This week I became a writer on Wattpad. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Wattpad is an app where you can both read and publish stories for free. The MBA in me has been following Wattpad for about a year now, as they continue to make news as a storytelling app with over $66M in funding, according to an early 2017 CNBC article.

Here’s what drew me to Wattpad.

Serialized content. Anyone who knows me knows I loved soaps as a kid. Particularly when a central love story went on and on and on and you sat with bated breath every day in front of the television waiting to see if today would be the day that your favorite couple pronounced their love for one another.

With the permeation of DVR, Netflix and the ability to get full series at the push of the button, I sort of miss the anticipation of the next episode. Granted, reading is a different medium than television, so it needs to be treated differently. And that is part of what Wattpad has to offer.

Multimedia. Part of what is so much fun when a new story or series becomes popular, is sharing the excitement amongst your friends in different ways. The internet provides a plethora of opportunity to add visuals that allow both authors and fans to share their take on the story.

One of the things I am most looking forward to as Bits of Violet develops, is linking to Violet’s pinterest board, sharing my inspiration board for Violet’s fashion choices (amongst other things), and maybe someday, adding music video or playlists for particular scenes.

Wattpad thinks like me and is allowing authors to share visuals and video in conjunction with stories. It’s super fun picking out pictures for chapter headers –like a visual chapter title. I highly recommend it.

Eyeballs. Literally. Wattpad boasts a monthly audience of over 55 million readers. If you are an early-stage writer like me, you need followers. So why wouldn’t you give this a try?

Of course, nothing is all rainbows and roses. If you get frustrated weeding through bad grammar and poorly structured sentences, this will be tough on you. It is unabashedly a platform for unpublished writers.

However, if you wonder if there are diamonds in the rough, just check out Amanda Abram’s Challenge Accepted on Wattpad. I can’t get enough Emma and Logan and am eagerly awaiting the next chapter!