OMG lucky!! Congrats!!
I wish I’d rank that high one day and then get stuck there 
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I mean, it’s not a huge tag by any means (imagine getting stuck in Romance or MxM or something) but it does seem to have some readers that check it out.
Apparently, the trick to getting higher rankings was to take down almost all of my story, revise it, and then republish (which did cause a flurry of reads from former readers, that I think propelled the rankings).
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Nice, I am glad it stuck there!
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I basically lived in fear of this happening for 3 years. So, maybe it wouldn’t happen this time.
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Mine just updated! Looks like it might be fixed! Though if I remember right, after a break they might update twice in the same day
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Oh, god, yes, it updated. Trapped was further slaughtered with now ranking in a single category and horridly. Nothing else looks promising.
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That does seem to happen to completed stories, unfortunately (SLB had the same thing happen before I revised it). It’s really a can’t-win situation, as readers do often seem to want finished stories, but they can’t find them since those stories plummet in the rankings.
SLB is maintaining good rankings for now, it feel in #freethelgbt but rose to #3 in #comingout.
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Trapped is also feeling the aftermath of the feature 1 year ago, as it is losing the engaged readers it won over that period. That’s after a month of updates I just did with it running high daily readers numbers when I was trying to hit that 7.5K ER count. So, to algorithm, it is just plunging into the bottomless pit. I think it is actually sinking it. It’s just scary how bad it is. It’s so easy to blame myself atm. If I only was a better writer… if I wasn’t so stupid to update it… (sigh)
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I don’t think you should blame yourself, you’re an excellent writer. But that damn algorithm doesn’t seem to care about stuff like that! And I do think it may punish stories that used to have more reads, as it probably compares the story to itself somehow.
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It did update! Finally. I only got up a couple of rankings in no major tags 
Oh, and that’s just for one of my stories. The other stories have no rankings at all!
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I think that in all honesty, people should start looking outside Wattpad, and not post everything there, and use Wattpad as a portfolio for a few stories, and that’s it. And not worry about the rankings and having loads of reads because outside of Wattpad, it doesn’t really mean much. We should all be looking at other avenues for publishing, even self-pub.
And I agree, that writers who are obviously talented shouldn’t be punished by any algorithm and that they should be reaping the awards of hard work. And people should be paying them for their work. I understand building up an audience and letting them read some things, but even I am not putting everything up there.
Even on Radish too. It takes time to get anywhere, and yeah, you might be able to get more money from it but you still have to play the game and hide stuff behind a paywall. And hope that people actually like it and that they don’t do well enough at the free games to get the whole story for free if you wanna get paid.
It’s a risk and a LOT of writers have taken their stuff off Wattpad’s Paid Stories as well because they haven’t really been making money from it, from what I can see. I’m not trying to be rude or cynical, and I’m not saying that you can’t get lucky on Wattpad, but for the amount of effort that some of you writers put into Wattpad, a lot of you don’t seem to be getting a lot back.
Maybe it’s time to focus and spread your wings a bit and look outside of Wattpad. Maybe even self-publish. I am starting to realize that myself. You can always write on Wattpad and enter contests, hone your writing skills and use Wattpad as a way to build an audience and learn etiquette and talk to other writers and readers, but if you’re after money and more, you should always start expanding and look elsewhere and not put all your eggs in one basket online.
Just adding my two cents here because it seems like Wattpad themselves don’t even know what they are doing with the rankings at times, lol. It all used to make sense, but now as some have pointed out, it doesn’t make sense at all. Because of the coding too, and Wattpad’s tagging system being messed up at implementation.
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Omg this. This is a heavy lesson I’ve learnt recently. Where I’ve been off work for over a year, all I’ve been doing is, well, writing, but also Wattpad. I’ve put so much time and energy into it and I became obsessed with it. I’ve been getting major imposter syndrome because Wattpad have never noticed me. Not once. The Ambs do in things like ONC or the Ambys, but never ever Wattpad.
Then I realised it doesnt matter. Wattpad will never notice me because my writing isn’t Wattpad. So I’m really trying to branch out now. Radish is doing okay but it’s a slow month for me, I think Radish have their own issues going on so they’re not really doing much promo or whatever.
Writing online is so hard and I think people get obsessed with getting big because it’s a much “easier” way to become big compared to trad. publishing, but with the rise of Wattpad (and their lesser competitors that aren’t as popular) it’s actually probably the same, if not harder, to get noticed.
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Here is why I don’t want to self-pub (this is an expert of a blog I get sent):
Plenty of people try the self-publishing route and find they don’t shift any books. As a matter of fact, the large majority of self-pub authors don’t sell a significant volume of books.
That’s not surprising, because to succeed at self-pub (with a few exceptions, as always), you need:
** To be able to write well.*
** To write several books.*
** To master the various disciplines of self-pub (cover design, copy-writing, website set up, mailing list set up, paid advertising, etc).*
** To actually execute on those disciplines in a steady, committed way.*
It’s just not for me. All I want is to find flexible and dedicated readership who are okay with me not writing series.
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So much this! Self-publishing sounds exhausting and with so little possibility for reward at the end of the tunnel unless you really excel at all of these aspects. I’m also not really someone who is motivated by money (I mean, money is nice to have but I write for self-fulfillment rather than make extra cash from it) so it’s difficult for me to see what self-publishing would give me that Wattpad doesn’t. And the one major thing I probably wouldn’t get if I self-published is the immediate feedback (and subsequent ego boosts 
) that Wattpad gives me through reader reactions. Because I may not have a huge readership, I do have a small dedicated group who usually check out my works.
I’m considering querying my stories for trad publishing though, even though I know it’s a long shot (but again, mostly for self-fulfillment rather than money reasons, although making enough to quit my day job would be nice it’s not something I ever count on being able to do).
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Speaking of tag ranking. They now seem to change every darn time I look at WP. Like, 3 times today???
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That’s my goal in life
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I think that the less you listen to “experts”, the better. Most of them are full of bull. What worked for them, really mightn’t work for you. That’s what they don’t tell you. They don’t tell you to find new avenues and diversify, and they don’t tell you the positives of self-publishing, if you can get it right.
They never seem to tell you to market on social media or TikTok. If you can master that and get people invested and raving about your books, you don’t even need to be an excellent writer. You need to find a way to forge your own path, find a market, and go for it. You need to get people interested and invested in your writing.
Most of these newsletters are old-fashioned, and the advice isn’t adapted to the times. No one thinks outside of the box. They assume that what worked for them works for everyone, and some of them even want you to go along with the con and believe them, sign up to them and give them commissions. They want to get you caught up on the web, and not progress.
Yes, it is definitely preferable to be a proficient writer, write more than one book and you might need to set up a website, but WHO is going to see it if YOU DON’T PUT YOURSELF OUT THERE AND ADVERTISE ON SOCIAL MEDIA?
Social media is all the rage, and it has been proven to boost book sales, and even resurrect books that haven’t been selling for ages. See all that BookTok made me buy it stuff? It’s not there for no reason. You CAN self-publish, and you sure as heck don’t have to write a series.
Chuck Tingle isn’t an amazing writer, and he’s successful because he found his niche and people started to hear about him online. People still read his books and they get joy from them and actually like them.
You don’t have to be all these things that the experts say if you can find your place. You CAN have a flexible readership without being tied down to publishing companies and stuck in contacts that you hate. Honestly? A lot of people listen to these “so-called experts” and they get nowhere at all. Because it doesn’t work for them. (Yes, it might work for some people, but quite a few get frustrated because they’re not in the same genre or finding the same reach as the experts are. But what I am saying is, it won’t work for everyone, and everyone shouldn’t expect it to work for them if it isn’t working, try something else).
I say, throw yourself out there and find something that works for you if nothing is working from the “experts”. No one path is the same. Not everyone gets traditionally published, and I don’t see anything wrong with giving it a go. You don’t know where it might get you. Try something other than the published route. You don’t HAVE to let these “so-called experts” keep brainwashing you, and go down their route if you do something else that “shouldn’t” work in their eyes and it works.
Don’t be afraid to experiment and market things. You don’t even have to go down the traditional self-published route either. You can use more than Amazon too; there is a whole world of options out there for you to explore, and when I write some more experimental stories (yes, I do want to take my time and make them acceptable/interesting), I am gonna market them on more than Amazon, and TikTok. And even Twitter.
Even the big publishing companies and traditionally published authors are getting on board with the social media thing, it’s a very powerful tool. Everyone needs to adapt to the changing times and do things differently if they wanna survive. Not just set up a website and hope and pray people will go to it.
Everything is competitive now. Even within trad pub circles, some of them have actual competition outside of the big 4/5 publishing companies now because of social media.
Yeah, I think that independent (not Wattpad Corp run) contests tend to recognize stories that are outliers more than Wattpad Corp themselves do. My writing doesn’t fit Wattpad much either, but I go on there to leave the odd message and post up some things, and I never win anything (but I don’t care about that). It helped me starting out, but now, I don’t see much of a point in it outside of some contests.
The more you branch out, the more you will find your niche and something will eventually work for you and what your goals are, and what you want to achieve. Writing online is hard The market is saturated and everyone does want to get big as you said.
Like I said above, I bet if you can find your place and find a niche and stand out in some way, you will get noticed and people will come and see you. And be interested in what you have if you can do social media well enough, and get people invested in your stories.
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Nah, that blog actually come with advertisement of 3 part seminar one part of it is BookTok. 
But, if I could do TikTok, I would be on tiktok. I want to just write. So, Wattpad/Radish is really the only venue for me.
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Interesting lol a lot of them don’t actually tell you that. A lot of them just are like this worked for me so… yeah…
Fair enough, from that POV. You just want to write.
I am definitely gonna do BookTok and get people’s attention and get them watching and reading. I hope.
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I gave up years ago. It’s basically completely random and doesn’t mean anything anymore. But the reads are nice when you do randomly rank.
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