibility

Each Wattys award winner receives a custom digital sticker for their story cover. This badge of honor has become synonymous with quality content in the community. Additionally, Wattys winners are featured in multiple Wattpad reading lists and hosted on the winners page.

3) Global reach

In 2015, we opened up The Wattys in 7 languages for the first time ever. Winning stories were selected in English, Filipino, Turkish, Russian, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. This year, we’ve gone even bigger with a total of 22 languages supported. If you want to reach Wattpad’s monthly audience of 45 million people, The Wattys is a great place to start.

4) More ways to win

There are multiple awards up for grabs this year in ten categories. New categories, like Visual Storytelling, will award unique uses of Wattpad’s multimedia feature while the new Trailblazers award aims to uncover the most innovative voices on Wattpad. Follow the official Wattys account, here, to find out more about these categories as soon as the information is available.

5) Community

The Wattys is an annual event like no other. Awards aside, The Wattys help connect the passionate storytellers on Wattpad with the massive and engaged audiences in the Wattpad community. More than a contest, The Wattys is a celebration. This global carnival is marked on the calendars of every passionate Wattpadder because it stirs up energy, conversation, and great original stories. By participating in The Wattys, you’ll find out why people spend over 15 billion minutes every month on Wattpad.

On Wattpad, people love to get to the bottom of a good mystery. Since January, people have spent over 250 million minutes reading stories in Wattpad’s Mystery / Thriller category. To keep the global Wattpad community guessing, we invited 127 of Smashwords’ most riveting mystery makers to take part in #MysteryMay.

#MysteryMay uncovered some intriguing stories. After the launch of Wattpad’s official Mystery profile, our content sleuths revealed a world of sub-genres. Thanks to Wattpad’s content experts, mystery lovers can find legal thrillers, paranormal mysteries and everything in between on the profile. Those with their hands in the cookie jar may also be excited by a unique genre on Wattpad, culinary mysteries anyone?

The story doesn’t end there, though. Here’s the twist: #MysteryMay might be over, but the stories keep coming! Every month, 45 million people around the world use Wattpad to find  next favorite read. Mystery writers (and writers of any genre, for that matter), can get noticed by serializing their stories on the platform.

If you’d like to reach the people searching for a riveting mystery, we recommend adding Wattpad story tags like #mysterymay, #hard-boiled, #whodunit, and #cozymystery to your work. Unable to solve a case of writer’s block? No problem! You can follow regular writing prompts from Wattpad, here.

You never know what you’re going to find when you explore the mysterious side of Wattpad. If you’re looking for a clue to get started, however, we invite you to check out the great stories from Smashwords in mystery and detective or thriller and suspense.

In 2015, people from all over the world shared more than 75,000 entries to take part in The Wattys, Wattpad’s annual writing contest. This year, with the help of the passionate Wattpad community, we’re making the world’s largest online writing contest even bigger by accepting submissions in over 22 languages for the first time!

This global celebration ignites the Wattpad community as fans comment, vote, and search for the best stories tagged #Wattys2016. It also provides huge opportunities for participants.

“Since the launch of The Wattys in 2010, Wattpad has recognized thousands of writers and helped audiences discover some of the best works on Wattpad,” said Marc Shewchun, Wattpad’s Head of Community. “This year, we’re making the Wattys even bigger by opening up the contest to more languages than ever. We’ve also teamed up with Jollibee to offer three exclusive awards in the filipino community. Like Wattpad, The Wattys is a truly global phenomenon.”

Jollibee will sponsor three new awards in Wattpad’s third largest market. This partnership marks a milestone for Wattpad and solidifies what the company and many writers on the platform already know: Taking part in The Wattys is the best and fastest way to reach Wattpad’s monthly audience of over 45 million.

In addition to Jollibee’s regionally exclusive new award categories, Wattpad introduces two new awards for entries: Visual Storytelling and Trailblazers. The Visual Storytelling award recognizes the stunning stories told using Wattpad’s new multimedia feature. It celebrates the graphic novels, magazines, recipe and look books that are now available on Wattpad.

The second award, Trailblazers, recognizes the genre-bending skills of Wattpad writers. Winners of this award are inventive, innovative, and push their limits as modern storytellers. Trailblazers set the bar for content on Wattpad. Their stories challenge conventional writing to show us how different and diverse Wattpad stories are.

As hosts of the world’s largest online writing contest, we understand how exciting and rewarding this process can be for storytellers of all levels. For all updates and tips related to The Wattys, follow our official profile on Wattpad.

If you’d like to participate in this year’s Wattys for a chance to have your story recognized by the global Wattpad community, check out our contest page – here. You can also check out last years’ Wattys winners here.

It’s been a year since Wattpad launched the official LGBTQ+ profile in celebration of World Pride Month. Since then, over 5 million stories tagged with LGBTQ+ have been shared by the passionate community. People have also spent almost five billion minutes reading LGBTQ+ stories since January of this year.

In Toronto, this month’s pride celebrations culminate with the 36th annual Pride Parade on Sunday, July 3. It’s also the first time in the history of Canada that an acting Prime Minister will participate in the Pride Parade.

It’s an important milestone and a great moment for Canada. As a Toronto startup with deep Canadian roots, it’s also another reason to celebrate the unique voices and diverse content that add to the thousands of stories shared on Wattpad daily!

Wattpad fosters supportive and unique communities like FreeTheLGBT. Started in 2014 by @JustLyd (a Wattpad Star and ambassador), it was originally dubbed “TayGetsTheGay” and has since blossomed into a source for inspiring content and a forum for like-minded people. You can read @Justlyd’s full story, here.

As the rainbow flags wave around the streets of Toronto, it’s hard not to reflect on the work we’ve done over the past year to become one of the safest spaces for LGBTQ+ communities to connect online.

By hosting contests, selecting a story every month, celebrating community member milestones, and highlighting short stories, we help showcase the many different types of love around the world. Wattpad Star, Autum Breeze, says it best: “The LGBTQ community on Wattpad is fantastic. Generally everyone is supportive, uplifting and enthusiastic. The readers and writers are a vibrant, unique set of people from all walks of life who share a lot of fabulous stories and personal experiences.”

We hope that you’ll join us in celebrating the rich diversity, strength, and passion of the LGBTQ+ community this month.

When Zoe Aarsen first joined Wattpad, she had no idea that her works would spread like wildfire in the community. “I first joined Wattpad in 2011 under a different account name (@caitlynduffy) and the first full-length story I posted (The Rock Star’s Daughter) pretty quickly reached one million reads. The book had already been released on iTunes, but the reaction it got on Wattpad in terms of comments from readers absolutely blew my mind!”

Zoe would later change her username to @Zaarsenist. After racking up over five million reads across her 10 stories on Wattpad, she was welcomed into the Wattpad Stars program. “ I was elated. It’s been my belief since joining the community that this is the future of publishing, so to be recognized by Wattpad as an influential writer is really flattering. ”

Today, Zoe’s works with studios like Warner Brothers Pictures and Universal Pictures to promote their upcoming movie releases on Wattpad. “I have written stories for brand campaigns for Ouija and The Gallows. Being involved in both projects was not only exciting, because teen horror is my passion and I love scary movies, but professionally fulfilling on multiple levels”

For Zoe,  It’s an astounding time to be a producer and consumer of creative content—and fulfilling to see that brands are catching on to the importance of creating a dialogue with consumers. Outside Wattpad, she works in digital advertising. “Having an opportunity to develop companion fiction for theatrical releases is a dream come true for me because it’s allowed me to demonstrate that branded content builds brand awareness and intent to purchase. Writing such high-profile branded content for Wattpad has given me a portfolio of writing that I otherwise might never have had the chance to produce as I pursue my professional writing goals.”

She truly believes that social media has changed everything for content creators: “The old industry rules don’t apply any longer in the same way that they did for decades,” she says. “If you’re an author with a story in your heart about which you’re passionate, you no longer have to wait for an agent or editor to tell you that you’re good enough. Social media demonstrates that readers’ interests are quite a bit broader than what shoppers typically find on shelves at bookstores.”

Zoe also maintains a deep connection to the Wattpad community and advises new joiners to do the same. “As simple as it sounds, it’s really important to read other writers’ works and comment to get a sense of what other people are sharing, and how it’s being received. Wattpad is a community—you get out of it what you put into it. It’s not reasonable to expect that you’ll post your first story and become an overnight success, although that does happen sometimes! It is, however, reasonable to expect that your writing will quickly improve if you get into a good routine of writing, posting, and taking comments to heart.”

For Wattpad’s queen of paranormal teen fiction, life, at times, seems to be stranger than fiction. “It may sound corny, but it’s true: Wattpad has changed my life. I didn’t think it would ever be possible for me to have a real career in writing, but because of Wattpad it’s happening now.”

Stay tuned for more instalments of Meet The Wattpad Stars. If you’re a brand looking to work with these Stars or an entertainment studio hoping to partner with Wattpad Studios to find your next hit story, Get in touch!

The Wattys are back and bigger than ever. To get you ready for this year’s edition, we interviewed 2015 Watty Award winner, Ekene Ugbaja, and got his thoughts on writing, The Wattys, and being part of the Wattpad community.

Ekene is a Nigerian born writer and student who’s currently based  in London, England. His Watty award winning story, The 4th Estate, is a psychedelic thriller filled with gritty themes and dark undertones. To-date, it’s received over  50,000 reads on Wattpad.

Since joining Wattpad in 2014, Ekene has found a passion for writing, but this was not always the case. It took a run-in with a teacher to show him that his writing might be something audiences were after. “I had a teacher when I was doing GCSE that basically didn’t like me, thought I was noisy and disruptive…she saw me writing some stuff up and it wasn’t the class work, so she thinks that I’m sending notes and forces me to read out to the class.”

What happened next would inspire Ekene and put him on the road to becoming a Watty award winner and Wattpad featured writer. “The class didn’t take the mick, in fact, they kind of liked it. It was an awakening of sorts, and I just liked to write from there and that led some friend that I used to have to tell me that I should write on this thing called ‘Wattpad’.”

Ekene took that advice and decided to upload the The 4th Estate to Wattpad. “In a year I got incredible stats on the book, a Watty award and a great following. It felt great. At its core, it meant that as a writer I’ve got a chance and really that’s all a writer could possibly want. At the end of the day, it was a humbling feeling for me because I was just that lucky to win out of thousands. To be honest, competitions like that really help to bring out those that truly work for it.”

To new entrants, Ekene offers this advice: “It’s all down to your dedication to your craft and ability to just have simple communication skills. Don’t be afraid to personalise your queries. Quirkiness isn’t a bad thing…really that’s your main selling point, your weapon.”

That appreciation for the things that make us unique is what keeps Ekene engaged in the Wattpad community. He’s a supporter of the group Perfectly Imperfect on Wattpad and cofounder of Lemon Haze, an incubator for young writers.

With Lemon Haze, Ekene hopes to pay-forward his success and help new voices find their audience. “ It seems a little cliché but at the end of the day I just want to help other people. If connecting writers with great potential to a steady slew of reviewers and pointing out some great designers is the way that I can do that, I’ll do that.”

For many in the Wattpad community, The Wattys is a great way to connect with like minded storytellers and passionate fans. Ekene’s final thoughts on the Wattys echo our feelings: “Wattpad HQ has really done their users a big service with the creation of the Watty Awards and it’s only going to get better.”

We can’t wait to see what this year’s Wattys brings. If you’d like to participate in this year’s Wattys for a chance to have your story recognized by the global Wattpad community, check out our contest page – here.

Stay tuned for more interviews with Watty award winners. If you’re a media outlet that would like to learn more about the Wattys or connect with a Watty award winner, get in touch!

On July 9th, Argentina will celebrate 200 years of independence. The milestone event will spur celebrations across the country and ignite the community of storytellers that visit Wattpad from across Argentina.

People in Argentina have shared over two and a half million story uploads on Wattpad. They also spent approximately 165 million minutes on Wattpad last month alone!

Here’s what our Wattpad Ambassador, Natalia Alejandra, has to say about the milestone event and Argentinian community on Wattpad: “Argentina won its independence 200 years ago. This is a great reason to celebrate, but I feel we still have a long way to go to earn our place in the world…I can say the Argentine community in Wattpad is a very committed and talented one. A great majority of the Spanish ambassadors are from this country, and a lot of great authors as well. We like to participate and we love to meet up!”

There have already been six meet-ups in Argentina since the first one in January, 2015. In fact, Argentina was the first Spanish country to host a Wattpad meet-up.

“There’s a lot in our culture influencing how we live in communities,” says Natalia, “We have the mate, and the Sunday asado. We tend to always have a reason to gather in large groups to celebrate, or to do whatever…I think over time our community is just going to get bigger and stronger.”

People in Argentina share a variety of stories on Wattpad in a multitude of categories. Facundo Caivano joined Wattpad two years ago. Since then, his epic thriller Z: El Senor De Los Zombies has received almost two and a half million reads.

Other Wattpad Ambassadors like Nadin Velazquez and Annsyn Rodd have been invaluable members of our community. Thanks to people like them, the Argentinian community on Wattpad has become one of the largest and most active on the platform.

For the people who are out in the streets of Argentina, celebrating 200 years of independence, congratulations and we wish you all the best. The memories and stories shared over that grand expanse of time (and in the future) will always have a home on Wattpad.

Summer is in the air and things are starting to heat up for Wattpad in the news. With all the buzz around Wattpad Studios becoming a Hollywood idea factory, you may have missed some of the other articles on Wattpad and the Wattpad Stars. We put together this roundup to keep you in the loop.

Last month, the prolific Anna Todd set down in Germany to promote her series, After. The turnout was astounding! Check out her rockstar reception, here. Meanwhile, Taran Matharu, Wattpad writer and published author, sat down for an interview with The Guardian to talk about his career and dish out some advice for new writers.

YouTube celebrity, Grace Helbig is also someone who loves to work with new writers. At this year’s VidCon, she spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about her Wattpad project, Freak Week. The contest gave Wattpadders the opportunity to create an original story with her through the #WritingWithGrace story tag. Over the course of the campaign, Grace selected her favourites chapters to create a crowdsourced, original fiction. You can read the story, here, and check out a live reading of the work at VidCon, here.

Speaking of celebrities, it’s possible that no one keeps up with the Kardashians better than Wattpad Star Kevin Fanning. In this podcast, produced by Elizabeth Minkel, Kevin chats about fanfiction, branded content, and, of course, Kim K!

If that podcast put you in the mood for some wild reads, check out this list of the craziest One Direction fan fiction of all time by Refinery29.

We hope that you enjoyed this news roundup. Journalists who’d like to receive regular updates or work with our team on their next feature article can get in touch, here!