Am I going to use Wattpad?
Background: On the weekend, Geoff read an article in the Globe and Mail about Wattpad (an article I would link to right now except the Globe and Mail website is “experiencing an internal server error. Our engineers are working to resolve the problem as we speak” so I can’t) and was very Why don’t you try this out? You could get new readers! You could get better feedback! You could be even more awesome than you are now! Well, sort of that with less exclamation marks and reinforcing of my awesomeness. So I said I’d look at it, but I was on the iPad and I don’t like typing on that silly in-screen keyboard, but I did sign up and today I actually went to look at Wattpad and the answer as to whether I am going to use it or not: I don’t know.
The first thing I did was read through the Terms of Service because of the one thing I wanted to know the most: If I post something on Wattpad, who owns it? Me or the site? So the Terms of Service say For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions, which made me think okay, but then goes on to say that Wattpad can use, reproduce, distribute, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the Wattpad.com Website and its affiliates. So I started to go hmmmm.
And now for short stories, almost everything I submit to now seems to have big flashing warnings saying (don’t worry, I’m not going to use a blink tag) Your submission must have never appeared on the internet before, so I’d be reluctant to put shorter things out there. But I could use Wattpad for longer stories. I could get some additional feedback for Come From Away and stop complaining to Geoff about my course: I am getting feedback that is helping my novella become a better novella, but I am finding it to be a very negative process due to only negative feedback with nothing positive. And I assume Wattpad is like an echo chamber – people will be like I loved it! because if they hated it, they probably quit part way through and couldn’t be bothered to comment. I love being loved.
I read a story on Wattpad. It was decent. Reading through the Terms of Service, I’m not 100% convinced I am supposed to link to Wattpad stories. But I will. The worst that can happen is they kick me out and I haven’t done anything other than make my avatar the picture we took in Costa Rica in June of a tree frog. I might make my background picture Debre Sina, Ethiopia, then it’ll match my twitter profile.
I am trying to find more stories to read. There are four separate categories for vampire, werewolf, fantasy, and paranormal. I can’t seem to find literary fiction. The closest category seems to be Other. Maybe Non-teen fiction?
I am going hmmmm again.
I recognize that, with the exception of short stories which I will continue to submit to journals, self-publishing is likely the route I will end up taking. I’m not sold on Wattpad yet. Margaret Atwood telling me yay on the about page doesn’t cut it.
Still, I need to get over my squeamishness regarding self and online and e-book publishing. But, at heart, I fear I am a book Luddite.