Skip to footer

Wattpad launches crowdsourcing section to support authors

The writing website now encourages members to support the projects of authors, who pledge a fundraising goal to be met in one month.

Author Brittany Geragotelis is seeking funds for a story titled 'Ki$$ and $ell.'
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

Fans of the authors on the writing site Wattpad have a new way to show their appreciation.

Wattpad recently announced it will be adding a Fan Funding component, which will allow readers to give funds to their favorite authors. The initiative is already under way, with one novel, “Catch My Breath” by Tara Sampson, listed as “successfully funded” (it garnered more than $5,000) and two, “Ki$$ and $ell” by Brittany Geragotelis and “A Proscriptive Relationship” by Jordan Lynde, currently raising money. Geragotelis’s series, titled “Life’s a Witch,” was first released on Wattpad before it was published by Simon & Schuster.

Writers have to reach their fundraising goal within a month, otherwise they won’t get any of the money pledged. They can entice readers with extras like real-life meetings and merchandise in an attempt to raise more money. Fans have to be Wattpad members to pledge funds.

The money ensures that the stories, which have not been posted online before fundraising, remain on the Wattpad site. The funds can be used for different causes, including supporting an author so he or she can continue writing. If the goal is met, the proposed story would then be posted for free on the site.

“In this way, writers can use fan funding to gauge fans’ interest in potential story ideas,” the Wattpad site reads.

The funds could also be used to secure professional editing and printing for an author’s work. (An unedited version would then remain on the Wattpad site, whether or not the goal for editing and printing was met.) 

The idea might remind fans of another fundraising website – Kickstarter – but Wattpad CEO and founder Allen Lau said there were important differences between the two.

“If you want to start a project on Kickstarter, you basically ask your relatives, neighbors and friends to fund you, and then expect strangers to chip in,” Lau told the website TechCrunch. “In our case, because we're a social network ourselves, the writers that are participating in Fan Funding most likely have fairly sizable fan bases already.”

Wattpad itself will take 5 percent of any money raised, while Stripe, a payment website for developers, will receive 30 cents per transaction and a fee of 2.9 percent for its services.

The website Wattpad currently receives more than 16 million visitors every month, according to TechCrunch.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Wattpad launches crowdsourcing section to support authors
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/0813/Wattpad-launches-crowdsourcing-section-to-support-authors
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe