Keeping Wacky Alive! Let's Brainstorm šŸ§ 

The Chatters
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I think most of us have gone through some changes, whether major or minor, over the past 2 and a half years. Thereā€™s been a lot going on. 2 years ago, I used to check in daily on Wacky, monitor all the new threads, make sure everything ran smoothly.

As life offline picked up, I wasnā€™t able to do as much. Heck, I donā€™t even remember when was the last time I created a new topic :grimacing: And I feel like thatā€™s been the case for many of us. With lockdowns around the world beginning to ease up, weā€™ve been leaving the house more and spending less time on writing forums.

But, aspiring writers will never cease to exist. And as writers, we need a community to hone our craft. Wacky has provided a welcoming home to many creative people, and it can continue to do so, if we can figure out a way to keep it going.

So, aside from its mere existence, what kind of Wacky activity would motivate you (if you have the possibility) to donate to the forum?

Or, more importantly, what would attract you to spend more time with us?

What kind of features or content would you consider worth your investment?

Letā€™s discuss what we love about Wacky, and what we would love to see!

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Iā€™ll start: personal threads :rofl:

I suck at social media, but Iā€™ve developed a taste for journaling, and sometimes it feels good to ramble to an audience, however small that audience might be. I scrolled down memory lane the other day and it was really interesting to me to see the progress of my rambles over the course of one year or so :rofl:

Downside is that personal threads donā€™t offer much engagement, which is what a community thrives on :sweat_smile:

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You mean to attract more affluent users? I could be wrong, but Iā€™m thinking anyone with money would prefer to go to a paid forum that would help them with book promotion, like the Alliance of Independent Authors, for instance. I suspect thatā€™s where Ximera Grey went sometime back. ćƒ¾(Ā“ā–½ļ½€)

I donā€™t think itā€™s a lack of motivation thatā€™s the problem, but a lack of fundage. Weā€™re all dirt poor. If I had any moolah Iā€™d donate right now; I feel obligated since Iā€™m one of the top ten most active users here. But everyone on Wacky is either a teen, a college student, or a poor adult living in the sticks. Or yanno, New Jersey. Where are we going to get any lucre? ĀÆ\_(ļ­¢)_/ĀÆ

I sure wish we could attract Brandon Sanderson or Stephen King! Anyone know one of them? ā˜œ(Ė†ā–æĖ†c)

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Iā€™m from New Jersey and I approve this message.

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Not me XD

Too bad everything costs money, huh?
Set up a gofundme because I canā€™t donate through paypal. And I would.

Also, idk how the forum works. Like, does the amount needed to run the forum have anything to do with how many people use the forum?

If not, I wouldnā€™t mind promoting Wacky on IG to get more people to come in here because, Iā€™m getting to your question, engaging with many different kinds of people is what would make me consider a worthy investment. I could even ask for funding on Wackyā€™s behalf if there was a gofundme. Makes it easy for a lot of people to donate.

It would be cool to actually get an interview with a published author on tips for writing and publishing and stuffā€¦ actually, you know, I wouldnā€™t mind asking a few author friends. Then they can also promote their book andā€¦

brainstormingā€¦

you know, because published authors need a platform, too?

Iā€™m thinking too, you HAVE to have a Wattpad account to join Wacky or no? Because if not, then more people would be likely to join.

Also, I know how hard it is to keep a community engaged. I know. I was on Figment. You canā€™t be having contests all the time because contests take time. You canā€™t be constantly on the forums as a mod or admin either because you have your own life. You practically have to start living on the forums. Itā€™s hard to keep engagement hyped up. So hard.

My thoughts are all over the place right now.

Back to IG, I think the Wacky IG should be more active. A lot of authors and writers are active on IG, but they donā€™t know about Wacky and I have promoted Wacky in my posts, but thereā€™s nowhere for people to go if they want to take a peek at what Wacky is all about. I think Wacky IG should promote the forums more to get more people to find value in the site and hence, then, donate (gofundme).

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Iā€™m headed to bed now, but nope! Anyone can join Wacky, no special social media required! :blush: The more the merrier - itā€™s always awesome to meet new people, but my brain is too much mush to answer your more specific questions right now.

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Have a good sleep! :blush:

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I would donate if I could, but Iā€™m currently unable to work so weā€™re living off one wage plus benefits right nowā€¦ so yeah, I canā€™t afford to.
Iā€™m writing full time so I check in here everyday, even if Iā€™m not posting.

For me, I think activity has slowed. But I think thats happened on Wattpad too. A lot of users I know on WP are mentioning the same, and itā€™s probably to do with covid easing up, people working more, people canā€™t afford stuff so working more as well.

Idk. Itā€™s difficult.

@TheTigerWriter (sorry for tagging!) mentioned in the other thread about Dreamland - and Iā€™m probably biased as I spend a lot of time there, butā€¦

Dreamland Community are mainly for book clubs but their discord is a big hive for activity. They do a lot of places on Discord to just talk - whether itā€™s about books, genres, writing in general, wattpad, other places (inkitt radish etc) and a place to promote. Itā€™s like this place but in Discord form.
They also do book clubs on WP.

They also bring in a supporter (its brand new) ko-fi and people donate as little as $1 or some donate $25 a month to help the creator of the community fund things - she puts a TON of work in and she uses the funds to better the community

I think turning this place into something like that might help. Not necessarily book clubs, but I joined the Discord yesterday and I think it could do wonders for the community.
I noticed on WP, the featured ā€¦ errā€¦ feature? (lol didnt know how to word it) gets a lot of traction. I think one of my books was featured when it was brand new, so 2 years ago, and I got a banner on the forums. Maybe integrating something like that again, and on the discord if it grows would be a great initiative. It brought me a few readers back then, too, so itā€™s a good way for people to have a mutual growing thing.

Anyway, Iā€™m rambling. But if thereā€™s not a lot of time for CJ and the mods to do this, you could ā€œhireā€ people (volunteers) to help grow the community if they can work on the discord and profile on WP. But I think branching out maybe into book clubs and/or the discord would be great!

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Ahaha, no, thatā€™s not what I was thinking :rofl: I meant investment more as a time investment, something that gets people to engage more, or that will help us reach more users who are able to spend time on the platform.

If activity is high, that potentially also means more eyeballs on our ads. Of course no one will ever be obligated to pay, or be rich to use Wacky. The whole point is to keep it free.

No, but having a larger active userbase gives us more options for survival.

Nope, you donā€™t need a Wattpad :grin: It started after the Wattpad forums shut down, so a big part of our users are also on Wattpad, but itā€™s not ā€œmandatoryā€. We really just want to be a place for all creatives, so feel free to spread the word wherever you like, and thank you :hugs:

Weā€™ll consider the gofundme.

Kind of sums it up, I guess :sweat_smile: I think Dreamland has taken off the way it has because itā€™s built an audience around the bookclubs and I think thatā€™s a great strategy, but quite different from what Wacky has been. But weā€™ll take it into consideration, thank you for dropping by :blush:

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Promote it to Kim Kardashian.

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You know what, if I had a direct line to them, I would :rofl:

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Haha yes! Realistically though all we can do is keep promoting this place. And hope that people who have money are generous enough to donate.

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Yep, pretty much. Thatā€™s why I was wondering if thereā€™s anything we could do to make the platform more attractive on both counts.

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Btw, Iā€™ve been getting lots of interesting responses to my dearpublishedauthors series on IG. I ask self published and published authors tips and tricks into publishing. Maybe there could be a connection there?

Maybe an author feature?

You know, I could ask some of my IG author friends on there if theyā€™d like to answer questions. They could even promote their book on here maybe? (idk if theyā€™d answer questions without something in return. They might, but you knowā€¦ :woman_shrugging: )

I remember Figment used to have writers ask a bunch of questions to an up-coming author guest and then that author would come onto the forums and answer them interview style. That was really cool. It was only for a limited afternoon and I could barely make it because of time differences :sweat_smile: Still, cool nonetheless.

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I wasnā€™t even aware there was social media for WW :') I just took a peek (and accidentally clicked on a mods Linkedin, my bad) and I can see that FB was abandoned in 2021, Twitter is also seemingly semi-dead, and I canā€™t find an Insta :blush: It might be worth looking into utilising one, or more, of those platforms, as well as TikTok, given the large writing community on TikTok and Facebook? That wonā€™t help engage current users more, but it can help you find more members?

It might be worth a look at other writing forums, and seeing what theyā€™re up to. They may not be as active as this place, but thereā€™s a lot thatā€™ve been operating for over a decade. Things like anthologies created by members (and then sold via Amazon etc) are quite popular a few times a year on a lot of other places. Especially more thematic ones, such as Halloween or Christmas collections.

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We have an insta - Wispstagram

Our social media is hard to keep up with, which is why our Insta and Twitter are stagnant. :sweat: :sob:

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Ah, that explains why I couldnā€™t find it haha!

Social media is a tricky beast, but it shouldnā€™t be hard to keep up with them. Connect them all to a scheduler of your choice and itā€™s a once-a-week job at worst :smiley:

I didnā€™t run an audit on the site itself, but might be worth combining a really solid content strategy with the social media if you guys do want more users, particularly as the main audience is, well, writers ^^

And just as far as schedulers go, if you want something with a bit more meat than Hootsuite (and presumably easier than whatever you guys use now?), this is what I use: https://postoplan.contenive.com/

Iā€™ve never found a platform as cheap, I have zero problems with it, although Iā€™m not sure what features are free or paid for as I got a LTD a few years back :s

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Iā€™m not usually on the social media side of things, but Iā€™m sending this info over to the team because tips never hurt! Thanks! :purple_heart:

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I love traditional forums, but I think the tide has shifted toward Discord. With all the Wattpad Discords already out there youā€™d have to think hard to figure out what our niche would beā€”if we donā€™t have one weā€™ll be smothered by the othersā€”but thereā€™s probably something. Iā€™ve had these sorts of discussions with other people before about growing communities on Wattpad and our consensus was that unless we have a way to hack into Wattpadā€™s servers and give our members more reads, retaining new members is difficult. But thereā€™s certainly a way.

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We could probably swing something like that, yep. We used to try and do blog posts with featured guests, but that kinda fizzled out due to lack of time/resources. But if you have any ideas/connections, we could definitely collaborate on something like this :grin:

So what would you consider our niche to be?

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