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Believe the hype. As part of the world’s largest online writing contest, a Watty Award is what every Wattpad writer dreams of winning.
Wattpad is a giant platform with hundreds of millions of stories available from a vast number of talented writers. The Watty Awards, also called the Wattys, are like the Oscars of Wattpad, recognizing diamonds in the rough, trailblazers, and many other unique works. Taking place annually, it’s the largest online writing contest in the world. As of this writing, winning doesn’t bring a cash prize, but it can launch a writer into the stratosphere. Previous Watty Awards winners have gone on to sign with traditional publishers, secure film adaptations, and more. Make no mistake: You want a Watty. Here’s what you need to know.
Entering could not be simpler. Simply add the appropriate Wattys tag to your story when the time comes for a new competition. For example, entering the 2017 competition meant adding the #Wattys2017 tag to a story. That’s it. Use the tag on as many of your stories as you’d like to enter.
As of this writing, submissions open in June and close in August, with winners selected a couple of months later. The stories must be published on Wattpad, and year-specific requirements are listed on the @TheWattys profile. Be sure to check the profile each year because the rules (and prizes!) are subject to change.
Each year, the Watty Awards categories are a little different. They can range from achievement in a certain genre to unique multimedia usage and hidden gems that deserve readers’ attention.
Some categories require an additional tag in order to enter them. Make sure you note whether the category you’re aiming for has a different tag. One of the wonderful things about using a standard tag is that it makes your novel available for all categories included in that tag. You don’t need to choose between multiple categories if you think your novel fits into more than one category. What do those categories look like? In 2017, they included:
The list above featured only the categories from 2017. The categories in 2016 were different from the ones in 2015 and so on. The rotation makes sure everyone gets an opportunity to win, no matter the writer’s genre, status, or popularity.
If you’re not sure that your novel fits into any of the categories, don’t worry. Tag your story according to the details from @TheWattys. You can’t go wrong by at least trying, and there is no penalty if you don’t win.
Conversely, if you can’t choose between stories that you want to enter, why not choose them all? You’re allowed to submit more than one story at a time for Wattys consideration.
Winning the Wattys can definitely give you a boost! Winners are more likely to be advertised on the site and put on lists of must-read books. This could attract readers, agents, publishers, and other opportunities.
If you happen to win a category—and all categories have multiple winners—you can expect your reads to skyrocket and your book to attract much more attention. You’ll also get a special sticker that you can put onto your book cover that lets everyone know you’ve won a Watty.
Of course, one of the best things about winning is the sense of pride and accomplishment. You wrote that story, you created those characters, those words are yours and no one else’s, and among hundreds of thousands of different entries, yours was considered great enough to win.
When I entered my novel White Stag in the 2016 Wattys, I wasn’t expecting anything to happen. My novel had a decent following, but to me it wasn’t anything super special. I was in for a surprise when I won in the Trailblazers category. In 2016, the Trailblazers category was for books that came from nothing and took Wattpad by storm. My book just happened to be one of those books. My fanbase and reads grew by the thousands and became more and more noticeable both on and off Wattpad.
A few months later, I had a traditional book deal with St. Martin’s Press for White Stag and its sequels sitting in my lap! While that obviously isn’t the story for everyone, it shows what can happen when you’ve won a Watty. I was also pretty new, having been on Wattpad for less than a year. Winning made me feel so honored because people liked my story and thought it was special regardless of its or my own popularity level. And because people loved it enough for it to win, that opened the door for many more people to read and enjoy it.
The same things that will make you a better Wattpad writer overall can only help your chances at a Watty.
First and foremost, continue practicing your craft as a writer. Wattpad has a number of helpful resources, from the critiques classified section to genre-based clubs and how-to guides on writing. Unlike many other contests, the Wattys are not cutthroat. Those who write on Wattpad are almost always willing to help out newer writers. Use these resources to learn more about world-building, the type of style you like to write in, clichés and how to avoid them, and how to make characters that jump off the page.
What else can you do? Well, you can continue entering the Wattys every year, even if you didn’t win the previous year. Just because your entry wasn’t picked on your first try doesn’t mean that you’ve lost all your chances. If your story fits into a category and meets the requirements detailed on the @TheWattys profile, definitely continue to submit. Editing and improving your craft, along with a positive “don’t give up” attitude, can really make a difference when the Wattys roll around again.
Talk to other members, and form friendships. Read other writers’ works because then they’ll be more likely to read yours and offer helpful critiques. These things might seem small, but becoming known for these good deeds within the community will give you the right kind of exposure: the kind that will help boost your book’s popularity. While popularity isn’t the main factor that determines whether someone wins a Watty, it may play a role if a writer is being considered for awards that spotlight rising works.
Be unique! Don’t be afraid if you find yourself wanting to write a concept that you’re unsure other people will like. Write what feels good to you, not necessarily what other people are writing, because your writing will be more genuine if you’re devoted to the idea. Don’t avoid topics that are harder to touch on or characters that are diverse. If it comes from the heart, then write it. Genuine, heartfelt ideas are more appealing to readers than a story that goes with the crowd.
White Stag became popular and won a Watty mainly because the novel was different from what people were used to reading. Don’t be afraid to do something that is a bit out in left field, like adding multimedia to your story, choosing a cast for your characters, or engaging your readers with author’s notes. If you have an idea that you think is unique, try it out. It can only help your story to stand out more.
Cover art is also important when it comes to the Wattys. While your story isn’t going to be chosen based on cover art alone, great cover art can catch the eyes of those mysterious judges and pull them into your story in the same way that the covers of physical books can pique your interest. While you shouldn’t necessarily judge a book by its cover, covers are still wonderful tools that say something about the books they grace. In some categories that are focused on media, having a great cover shows that you know what you’re doing. If you’re not familiar with how to create a cover on Wattpad, check out the section covering that topic in this book.
Most importantly, remember that this is supposed to be a fun experience. It’s a chance for you and many other writers to get your book out there, win, and get exposure—but you shouldn’t take it too seriously either. Not winning a Watty doesn’t mean your book is bad or poorly written, and it doesn’t mean that no one likes it. Thousands of books are entered into the Wattys every year, and they can only pick a few winners per category. So if your book isn’t picked, that doesn’t reflect poorly on you as a writer.
The Wattys should be a fun experience meant to build up writers, not tear them down. While it is a competition, you should treat other members who enter with the respect and courtesy they deserve, and congratulate the winners. At the end of the day, you are all creators of wonderful works. Building each other up and making the community stronger is more important than winning an award. Wattpad is a community bent on learning while growing as writers and making friends throughout that process. That’s what matters most.
As of this writing, the exact process is still under wraps, but a post by @TheWattys suggests what many already expected: Data science plays a significant role. The following is from that post.
“In the context of The Wattys, data science means that we (the team at Wattpad administering the awards) spend time understanding, from a quantitative as well as a qualitative perspective, which features or variables can be used to identify the stories that match a particular set of contest criteria in a meaningful way.”
Let’s pretend that we created an award called Fan Love. Through content experts and our data, we know that the more time that someone spends reading, commenting, and voting on a story, the greater the correlation there is to what we have determined is “fan love.”
When we’re creating a data-science approach to evaluating the entries, we develop an algorithm that takes all these variables into consideration (although we might weigh one higher than another). And it’s in this way that we are able to discover the most promising content in our community. Our editorial team then reviews each story individually.
Here are some key elements that help our editorial team highlight promising stories:
On a site so large and active as Wattpad, there are bound to be a few myths and misconceptions about the Wattys that may stress out a new writer and make her feel like winning is impossible. To ease some minds, I will now dispel a few myths about the Wattys.
You don’t have to be popular in order to win the Wattys. Unlike a lot of contests on the internet—writing or otherwise—the Wattys are not decided by who has the most reads or votes. A team of people from the Wattpad HQ and data mined from the site determine how the Wattys winners are chosen. That means that whether you’re a Wattpad Star or an undiscovered gem, you’re eligible to win.
No matter what type of story you write, there will always be a place for it in the Wattys. From paranormal to teen fiction and short story, all have a chance to win. Every year the categories for the Wattys change a bit, making new opportunities for your stories. A lot of the categories aren’t genre based. Instead, they tend to be based more on the writing, presentation, or uniqueness of the story. So you won’t have to worry about finding a category for your vampire-romance novel. All genres have a chance at each category.
On Wattpad, stories are rated “Mature” if they have graphic violence, sex, or drug use. Depending on the story, suicide and self-harm or certain types of abuse might also need this rating. The rating depends more on the way the story is written than on the subjects in the story.
Mature stories aren’t shown on the Hot Lists. However, readers can still find them using the search bar. The Hot List is a great way to get people’s attention, but it isn’t everything. The Wattys allow both mature and non-mature stories to enter and win. Ranking (or lack thereof) on the Hot List doesn’t guarantee that a writer will win or lose.
Winning the Wattys is not reserved for established writers, and neither are the perks of winning. Both long-term and new members will gain exposure through their wins, and there are even categories specifically for newer writers. As with established Wattpad writers, new writers’ winning stories are advertised on the @TheWattys profile page. They also get a special sticker for their covers, signifying that the story won a Watty. When I won my Watty for White Stag, I had not even been on Wattpad a year. I still got a lot of exposure for my work, and my read count quickly doubled.
So, what are you waiting for? When the Wattys come around, enter your work into the competition. I can promise that you won’t be sorry you did.
Kara Barbieri, known as @Pandean on Wattpad, is the author of White Stag, which will be released in winter 2019 by St. Martin’s Press. She lives with her four cats and two dogs, twirls a fire staff, and has a passion for goats.