This is the second in my series on using Wattpad to promote your writing and get it in front of more readers. In part 1 I provided an overview of Wattpad and now I’ll explore setting up your account and profile.
Account Set-up
Account set-up is pretty easy. Just navigate to www.wattpad.com and click Sign Up in the upper right hand corner.
You need only supply a username, email address and password. If you prefer you can sign up/log in with through FaceBook or Google+.
After that Wattpad wants to know your gender and birth date, but you can skip entering that information if you like.
Finally, Wattpad will ask you to choose three books from a displayed list. It does this so it can construct a suggested reading list for you. After selecting your books, you are taken to your “home page”.
The first thing you should do is create a profile. Wattpad is like many other social media sites in that regard, differing only in the profile’s location and content restrictions.
Profile Set-up
You are not required to set up a profile. In fact, if all you want to do is read, you need never create a profile.
Your default (empty) profile is located on the left hand side of the About tab on your “home page”.
To create your profile, select My Profile from the drop list in the upper right hand corner. Your profile will default to this at first:
Edit the content by using the Edit Profile button on the right hand side of the home page. Alternatively you can just click the Add Description button.
You will be presented with three text boxes to be filled in:
- Location text box
- About text box
- My Website text box
The About text box has a limit of 2000 characters and can include HTML links.
There’s no validation performed on text entries, so be careful when entering your web site address (if you have one).
Save Changes or Cancel using the buttons in the upper right hand corner.
A completed profile will look something like this:
Profile Tips
First of all, don’t leave your profile empty; if you are serious about getting exposure the About section needs to be filled in with relevant personal information. For example:
- Your reason for writing
- How long you’ve been writing
- Personal details that shed light upon you as an author
- Other information on your genre type and targeted audience
Second, Like any social media profile, be judicious with personal details. No one needs to know about your addiction to Yo Gabba Gabba re-runs unless, of course, it’s relevant to your writing. You could include your goals for Wattpad (number of reads and follows, for example).
Third, you can add additional links within the About text box; you can use this ability to point people to your Goodreads profile, Pinterest page, Twitter or other social media accounts (or your YouTube channel if you have one).
Your profile should parallel the profile information you have entered on other social medial platforms for branding consistency.
Ensure the My Website entry is a URL pointing to your author platform or blog.
The Location textbox will allow you to enter pretty much anything; I just included my province within Canada.
The profile is pretty straightforward and is by no means fancy, but it shouldn’t be ignored.
You will note there are some other icons just under your completed About box. Next time we’ll cover those, along with cover other profile associated issues such as adjusting settings, uploading a profile image and setting a banner image. These are all things you will want to address although, strictly speaking, they are not part of profile.
So, do you use Wattpad? What’s your experience been? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading, and I will see again next time.
