Texting Talon, she can step out of the shadow of her popular twin brother. Keeley learns there’s more to Talon than the egocentric jock most people see. And as Keeley gets to know Talon, she starts to like him. Reluctantly, the two agree to forward messages for a week. It’s even worse when she discovers that the phone she now has belongs to the obnoxious, self-centered Talon and that he’s just left for football camp … with her phone.

But they really, really want to be.It’s bad enough when high-school senior Keeley grabs the wrong phone while leaving her small town’s end-of-summer fair. So is Wattpad the best place to pitch your Young Adult romance starring a thinly veiled famous pop star? Probably not. Still, that hasn’t stopped the site from aggressively advertising itself as a website where writers can become published authors. They even have an entire guide dedicated to explaining how to talk to literary agents and editors. With a literary agency, a writer just needs to wow one person: the agent.Īll things considered, the average Wattpad user isn’t all that likely to nab themselves a book deal. There’s also the viral factor the consider: with this platform, writers need to get the attention of millions of users before garnering an offer of representation. Whereas Wattpad’s “slush pile” consists of about 65 million unique users, the average literary agent receives about 2,000 manuscripts a year and will represent two of those submissions. So yes, the site basically acts like a giant literary agency.įor writers this may seem like a pretty sweet deal, but the odds of getting noticed are incredibly slim.

The representatives or “agents” reportedly get 15% of the book earnings, which is just about how much a literary agent would charge for their services.

How did they do it? Well, according to Wattpad’s “How Wattpad Works” page, the ideal sequence of events is this: post a story, gain a giant fanbase, and finally get the story sent to major publishers via Wattpad’s representatives. Successful sales so far include the Afterseries by Anna Todd, Textrovertby Lindsey Summers, and Chasing Redby Isabelle Ronin, acquired by Simon and Schuster, Kids Can Press, and Sourcebooks respectively. According to a recent article in Forbes, this tactic has worked for over 100 writers in the past year. The site started out as a fan fiction hub with sprinklings of original prose here and there, and has since rebranded itself as a way for aspiring writers to get their books on the shelves.

Textrovert by Lindsey Summers