Wattpad and the promise of fame: this is how the web where Flor M. Salvador and other writers succeed

It’s nothing new. 15 years ago Wattpad was launched, an online platform that allows you to upload and download texts in the form of poems, stories, articles, novels (20 genres, in total) and that works with the logic of a free access social network: create a account and start posting content or reading it for free. That easy.

Due to its simplicity, this application quickly became the favorite, above all, of young readers who saw in the interaction with other users, the possibility of improving their stories and also creating a community, connecting with authors of their age, in their language and common interests.

So popular did this tool become, and its scope so wide, that they began calling it the ‘millennials library‘Well, of the nearly 400 million stories that are published monthly in more than 50 languages, 80% belong to this age group. To date, and according to information on its website, the platform has more than 80 million wattpadders registered all over the world who, with their texts and readings, are in charge of keeping it current.

Advantages and disadvantages

The detractors of technology point out, in addition to other reasons, that it distances young people from reading. Wattpad has shown the opposite, more than an enemy it is an ally of this new generation of readers and authors. A brief survey of users of the platform indicates that the success of Wattpad lies in the diversity of youth topics found in the catalog – friendship, love, heartbreak, emotional conflicts, etc. – and in the comments and evaluation that the stories receive because in this way, their texts are enriched.

What is a real drawback is the editorial orphanhood (editing, proofreading) that directly affects the background and the form of the stories. So is the absence of a filter to identify and prevent the sharing of plagiarized texts. All this fuels criticism about the lack of literary quality that exists on Wattpad and fuels the debate about whether this type of story is really literature.

Flower in spring

“I feel something weird with ‘Boulevard’. I love it because it was the first book I wrote, but when I reread it physically, it cost me and I wondered: ‘Why did I put this on?’ ‘This should remove it.’ I have reread it three times, but only for editing”, Confesses Flor Salvador, a Mexican author who wrote her first novel (“ Boulevard ”) on Wattpad at the age of 15 and which transcended the publishing world on paper, on request, last year, becoming a ‘best seller’ in several countries. like Spain, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina.

Salvador thinks that he could remove some things and rewrite others minimally so that the novel, which has 62.9 million views on the virtual platform, and which was born as an amateur fiction, is better understood. Happily he says, soon he will be able to do it in a new edition.

In the last two weeks, the young Mexican writer, now 21 years old, mobilized around ten thousand adolescents and young people in Lima who gathered at the book signings that Cosmo Editorial organized on the occasion of the launch of “Silence”.

In addition to “Boulevard”, Flor Salvador has written nine more stories on Wattpad. Three of them, sequels to his first title: “After him”, “Before her” and “Eternal”. “Silence” is a relatively new title that unlike “Boulevard” has 1.84 million views.

From virtuality to physicality

Although all of the above sounds like numbers, the truth is that it is about letters, like the bet of the creation of Cosmo Editorial, responsible for the edition of “Silence”. “The main reason for creating this publishing house is the love for youth literature. This genre is undoubtedly one of the keys to encourage and cultivate the habit of reading in the following generations. Hence the need to be able to share moving stories and with great messages to that audience that is in this beautiful and chaotic stage.”, Says Thiara Saldaña, general manager of Cosmo Editorial.

Saldaña points out that although “Silence” is not such a well-known story within the platform, even for Flor Salvador’s readers, as editors they saw an opportunity in it. “There were changes in the plot, the characters were better worked and we introduced an abstract element that made the book something more profound”. The first 12,000 copies of the work that were published were sold out in three weeks. A second edition is already underway and also the collaboration with a large publishing house.

Other authors that emerged from Wattpad

Anna Todd is perhaps the best known and most famous case to come off the platform and whose juvenile novel made the leap to paper and also to film. The three books that make up the “After” saga have sold more than 15 million copies in 15 languages ​​around the world.

Other relevant cases are that of Taran Matharu and Abigail Gibbs. The first wrote “The Legend of the Sorcerer” on Wattpad, with four million views that were enough support for Planeta to publish it in book format. The second, reached 17 million readers with the story “The dark heroine.” His book was also published under the Editorial Planeta seal.