Wattpad is a free online writing and reading community. Although 45 million people use the platform each month, in some circles, it still remains an unknown or unfamiliar site. Both traditionally published and self-published authors are active there; for example, Elizabeth Spann Craig told us that, by putting one of her cozy mysteries up one chapter at a time (serialization is everything at Wattpad), she gathered 49,000 reads for the book and, as she discussed in this post last summer, she reaches a far younger demographic there than she normally does.
But gathering thousands of reads doesn’t necessarily mean money in your pocket—although it may now. The Toronto-based company has announced a new program, Wattpad Futures. It pays writers when readers watch ads inserted between chapters. The ads are currently in the form of videos. Other forms may follow, the company tells us. And while the program is invitation-only and in beta at the moment, spokespeople report that writers testing the program are making some $1,000 monthly from readers’ ad views, with a few monthly takes going as high as $2,000.
Wattpad Studios’ head of partnerships, Ashleigh Gardner, says that about 100 writers are in the beta group and that the company is working with an ad network to channel “literary and book-related” ad content to the site. The new in-story ads are thought of, Gardner says, as interstitial material, not unlike static ads that appear on a Kindle-with-ads plan, placed to avoid interruption in reading if possible.
Monetization schemes that pay Wattpad writers have been in play for some time. Selected super-popular authors are named members of the coveted Wattpad Stars stable. Author Anna Todd is one of the most famous of these, parlaying her Wattpad work into two multi-book Simon & Schuster contracts. The Stars often receive lucrative deals to write product-placement and other commercially driven native content for the site in the Brand Stories approach now paying out more than $1 million yearly, according to company officers.
Bottom line: This is another intriguing monetization move by Wattpad, which is still among the most overlooked and misunderstood players in publishing today. Wattpad Futures is an effort to spread the wealth to far more authors than can join the Stars’ ranks. The key, as in all things Wattpadian, lies in a writer’s following: those who have the biggest, most loyal and busy readerships are the ones who will benefit most from Futures by encouraging their readers to watch an ad. It’s the smart way to leverage advertisers willing to pay to curry favor with Wattpad’s desirable millennial-heavy membership.
Editor’s note: After two years in beta release, the Wattpad Futures program was closed in August 2018.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
