Quitting Wattpad

January 10, 2026

I've got quite a bit to talk about right now. But first off, Fantasy in the Office is now fully posted and completed on all the sites I posted it; Wattpad, Inkitt, Royal Road, and Penana. Not much else to say about that, other than I'm happy to finally be done with something I started damn near ten years ago now.

Now, for bigger news. After much thought, I have decided I'm done with Wattpad. I plan on keeping my profile and all my current work up on there. I might log in a few times a year to see what's up. But I will no longer post any new stories there. For a couple reasons.

First off, they've made a lot of changes over the years I've disagreed with. And I've never gotten over the fact they nuked their forums. Not only did I have fun talking to some cool people on there, but it was the way to find readers. For me, I would go there to find open book clubs to join, which, basically, members of a book club would take turns reading other member's books. People would advertise openings for their book club on the forums. Now, if you want to join a book club, you have to actually try digging through the book club tag and see if there are any actually active, much less open to new members. Which, good luck! (There were also other ways to find readers that can only really be done via forums, but I don't remember how. I was always doing the book clubs. I don't know how the hell you're expected to get readers on Wattpad these days if you're not already popular.)

Now, I should jump in and say I've long stopped caring about gaining readership and watching analytics and I don't plan on getting published ever. (The reasons why deserve its own blog post.) I'm happy to get the views and readers I get. I like it when people read and like my stuff. But I loathe the crazy amount of effort and advertising you have to do to gain a following. It's not worth it to me. I'd rather spend that time actually writing. And writing the niche, unpopular things I like writing. To get readers, you often have to watch trends and write accordingly. Which sounds depressing as fuck. This is just a fun hobby for me.

I'm starting to veer off topic... But this ties into my main reason for quitting Wattpad. I get next to no reads on Wattpad and the only comments I get are from people trying to sell me (likely AI-generated) comic book art. Now, I've always understood that if you want to get reads on Wattpad, you have to work for it. Which I was able to do well enough, back when they had forums. But the fact is, on other writing sites, I can throw a story up, and get a few reads without trying. It's not a lot of views, but it's a lot more than I get on Wattpad. So, compared to my experience on other sites, posting on Wattpad feels like a waste of time. It's kind of sad, because Wattpad was the first writing site I joined, and I have a lot of happy memories with it back in 2016-2018. But those days are long over, so it's time to move on. (Maybe I'll return if they bring forums back.)

Speaking of leaving sites, I'm less sad to announce I probably won't post on Penana anymore either. Although I do get more reads on there than on Wattpad, the spam comments were out of control on FITO. Almost every chapter I'd post, I'd get 1-3 spam comments advertising comic book/art services, or how they can help my work reach an audience, or some AI-sounding comment about how good my story is and can I please talk with them more on Discord~ (Obviously a scam, especially when one is pushing me to create a Discord just for them.) Although the problem seems to have died down on FITO, I don't know if it's because more action is being taken against them on the site's behalf, or if they just like targeting books with less chapters. Regardless, I don't feel like dealing with those. But I will say, I am more likely to post a new story on Penana than on Wattpad. But I'm not planning on it anytime soon.

With those two sites scratched off my list, and something new coming soon, I signed up for ScribbleHub, and PurrFiction. I don't know what to expect with either of those sites, but they seem to favor long, ongoing serials. I am currently working on a long, ongoing serial. So I'm gonna give those two sites a try. And I am definitely going to continue posting on Inkitt and Royal Road. (Especially Inkitt! I like it the most, even if I do get more reads on Royal Road.)

In more positive news, I've been working on a long-running web serial called Rebels and Outcasts. I like to think of it as a dystopian soap opera. I have about 20 "episodes" written so far, and I plan on continuing it until I either get tired of it and come up with an ending, or if an ending naturally crops up. I'm trying to write it in a way where you can jump in and start reading at any chapter, because this thing is going to reach a point where it'll be overwhelming for new readers to catch up. It's got over 117k words so far, and there's so many other storylines I plan on adding in, as I wrap up other storylines. I hope to start posting it early next week on all four sites I just mentioned, so stay tuned!