Hi everyone! I'm fleeing the sinking ship of Wattpad! AMA (glub)

[Prisim]

It really sucks that they just closed their forums down without giving much of a heads up

They didn't give any heads up and I think that's what bothers me the most. Since I've been on a bit of a Wattpad Hiatus while I figure some stuff out, I hadn't been on the forums in a while there except to occasionally lurk. But to just shut them down and not give anyone time to set up ways to keep in touch with the communities they created there is just horrible. There were definitely a lot of problems there that needed to be addressed on the forums, but I don't think this was the right way to handle it. It's such a shame because I really owe everything I have on Wattpad to the people I met on the forums. I don't think I'd have readers currently, let alone still be hanging onto my Wattpad account while I sort through some things, if it weren't for the wonderful people I met there. And if I can get used to the lack of dark mode here I'm hoping that I could maybe have the same result on Tapas because community is everything.

[rajillustration]

Wow, I heard that Wattpad forums had drama, but damn! Anyway, welcome to the Tapas Forum.

[Maps]

I never once felt welcomed in Wattpad. I first attempted A03 and Wattpad and only found success in A03 (by success, I mean I had one commenting reader and a few thumbs up). I started getting interested in the idea of drawing a comic as well, which made me stumbled upon Tapas. When I realized they had novels I wanted to pee because that's what I'd been working on and trying so hard for the whole time.
Anyway, I ended up posting the beginning of my novel here and have felt nothing but joy as I've continued to update. The forums are awesome (we have our moments of debate... times when people get frustrated) but for the most part everyone is supportive and friendly.
My readers are invested and keep me motivated. Even one or two comments kept me going, and now my novel has plenty of subs.
I really do appreciate tapas. I do hope it expands and focuses on it's novel section as it does its comics (one day). But for now, I'm satisfied.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Tapas should seize this moment to strengthen their novel base. More and more people are leaving Wattpad, AO3 is most commonly for fanfiction, WebNovel is mostly for Wuxia and kinda shitty in its own way (you can't delete your own novel), Manga/Noveltoon os garbage-y too (shady verification system and inability to delete novel), Inkitt has some shady problem, others options are mostly graveyards.

I have expectations

[Maps]

Cheers to this! I'd love for Tapas to "grab the bull by its horns" and be one of the first sites to provide a great comic and novel base.

[MEGAMAMMU]

Ah greetings again, komrad. We must kontinue ze mememan's wurk

(hello everyone)

[joannekwan]

And if I can get used to the lack of dark mode here

Dark mode is available when reading novels!
On the bottom bar, click style and options show up to customize your reading experience.

[Prisim]

I mean here in the forums. I already discovered it in books, but thank you. But the blinding white of the forums gives me problems so I can only be here in short spurts. Wattpad's forums had a dark mode using the same Discourse software and it was oh so nice.

[joannekwan]

Ah gotcha!
These forums run on an engine separate from Tapas built by unaffiliated devs, so I'm unsure if dark mode can be implemented here. But I'll tag @ratique for a definite answer.

[thedude3445]

Wattpad forums were always a secret scam anyways; no readers ever used it, it was just authors desperately promoting to each other, and teens using the forums as makeshift chatrooms. For thre three years I used it I almost never felt welcome in even the smallest ways.

Tapas forums are fairly small and not that active but I've always felt so much more welcome on here. I'm glad that authors are finally ditching the place.

[lmluvaine]

I'm in the same boat. I was an avid user of Wattpad for years, but all the senseless changes over the years (god, don't get me started on how the algorithm was butchered from when I first joined in 2011) kept piling up. Though I wasn't super active on the forums, the forums being taken down was kind of the push I needed to look into other platforms.

I've heard good things about Tapas for the most part, decided to give it a try. Going to give crossposting a try... ^.^'

[WolfUnderTheMoon89]

well, welcome and good luck!
I've been on both and I love it here more

[Niharika]

@sweetabsynthium Welcome to Tapas! It's awesome. I jumped ship back in November, and ironically, the only part of WP I visited regularly was the forums. Anyway, this is a great site, the staff are super friendly and listen to users' opinions, and definitely better than WP, imo.

@uselessgoddess SAME.

@Jericho Hey man, saw you on Twitter.

[WolfUnderTheMoon89]

the staff are super friendly and listen to users' opinions, a

that's s true!!!! love that part

[Eleven_MA]

You didn't waste any time getting the heck out of there, Abi. So, is this the new Homeless Writers?

So, here I am. What should I know about Tapas before I start posting my story?

Two things. First: There's a 15k characters chapter limit. Second: This is primarily a webcomic site, so you're competing words against pictures

[WolfUnderTheMoon89]

True!

Athough more and more writers are popping up

[Jericho]

Ah yes, I quickly ran to Twitter because it seems like that's the new place for Wattpadders to hang.

[cherrystark]

Let's also not forgot how hard it is to actually get noticed on Wattpad. There were plenty of solid, good stories near the bottom of the rating scale. If you weren't writing some teen "clickbait' or Marvel fanfiction, you weren't going to get anywhere. Some of the stuff I read was unedited (forgive the term) trash with recycled plot lines. You never got to see the stuff from authors who were actively trying to improve on their craft.

[Prisim]

I have to imagine it can be since Wattpad used the same software and had it. But it's not the end of the world either way. I'll either make do or I won't LOL The world can't cater to my problems It's just funny because I spent years having issues reading online and figuring it's just because of my dyslexia (though someone suggested that I had something else wrong that I can't remember the name of LOL It's too expensive to go and find out so I'll never know for sure) then more and more websites started adding a dark mode and oh man the difference was night and day! Now I've gotten spoiled so I seem to struggle even more when there isn't a dark mode available

At least the short spurts give me a chance to slowly wade into the Tapas community and not be all "Prisim is here, baby! LOVE ME!"

[KRWright]

This may help some people who are moving over: https://forums.tapas.io/t/the-big-thread-on-how-to-succeed-novels-edition/46790/3