Interview with Watty Award Winner Brian McBride: Using Wattpad to Build Your Audience

Today I’m talking with Young Adult author Brian McBride. I wanted to know more about Wattpad.

DJS: Your book Love and the Sea and Everything In Between is a 2016 Watty Award winner. How long did it take you to gain a significant following on Wattpad and how often did you post? 

BMcB: Honestly, I had put the first 10-15 chapters of Love and the Sea up on Wattpad back in 2015. I only had a couple thousand reads and a few dozen followers and held steady at that for months. When the time to submit for the 2016 Wattys came around, I decided to just upload the full manuscript rather than try to post weekly. After I won the Wattys, my reads multiplied exponentially almost overnight. I’ve left the first few chapters of the 2nd draft up since then and am on my way to half a million reads now. Winning the Wattys definitely gained me some visibility!

DJS: How did Wattpad affect your growth and progress as a writer? How do you think Wattpad can help new writers starting out? 

BMcB: Wattpad really helped because I received reader feedback in real-time! With the ability to comment, I was able to gauge a reader’s in-the-moment reactions to certain aspects of the story much better than if they just left one long review at the very end. Wattpad was great for building a platform, learning from my audience, and motivating me to write.

DJS: Can you tell us about a Wattpad user experience or difficulty that could have derailed you? How did you overcome that experience? 

BMcB: Oof. This is a great question. Because I think that a lot of what turned me off about Wattpad when I was just starting out – and it still kinda turns me off today – is that good, quality stories are often lost in the murk of trashy fan fiction and smut. I’ve read incredible, life changing stories on Wattpad that rarely surpassed a few thousand reads; meanwhile those trashy/smutty stories amass a whopping million. Like, how does that make sense? What has storytelling become? 

DJS: You were sixteen when you published your first book. What are the three most important things you have learned about publishing so far? 

BMcB: Determination to pursue success in your craft. Patience when you hit those bumps in the road. Endurance to see yourself through to the finish line. 

But also, more specifically: be competitive. Price your books competitively. Examine what others in your genre are doing with their covers, synopses, and marketing. Learn what the big publishers and authors are doing and apply it on a smaller scale to your own books. Market, market, market. And, when someone asks for a copy of your book in exchange for a review, say YES!

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions, Brian! I look forward to seeing what the future holds for you as you continue to write novels.

Read more about my talk with Brian and about his newest release, Every Bright and Broken Thing, on my blog here.

A winner of the 2016 Wattys Award, Brian published the award-winning Young Adult Contemporary debut, Love and the Sea and Everything in Between, in 2018.

Brian has been writing since he was thirteen-years-old. A fourth generation pastor, he is deeply passionate about the Church and is also pursuing his Minister’s License. It was this passion that compelled him to launch the Pioneer Mvmt, a social-media-based faith movement. Among other things, he is also passionate about iced tea, animals, adoption, and the arts.

Brian writes realistic, contemporary YA Christian fiction. You can purchase Brian’s books on Amazon.

Donna Jo Stone writes YA contemporary novels about tough issues but always ends the stories with a note of hope. She blogs at donnajostone.com.