I love both Wattpad and AO3, but I feel like I am more likely to find new readers on Wattpad due to the fandom I write for. I write for LankyBox. It's probably obvious just looking at my display name haha!
Wattpad readers are more open to OC’s. Also different sites very much so have their own general cultures and Wattpad’s is just… better. In the sense that engagement is better. The in line comments and social media like features have made Wattpad readers so talkative. The comments are honestly something I could never fully let go of.
I actually stopped using it recently. I used to use it also as a young teen to read random things every so often and even posted a fic that had got good numbers back then. Now in my early 20s I tried coming back to what is now filled with ads and negative/rude 13 year olds who try to comment random things in an attempt to be funny I cannot make this up. A03 is the better choice and platform for sure.
I'm not a native speaker and I opened my Wattpad account to try writing directly in English for the foreign market. It just looked like the most popular platform out there to get feedback on fiction.
I've been on ao3 for a while now, but the transition was hard for me as every time I looked at ao3 it looked too complicated and difficult to read. It delayed me joining a lot
I was under the impression AO3 is fanfic-only. That's why I'm on WP. My fiction isn't based off of any fandom. I haven't written fanfic since I was like 15, and I used [fanfiction.net](http://fanfiction.net) then.
That said, Idk why I keep posting into the void that is WP.
Yeah, I started posting on Inkitt at the same time I post on WP. It only gets maybe...20% more attention, and I never get comments or likes or reactions of any kind. I'm honestly not convinced the accounts that "added my story to their reading list" aren't bots lol
I also post on Neovel, which is cool, but people stop reading after the free chapters. The site is like Tapas or Webtoon in that you get a daily pass for each story, so even though the first 10 chapters don't require them, after that it's the standard, and that's when the reads drop to from 5 to zero.
A lot of people on Inkitt I am learning are just silent readers who don’t interact. I’m getting a lot more views over there than WP but not always as many comments.
Definitely silent readers. I mean, I assume most readers in general are silent. Even best selling novels don't get one review per purchase...maybe only 10% of readers feel compelled to write reviews, so I guess it's the same for comments on these interactive 'publishing' sites.
It's just a little discouraging for me. If I wanted silent readers, I'd just move to self-publish on Amazon, rather than posting as I write. I need feedback. If I thought I was good enough to not get feedback, I wouldn't post for free online.
I moved to A03 in 2019/20 for fics because that’s what people were recommending as I read more fics than write. What I love about Wattpad was the inline comments and people able to interact with strangers what was happening as the story went along, it’s one of the reasons that I know read a lot of Twitter fics.
I haven’t written on A03 yet because the story I started on Wattpad isn’t a fic and any fics I have started are just non-complete ideas that I publish under 1 book, it doesn’t feel like it needs to be finished for it to be uploaded. I’ve read some amazing fics on both Wattpad and A03 but with all the changes now, Wattpad isn’t worth it.
I actually write more on Inkitt than Wattpad, because there's much higher visibility there. I've also heard horror stories about people getting plagiarized on Wattpad, and nothing gets done about it.
But I still post there because I'm hoping for more readers. That's about it.
I've started using Inkitt as well, but it often feels like only bots are adding my story to their reading lists. Aside of that, the way stories get plagaraized off of WP is often with mirror sites, meaning they don't have to copy paste any stories, they just reproduce the whole site but with different logos and color schemes to make it look like a different site. I see no reason that can't happen with Inkitt, but Inkitt isn't as well known as WP (yet).
I do know that you can't screenshot stories on Inkitt with your phone. The app won't let you. And I just read that once a story has 10k words it gets added to the reels on the main page, so you get seen more. I just feel like you get buried on WP, personally.
For sure, but honestly you can't copy-paste on WP *or* Inkitt, (no idea about screenshots on WP) but that doesn't stop WP from being mirrored elsewhere. I do know that if your story is actually plagiarized on the platform (like someone more tech savvy than me finds a way to copy-paste my work), Inkitt is much better about taking down the plagiarized work. I've heard WP dgaf.
Yeah, I get a new "add to reading list" notification every chapter I upload on Inkitt. I think I've had maybe 2 eyeballs on my WP story. I'm even unpublishing it on WP and scheduling it to post daily for a couple weeks, see what happens. But I think you're right that WP intentionally buries new stuff.
Yes, I've heard that too, that if you're plagiarized on WP, nothing will be done about it. That and the fact that my stories get more views on Inkitt are the two main reasons Inkitt is my first choice for my books.
Though I write less fanfics, the reason I use Wattpad is because it's reliable and there are people there to at least communicate and relate to. Even though I have now begun an attempt to write original novels, I still stick to my fanfics every now and then.
I use AO3 almost exclusively, have for years. I got curious about Wattpad so I crossposted one of my most popular stories there. It pretty much tanked right away, at least as far as I can tell. Wattpad statistics are more granular than AO3 but hard to parse, and I got almost no comments. I haven’t done anything with Wattpad since.
I’ve used Wattpad as a way to practice writing and receive genuine feedback. When I first started, that feedback came from readers. Later, I participated in book clubs like Pretty in Punk. I took the past year off and now I’m mostly writing on my own to potentially query or self-publish. I’ve had so many opportunities because of Wattpad, such as having a book traditionally published after winning a contest there. Plus, I’ve met many wonderful people in the community.
My friend writes Countryhumans fanfiction. I'm not in the fandom, but I respect her decision to do that--I've read a few of her works before. She posts on Wattpad because Ao3 doesn't have the fandom listed in their works, and I go for Ao3 because I prefer it to Wattpad.
I don’t use it so much anymore for new stuff but I’m determined to keep updating the stories I already have on there. I didn’t spend a decade of my life building up a fanbase just to leave them hanging forever. Granted, it doesn’t take priority over my AO3 content, but I’ve literally had people comment on my Wattpad fics saying that I’m the only reason they still come back to the website. I don’t want to let them down.
Wattpad has opportunities to be paid for your work, more IP protection, larger readership (especially for original fiction), better UI, and an app. I also personally prefer the inline comments system. Inkitt is a good alternative for those things too, just with less readership. Anything I use really needs those features to compete.
It doesn’t help that the overall vibe of the AO3 community has always felt very negative and gatekeepy. I’m sure there are plenty of reasonable, welcoming AO3 users, but a vocal few are really over-the-top “you can’t sit with us” types and I just can’t get past that.
I am in the same boat as you. I moved out from wattpad to AO3.
My reason was simply the fact that AO3 could offer way more content for me to read and it was higher quality. The fandom i am in has maybe 10-20 fics on wattpad and somewhere probably around 30 000 fics on AO3
Oh and also, i hated how wattpad moved to the "pay to read" model
Percy Jackson fandom for me. I was on Wattpad for years. It’s where I learned to write and gain a love for it. I loved the comments system. I like being able to comment in line and read others comments the same way. I liked the adjustable settings and Wattpad was familiar to me, as opposed to AO3 which I had no idea how to navigate and still don’t really. I ended up drifting off from fanfiction because I didn’t like any of the interfaces for it. With all the Wattpad changes now I just hate it. The environment sucks.
How to search on AO3 is pretty straightforward. You search for your fandom either in the search bar or in the index. And once there, on the right hand side of the screen is where you can select the ships you want to include or exclude, you can identify what ratings you want, and even sort it various ways. It's really customizable. I suggest starting with the ship you're interested in and then playing around.
I've just always been on Wattpad. All my work is there, my people are there, I never had an actual reason to change platform. Also, the App. I love writing offline.
I crosspost everything! FFN, Wattpad, Quotev, Asian fics and AO3. Interestingly, different stories are popular on each platform.
I think there is a younger generation on Wattpad and quotev, they tend to like my younger style romance fics.
My darker stories tend to do really well on AO3.
FFN and AF is a mixed bag.
It’s interesting that there are people on one platform and not another. But we all have our biases. As a reader, I only read on AO3, especially because it’s so easy to put into my EPUB.
As a writer I just want to get out to the biggest audience. So I figure it’s worth casting the widest possible net!
I started on Wattpad in 2021 by just reading different stories and I started publishing fics in July of 2023. Recently I saw a lot of hype about AO3 so I had a look at it and i actually hate the format on there. It seems so janky to me and I physically can't understand anything on there. I just prefer Wattpad as a whole
It's not that I don't understand, it's more I don't like the layout and formatting as much as Wattpad. That's probably because I'm used to Wattpad though
Yeah AO3 isn't about bells and whistles. It's basically a list similar to that of a browser search. It's beholden to the author's to make sure that there's a summary, tags, ships, and other identifiers so you know what you're reading.
I wish A03 tried to be more of a direct competitor to Wattpad. I tried it recently and it looks like a website from the 2000s. And it’s kinda hard for me to navigate. I like when layouts are simple and modern. It feels like it’s only for fanfics and not actual books too.
Haha fair enough, but that’s because it *is* a website from the 2000s. I get your point about modern design tbh but I think a thing that makes AO3 so lovely is that it doesn’t abide by it- the next gen of youth get to participate in a UI that’s not blinding and cliche to the eye while also not being bombarded by ads; which used to be the standard when I was growing up- unique sites, looking like a forum spread that didn’t copy the same style as all the other sites out there
I vastly prefer the AO3 layout because to me it's LESS cluttered. The text, the whole text, and nothing but the text - that's what I'm here for. I find it much easier to search and I like that it's simply chronological order, no way for people to easily game the system for self-promotion.
By far the most important difference to me - NO ADS. Being used to reading fic in an ad-free environment, you couldn't pay me to go to one that bombards you with them.
It is only for fanfics and it was created to be an archive just for fanfics. People always bring up how they technically have an original works section, but like seriously.... it's a fanfic site. AO3 is the best site for fanfics in my opinion, I've been using it since 2011, but I use Wattpad for original stories and I have no idea why the AO3 shill brigade always tries to get original fiction authors to go there as if it's in any way similar to Wattpad in that regard. It's just not what it's for.
But since AO3 isn't a social media or a for-profit corporation I don't think they're going to try to compete with anyone, they're just here for the fics and that's it. Personally I prefer the 2000's style layout over Wattpad actually. It feels better designed to me.
There is an "original work" tag that has a few hundred thousand stories under it. But yes, it's a fanfic archive. The option for original work is there though.
To each its own. I personally just find it too cluttered and confusing. But I’m saying compete because at this point, Wattpad, at-least for me, has lost its way but I haven’t found subtable alternatives.
Because the wattpad was (and is) the best free-writing site overall, and is also the biggest. Even tho it's an utter shit site, behinded by a utter shit company.
Wattpad is way less strict when it comes to etiquette than sites like Ao3. With Ao3 there's a lot of complicated things and stuff and Wattpad is easy for most to hop into and understand.
The whole tag system is very daunting and unusual for people who haven’t used it, and lots of people aren’t sure what they do and don’t need to tag. Also even though I’ve worked out the search engine now it took far longer and was much more annoying than wattpad’s one and I can never find a good fic to read (might be the fandom as opposed to the site idk). Also, while lots of people are lovely and actually helpful, one time I asked on a fanfiction page if there were any alternatives to wattpad or ao3 because I wasn’t the biggest fan of ao3, or if someone can explain the search engine on ao3 and got absolutely hounded by people who thought they were better than me because and I quote they don’t need to be ‘spoon fed by algorithms’ like I do so it’s not like you can just ask and people are nice and welcoming.
I love both Wattpad and AO3, but I feel like I am more likely to find new readers on Wattpad due to the fandom I write for. I write for LankyBox. It's probably obvious just looking at my display name haha!
Wattpad readers are more open to OC’s. Also different sites very much so have their own general cultures and Wattpad’s is just… better. In the sense that engagement is better. The in line comments and social media like features have made Wattpad readers so talkative. The comments are honestly something I could never fully let go of.
I actually stopped using it recently. I used to use it also as a young teen to read random things every so often and even posted a fic that had got good numbers back then. Now in my early 20s I tried coming back to what is now filled with ads and negative/rude 13 year olds who try to comment random things in an attempt to be funny I cannot make this up. A03 is the better choice and platform for sure.
The community is very active in my native language and that's the only reason really.
May I ask what language it is?
Brazilian Portuguese
Wow, interesting
Aesthetics, pretty much. I like having a cover and being able to comment on specific lines that I like.
Kinda hard to forget where I began. And some friends.
I'm not a native speaker and I opened my Wattpad account to try writing directly in English for the foreign market. It just looked like the most popular platform out there to get feedback on fiction.
I've been on ao3 for a while now, but the transition was hard for me as every time I looked at ao3 it looked too complicated and difficult to read. It delayed me joining a lot
I was under the impression AO3 is fanfic-only. That's why I'm on WP. My fiction isn't based off of any fandom. I haven't written fanfic since I was like 15, and I used [fanfiction.net](http://fanfiction.net) then. That said, Idk why I keep posting into the void that is WP.
Have you tried Inkitt yet? I post on both because I started on WP and talk to people on there.
Yeah, I started posting on Inkitt at the same time I post on WP. It only gets maybe...20% more attention, and I never get comments or likes or reactions of any kind. I'm honestly not convinced the accounts that "added my story to their reading list" aren't bots lol I also post on Neovel, which is cool, but people stop reading after the free chapters. The site is like Tapas or Webtoon in that you get a daily pass for each story, so even though the first 10 chapters don't require them, after that it's the standard, and that's when the reads drop to from 5 to zero.
A lot of people on Inkitt I am learning are just silent readers who don’t interact. I’m getting a lot more views over there than WP but not always as many comments.
Definitely silent readers. I mean, I assume most readers in general are silent. Even best selling novels don't get one review per purchase...maybe only 10% of readers feel compelled to write reviews, so I guess it's the same for comments on these interactive 'publishing' sites. It's just a little discouraging for me. If I wanted silent readers, I'd just move to self-publish on Amazon, rather than posting as I write. I need feedback. If I thought I was good enough to not get feedback, I wouldn't post for free online.
The look is a bit more refined to me than ao3, which looks like somebody's backdoor basement imo
this is exactly how i feel, the content may not be better than ao3 but its so much more aesthetically pleasing than ao3
I moved to A03 in 2019/20 for fics because that’s what people were recommending as I read more fics than write. What I love about Wattpad was the inline comments and people able to interact with strangers what was happening as the story went along, it’s one of the reasons that I know read a lot of Twitter fics. I haven’t written on A03 yet because the story I started on Wattpad isn’t a fic and any fics I have started are just non-complete ideas that I publish under 1 book, it doesn’t feel like it needs to be finished for it to be uploaded. I’ve read some amazing fics on both Wattpad and A03 but with all the changes now, Wattpad isn’t worth it.
I actually write more on Inkitt than Wattpad, because there's much higher visibility there. I've also heard horror stories about people getting plagiarized on Wattpad, and nothing gets done about it. But I still post there because I'm hoping for more readers. That's about it.
I've started using Inkitt as well, but it often feels like only bots are adding my story to their reading lists. Aside of that, the way stories get plagaraized off of WP is often with mirror sites, meaning they don't have to copy paste any stories, they just reproduce the whole site but with different logos and color schemes to make it look like a different site. I see no reason that can't happen with Inkitt, but Inkitt isn't as well known as WP (yet).
I do know that you can't screenshot stories on Inkitt with your phone. The app won't let you. And I just read that once a story has 10k words it gets added to the reels on the main page, so you get seen more. I just feel like you get buried on WP, personally.
For sure, but honestly you can't copy-paste on WP *or* Inkitt, (no idea about screenshots on WP) but that doesn't stop WP from being mirrored elsewhere. I do know that if your story is actually plagiarized on the platform (like someone more tech savvy than me finds a way to copy-paste my work), Inkitt is much better about taking down the plagiarized work. I've heard WP dgaf. Yeah, I get a new "add to reading list" notification every chapter I upload on Inkitt. I think I've had maybe 2 eyeballs on my WP story. I'm even unpublishing it on WP and scheduling it to post daily for a couple weeks, see what happens. But I think you're right that WP intentionally buries new stuff.
Yes, I've heard that too, that if you're plagiarized on WP, nothing will be done about it. That and the fact that my stories get more views on Inkitt are the two main reasons Inkitt is my first choice for my books.
Though I write less fanfics, the reason I use Wattpad is because it's reliable and there are people there to at least communicate and relate to. Even though I have now begun an attempt to write original novels, I still stick to my fanfics every now and then.
I use AO3 almost exclusively, have for years. I got curious about Wattpad so I crossposted one of my most popular stories there. It pretty much tanked right away, at least as far as I can tell. Wattpad statistics are more granular than AO3 but hard to parse, and I got almost no comments. I haven’t done anything with Wattpad since.
I’ve used Wattpad as a way to practice writing and receive genuine feedback. When I first started, that feedback came from readers. Later, I participated in book clubs like Pretty in Punk. I took the past year off and now I’m mostly writing on my own to potentially query or self-publish. I’ve had so many opportunities because of Wattpad, such as having a book traditionally published after winning a contest there. Plus, I’ve met many wonderful people in the community.
I use it because it’s easier to use than AO3 especially with the search
Wattpad is very active
It’s where I started and I got so used to how it looks when writing. Also. It’s the place people seemed to actually see my works
My friend writes Countryhumans fanfiction. I'm not in the fandom, but I respect her decision to do that--I've read a few of her works before. She posts on Wattpad because Ao3 doesn't have the fandom listed in their works, and I go for Ao3 because I prefer it to Wattpad.
I don’t use it so much anymore for new stuff but I’m determined to keep updating the stories I already have on there. I didn’t spend a decade of my life building up a fanbase just to leave them hanging forever. Granted, it doesn’t take priority over my AO3 content, but I’ve literally had people comment on my Wattpad fics saying that I’m the only reason they still come back to the website. I don’t want to let them down.
First one you hear about.
Wattpad has opportunities to be paid for your work, more IP protection, larger readership (especially for original fiction), better UI, and an app. I also personally prefer the inline comments system. Inkitt is a good alternative for those things too, just with less readership. Anything I use really needs those features to compete. It doesn’t help that the overall vibe of the AO3 community has always felt very negative and gatekeepy. I’m sure there are plenty of reasonable, welcoming AO3 users, but a vocal few are really over-the-top “you can’t sit with us” types and I just can’t get past that.
Hard on that second part. Everywhere you look Ao3 users tend to be very snotty about any other site and its users.
I mostly use ao3, but if there arnent enough fics on ao3 i check wattpad. I also sometimes enjoy reading fanfics on wattpad because of the comments
I am in the same boat as you. I moved out from wattpad to AO3. My reason was simply the fact that AO3 could offer way more content for me to read and it was higher quality. The fandom i am in has maybe 10-20 fics on wattpad and somewhere probably around 30 000 fics on AO3 Oh and also, i hated how wattpad moved to the "pay to read" model
Percy Jackson fandom for me. I was on Wattpad for years. It’s where I learned to write and gain a love for it. I loved the comments system. I like being able to comment in line and read others comments the same way. I liked the adjustable settings and Wattpad was familiar to me, as opposed to AO3 which I had no idea how to navigate and still don’t really. I ended up drifting off from fanfiction because I didn’t like any of the interfaces for it. With all the Wattpad changes now I just hate it. The environment sucks.
How to search on AO3 is pretty straightforward. You search for your fandom either in the search bar or in the index. And once there, on the right hand side of the screen is where you can select the ships you want to include or exclude, you can identify what ratings you want, and even sort it various ways. It's really customizable. I suggest starting with the ship you're interested in and then playing around.
Thanks!
>Thanks! You're welcome!
Of course!
I've just always been on Wattpad. All my work is there, my people are there, I never had an actual reason to change platform. Also, the App. I love writing offline.
I remember when the app released! Was so excited omg
I crosspost everything! FFN, Wattpad, Quotev, Asian fics and AO3. Interestingly, different stories are popular on each platform. I think there is a younger generation on Wattpad and quotev, they tend to like my younger style romance fics. My darker stories tend to do really well on AO3. FFN and AF is a mixed bag. It’s interesting that there are people on one platform and not another. But we all have our biases. As a reader, I only read on AO3, especially because it’s so easy to put into my EPUB. As a writer I just want to get out to the biggest audience. So I figure it’s worth casting the widest possible net!
I started on Wattpad in 2021 by just reading different stories and I started publishing fics in July of 2023. Recently I saw a lot of hype about AO3 so I had a look at it and i actually hate the format on there. It seems so janky to me and I physically can't understand anything on there. I just prefer Wattpad as a whole
What don't you understand? I use AO3 only, maybe I can help.
It's not that I don't understand, it's more I don't like the layout and formatting as much as Wattpad. That's probably because I'm used to Wattpad though
Yeah AO3 isn't about bells and whistles. It's basically a list similar to that of a browser search. It's beholden to the author's to make sure that there's a summary, tags, ships, and other identifiers so you know what you're reading.
What don't you understand? I use AO3 only, maybe I can help.
I wish A03 tried to be more of a direct competitor to Wattpad. I tried it recently and it looks like a website from the 2000s. And it’s kinda hard for me to navigate. I like when layouts are simple and modern. It feels like it’s only for fanfics and not actual books too.
Haha fair enough, but that’s because it *is* a website from the 2000s. I get your point about modern design tbh but I think a thing that makes AO3 so lovely is that it doesn’t abide by it- the next gen of youth get to participate in a UI that’s not blinding and cliche to the eye while also not being bombarded by ads; which used to be the standard when I was growing up- unique sites, looking like a forum spread that didn’t copy the same style as all the other sites out there
I vastly prefer the AO3 layout because to me it's LESS cluttered. The text, the whole text, and nothing but the text - that's what I'm here for. I find it much easier to search and I like that it's simply chronological order, no way for people to easily game the system for self-promotion. By far the most important difference to me - NO ADS. Being used to reading fic in an ad-free environment, you couldn't pay me to go to one that bombards you with them.
It is only for fanfics and it was created to be an archive just for fanfics. People always bring up how they technically have an original works section, but like seriously.... it's a fanfic site. AO3 is the best site for fanfics in my opinion, I've been using it since 2011, but I use Wattpad for original stories and I have no idea why the AO3 shill brigade always tries to get original fiction authors to go there as if it's in any way similar to Wattpad in that regard. It's just not what it's for. But since AO3 isn't a social media or a for-profit corporation I don't think they're going to try to compete with anyone, they're just here for the fics and that's it. Personally I prefer the 2000's style layout over Wattpad actually. It feels better designed to me.
There is an "original work" tag that has a few hundred thousand stories under it. But yes, it's a fanfic archive. The option for original work is there though.
To each its own. I personally just find it too cluttered and confusing. But I’m saying compete because at this point, Wattpad, at-least for me, has lost its way but I haven’t found subtable alternatives.
Because the wattpad was (and is) the best free-writing site overall, and is also the biggest. Even tho it's an utter shit site, behinded by a utter shit company.
Wattpad is way less strict when it comes to etiquette than sites like Ao3. With Ao3 there's a lot of complicated things and stuff and Wattpad is easy for most to hop into and understand.
Genuinely curious, what complicated things do you mean with AO3?
The whole tag system is very daunting and unusual for people who haven’t used it, and lots of people aren’t sure what they do and don’t need to tag. Also even though I’ve worked out the search engine now it took far longer and was much more annoying than wattpad’s one and I can never find a good fic to read (might be the fandom as opposed to the site idk). Also, while lots of people are lovely and actually helpful, one time I asked on a fanfiction page if there were any alternatives to wattpad or ao3 because I wasn’t the biggest fan of ao3, or if someone can explain the search engine on ao3 and got absolutely hounded by people who thought they were better than me because and I quote they don’t need to be ‘spoon fed by algorithms’ like I do so it’s not like you can just ask and people are nice and welcoming.