But how did WattPad gain this momentum, and how did this then 15 year old find success in such short order?
WattPad’s Humble Beginnings
Originally launched in 2006, WattPad began as a ebook site for mobile users to access full copies of over 17,000 books from Project Gutenberg. And by 2009, over 5 million users had downloaded the WattPad application. To put this into perspective, this was before the iPhone 3GS was released and the year GPS finally made it to mobile users. So before an iPhone app, or a Blackberry version launched mainstream, WattPad had more users than it knew what to do with.
WattPad Now
So what does the site look like now? For being 11 years old this site has done more for writers than publishing houses have done in the same amount of time. WattPad launched at a crucial time in Internet history. 2008 has been coined by some to be the year mobile users went “app crazy” downloading anything and everything because the idea of being able to do everything on such a small device was so new and wonderful that if they could get it, they wanted it.
WattPad was one of the first user generated content apps to hit the market and became one of the most successful - mostly due to a wealth of investors and good management. Since WattPad’s main site’s success, WattPad has gone on to launch 3 more ventures: WattPad After Dark (launched in 2015 - focused on adult romance genre); Tap (launched in 2017 - focused on stories told through the medium of private text messaging); and WattPad in the Philippines (a partnership with Pop Fiction to print Filipino Wattpad stories in the Philippines). All three ventures have proven to be incredibly successful, the most notably being Tap. Launched in February of 2017, in the first few weeks it had over 240 million taps and began launching originals by the end of July that same year.
Along with this, WattPad has proven to be an asset to new authors and teen writers who otherwise would have no outlet or platform to gain any sort of notoriety through contests and publishing deals. WattPad has gained contracts with several publishing houses as well as one of its own - mostly doing limited releases. What this site has been able to do in a few years for publishing and writers everywhere is astounding. Worldwide this has become more than just a blog site. It has created a worldwide community of writers and creators, bonding those connected by something truly special.
Who is Beth Reekles?
If you want to hear about a WattPad success story, Beth Reekles is that girl. From South Wales, Beth was drawn to the site because of the community and anonymity it offered. Self conscious about her writing when she first began posting, the anonymity gave her confidence to post her first chapters. Her work “The Kissing Booth” was popular as she was still posting chapters, but continued to gain notoriety long after it had finished. At the current count, she has over 128,000 followers on WattPad and the sample of her novel has over 4.2 million reads - the full text being pulled now that it has been published and made into a Netflix Original Film. After this success of the book in 2012, Beth went on to write two more novels on WattPad that have translated to hard copy books. A then 15 year old, has gone on to become a 21 year old Physics graduate from Exeter University, who also has a literary agent. And all of this because of a website that gave her the confidence to post her story freely.
Final Thoughts
Sites like WattPad that are so creator driver and protective are few and far between. I am a major rep for this site because - as a writer myself - it provides a community of people working together to create beautiful work. Though there is still some creator to creator negativity or harassment, the community rallies behind the author being attacked - even if they haven’t read each other's work.
Online communities like this that are so close knit are hard to come by these days and I applaud the creators, collaborators, and site runners for translating literary expression into the 21st century and giving others who don’t have the ability to a place to publish their own work.
