BookCamp Toronto: Tech Platforms for Authors

I attended BookCamp Toronto this past weekend where Canadian book publishing professionals got together to discuss books and the publishing industry. This week on the blog, I'll be sharing key points from a few of the sessions I was able to attend on Saturday: digital publicity, tech platforms for authors, and internships.

Wattpad presented an "ask me anything" session about technology platforms for authors. While a few other platforms were mentioned briefly, the panel focused on Wattpad's model. In case you're unfamiliar with Wattpad, here's a short description from the website: Wattpad is the world's largest community for discovering and sharing stories. It's a new form of entertainment connecting readers and writers through storytelling, and best of all, it's entirely free. With thousands of new stories added every day, an incredibly active community of readers, and the ability to read on your computer, phone, or tablet, Wattpad is the only place that offers a truly social, and entirely mobile reading experience.

Here are some highlights from the session:

• The writing experience on Wattpad takes away the usual isolation that surrounds writers. Users often update on a chapter by chapter basis and readers are encouraged to comment on what they're reading. This leads to an interactive writing process - the writer receives instant feedback and can change the storyline to readers' tastes.

• It's worth noting that a lot of the content on Wattpad is fanfiction based. Some writers start with fanfiction to build his/her audience and then move on to original stories. However, there are some exceptions. One of the most interesting examples mentioned at the BookCamp session was a nonfiction project where a writer posts diary entries from her teenage years and includes new present-day commentary.

• Wattpad has seen the most success with book series. In particular, when an author's first book is made available (for free) on the Wattpad platform, then interested readers are likely to purchase any other books in the series.

• The company has some upcoming partnerships with publishers to make books available to Wattpad users before the on-sale date. For example, a title may be available on the website to generate buzz, but will be removed once preorders for purchase begin. Wattpad is also being used as a platform for novellas and excerpts that coincide with published material.

There are already success stories of authors who started on Wattpad and now have publishing deals with major publishing houses. Writers: Do you have any experience with Wattpad? Would you ever consider using a platform like Wattpad to share and critique writing?