Wattpad vs FictionPress vs Figment

Writing Community Sites

If you are wondering if you should post chapters of your novel on Wattpad or FictionPress or Figment, there is a site that compares the metrics of the domains.  You can find the comparison between:

  • Wattpad versus FictionPress here; and,
  • Wattpad versus Figment here.

From the metrics, it is obvious that Wattpad gets much more traffic.  Wattpad gets over 650,000 visitors a day compared to FictionPress’s 16,000 to Figment’s 5000.

These three sites are very different from Scribophile — you can read about my very positive experience with Scribophile here.

My general impression of each of the sites:

  • Wattpad is mainly a social media network where you try to gain followers.
  • FictionPress is not quite as user friendly and has an outdated look.
  • Figment does seem to be geared more towards the writing than the following.  I have just joined this one so I don’t have much experience with it yet.

Now, why would I want to post my chapters on these sites?  Well, I am not posting the finished work, they are drafts.  Also, I am pretty much certain that I will be self-publishing so I can do whatever the hell I want.  And as a debut author with no readership, I need to go to where the readers are.  So I post a chapter a week to see what response I get.

Wattpad

Wattpad-icon

At first glance Wattpad seems to be the better bet.  However, it is hard to get noticed or even read on Wattpad.  In order for that to happen, you need to ‘follow’ other writers and comment on their work. Even if you make the effort, you might get a follow back and a read. It helps if you have a kickass cover because, I hate to admit it, book covers sell books, or in this case, gains you readers.

The books shown prominently on Wattpad have millions of views.  Yes, millions.  And these authors have hundreds of thousands of followers.  With 200 million stories uploaded, how do you stand out if you are just starting.  It is difficult.

FictionPress

FictionPress Icon

Because of its setup, FictionPress is less focused on covers, ‘follows’ and popularity.  If you do not have a professionally made cover ready, you do not need to compete with the flashy pretty covers since the covers do not figure as prominently on the site.  The quality of the book blurb tends to attract the readers on FictionPress, rather than the cover.

FictionPress was a lot more popular five years ago.  Now the forums are like the empty halls of high school after the last bell.  From what I understand, Wattpad had siphoned off the writers from here and FanFiction. But there are still writers and readers on there. They do not appear very good at tooting their own horn, as I couldn’t find any data about how many stories had been uploaded to their site.

Figment

icon-figment

Having just joined Figment, I’m not entire certain what my experience will be there.  The covers are displayed prominently and to see the book blurb you need to click on the cover.  I think my lack of professional cover will play a factor.

What I found most interesting with Figment is that the top sites that link in are randomhouse.com, randomhousekids.com and penguingroup.com. See here where it says ‘Top sites linking in’ for what I mean.  Now I just need to figure out what ‘top sites linking in’ means. If anyone can tell me, please do.

My Experience

I joined Wattpad 18 days ago. No fancy cover to post, actually it is quite ugly.  I’ve had 65 views and 12 ‘likes’.  I have 6 followers but those are the ones that I’m following.  I’ve done some interaction but not much.  I think I only have 1 unsolicited follower.

After joining FictionPress for 14 days, 105 views by 52 visitors with 2 ‘likes’ and 3 following without my initiating any of the interactions.  I do reply to reviews and comments but I do not go on the site to read other work unless I’ve been asked (which I have).

As for Figment, I will need to provide an update at a later time to let you know how that is going.

I am also curious to see what happens when I post my professional cover of my book on the sites (which is expected in June) to see if that changes the readership numbers.  Being an engineer, I love data!

How about you?  Have you had any experience with these sites?  Did it increase your readership?

 

41 thoughts on “Wattpad vs FictionPress vs Figment”

  1. Tadeu Aratel says:
    Reply

    Julia! You wrote “Scribofile”, you heretic! I’m going to send this print to Alex, and he’ll have you kicked of the community, haha.

    Anyway, jokes aside, covers really are more than half the job. Wattpad was the reason why I learned a little bit of Photoshop (a very tiny bit, microscopical) back when I was still writing in Portuguese. I’m thinking of going back now, posting a few of my short stories there. After all there doesn’t appear to be much market for my good old adventure stories — everyone is looking for something funky, one way or another.

    Are you thinking of posting your novel there? I don’t think I need to say this, but be careful no to lose your first publication rights.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Saffron Grey says:
    Reply

    I plan to read your other posts about Wattpad/FictionPress/Figment after this comment, but I can’t resist sharing here.

    I understand your experience with Wattpad—as a Wattpadian myself for the last… 3 years? It does take a lot of time and initiation in order to get reads—definitely a give-and-take site. But a lot of people there enjoy good writing, so I believe you’ll have a strong readership in no time.

    I used to be on a site called Inkpop before Figment acquired it. Almost looks the same from when I had an account. I’m happy that you’re sharing your experiences. A lot of writers starting out look for a temporary home for their work. Thanks for sharing!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Julia says:
      Reply

      I hope I can build up the readership. I’m struggling there and on Tumblr. As a YA writer I need to get my brand out there. It is a lot of work. Thank you so much for the encouragement.

      Like

    • Nalene says:
      Reply

      I LOVED Inkpop. I think it was because the ranking system was so favorable to the first story I posted there–within two days it was in the top 150, and had I updated more, I believe it could’ve risen further. The only other story I posted got a nice boost when a group decided to add it to their New Book of the Week thread, and I got some really good feedback from the site overall. But the site was shut down a week or so later, unfortunately :/

      And as someone who’s personally gone between Wattpad and Fictionpress, I tend to read on Wattpad, and read/post on Fictionpress. I think it’s crazy that my same story I’ve posted that has gotten TEN reads in the past MONTH on Wattpad has gotten 153 visitors in the past 5 DAYS on Fictionpress. Is it because I haven’t interacted enough on Wattpad? Is it because I don’t have a good cover? I don’t know, but it’s gotta say something about the difference between the sites.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Julia says:
        Reply

        That is so disappointing about Inkpop. It sounds like you have some good material if you had so many reads so quickly. You should be proud of that. I found Fiction Press to be more responsive to my story than Wattpad. Like you, I think having an eye catching cover to be crucial to finding readers on Wattpad.

        Like

  4. D. Wallace Peach says:
    Reply

    These sites have intrigued me, but I decided to focus on blogging. There are so many social media platforms and to be successful they need attention, lots of attention! That said, I know people who love sharing their work and reading the work of others on Wattpad. Thanks for the comparison. Happy Writing, Julia. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Pingback: Wattpad vs FictionPress vs Figment – Kyle Overstreet
  6. Akaluv says:
    Reply

    Thanks for posting this! I actually used to be on Wattpad. I left Wattpad with 55K views on my original story and had over 3,000 followers. However, even with those high numbers, I was at the point where I couldn’t stand the website anymore. Yes, Wattpad gets the most traffic, but mostly stories with poor quality writing are the ones that get popular. Readers there want cliché romance stories about werewolves and vampires. If you write something unique, more than likely you won’t get reads. I’ve seen a badly written story get almost half a million reads with only 100-300 words per chapter. At first glance, Wattpad seems great, but if you are not writing fanfiction or romance, I wouldn’t waste your time.

    Anyway, this is just my opinion.

    Liked by 1 person

      • Akaluv says:
        Reply

        I hope my comment didn’t come off negative, but I often see very talented writers go to Wattpad thinking it’s great just to get disappointed. Most of the readers and writers there are teen girls, so often books without romance don’t appeal to them. Sometimes you may get lucky if you write teen fiction or romance, but it will take a lot of time. On Wattpad you need to be very social and talk to people on the threads. I’ve found talking to people on the threads takes away from writing and you end up being more social than anything else. I guess it depends on what you really want out of the site. My main goal was to get readers and promote my books. I got discouraged when I saw poorly written work easily getting 500 – 1M reads.

        Liked by 1 person

    • Kemorgan65 (@kemorgan65_m) says:
      Reply

      It’s true that WattPad requires a bit of ‘work’, depending on what you’re looking to gain from it. The first year of my posting on WP, I didn’t have much traffic. When I started commenting on other people’s stories, I started to get noticed. It’s almost like a Facebook for writers and readers.
      I found book clubs within WP where you basically exchange reads and that way ‘up’ your activity. There are also a lot of competitions you can enter and attract attention.
      The best thing about WP for me is, finding persons who give constructive feedback. Now I have a handful of beta readers who give really good constructive feedback that help me in editing my writing – and I return the favor. And it’s fun!
      Also there are some very good, high quality writing there, you just have to look a little closer. 😉

      Liked by 1 person

      • Akaluv says:
        Reply

        I don’t know how or why I’m seeing your comment, but Wattpad is a trash writing site. They treat writers poorly unless they are popular and their system of getting new stories noticed is terrible. Most, if not all the writers I know from that site are leaving or already left.

        Also, I’ve done all the things you mentioned and it was a big waste of my time. Sorry, but I also found the readership their a joke, but that was just my experience. I don’t advise writers to use Wattpad, especially if they want to see results of their work.

        Liked by 1 person

        • Akaluv says:

          You’re welcome, and I don’t mean to sound harsh in my comments. After spending 4 years on Wattpad hoping for a payoff, I just try to warn other writers not to waste their time. If they are writing Young Adult stories, Wattpad may work from them, but if they are writing New Adult to Adult stories, they are better off somewhere else.

          Liked by 1 person

  8. Saintc says:
    Reply

    Actually as of late Fantasy and Sci Fix have been getting the spotlight on wattpad. The thing about wattpad is that trends die of fast and are replaced by new ones almost immediately. I have a 25 humor novel with 80K and I’m not the best in terms of socialising and interacting. Humor isn’t even a very popular genre on the site.

    Good writing DOES attract readers. If you submit your book to be featured and it gets accepted your reads will spike up. If your not chasing votes, comments and a large following but just a hand full of dedicated readers. Staying true to yourself and your writing is enough to achieve that.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Julia says:
      Reply

      I enjoy hearing other author’s experiences on the site. Especially glad to hear that if the writing is good, people will find you. Thanks for your comment.

      Like

    • Julia says:
      Reply

      I won’t have any new data for sometime since I took the books off the sites to do a major rewrite. I will be posting the book on the different sites again in the future. This time with a kick-ass cover! 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      • T.E.Mark - Author says:
        Reply

        Awesome! I’ll look forward to seeing the new package.
        As much as we may want to buy that line ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover,’ many out there do.
        Question: I’m also rewriting an earlier book. Do you find rewriting actually more challenging than writing something new?

        Liked by 1 person

        • Julia says:

          My first draft is a vomiting of ideas without any thought to style or grammar. I find it cathartic. Rewrites are more onerous because that is when I start paying attention to style and grammar. And if you decide a personality change is required or even their hair colour, you need to go back through the rest of the book to make sure it is consistent. How about you?

          Liked by 1 person

  11. Hannah Moynihan says:
    Reply

    Hi Julia!
    Just read this post and now I’m wondering how everything turned out for you? In my opinion, Figment is actually seriously underrated in the creative writing world. A former Wattpad user myself, I couldn’t believe the difference when I switched!

    Figment is unique in that there is an incredibly active community. If you are looking for quick feedback (honest and critical, as well as positive), Figment is the way to go! It is fairly easy to connect with people by swapping reviews, joining groups, contests, and more. My writing has never flourished more!

    Wattpad can be very difficult to attract attention to yourself because of it’s traffic, like you had mentioned. But if you are looking for a tight and active community, stick with Figment!

    Thanks again for sharing this post with us!
    ~Hannah from Enchased Thought

    Liked by 1 person

    • Julia says:
      Reply

      Hi Hannah,
      Answering that question will be a whole new post. But I have started another experiment again that I will post about in the future. I’m not sure how relevant my experience will be since I have not been too social on any of the sites. That is really where you get your readers. I’m really glad you found your community with Figment. That is great!

      Like

  12. alltheotherusernamesaretakenalready says:
    Reply

    Hi! I’m only just reading this now. A couple days ago it was announced that Figment is being shut down and that announcement has sent me on a search throughout the interwebs for a similar platform for my work.
    Figment was so incredibly useful to me. Like any website of this type, there are good writers and bad writers, but the focus, unlike some websites, is primarily on writing (although there is active roleplaying as well). Figment, being the smaller website it is, is really nice because most people are very active and form a really nice community. Figment tends to be driven more by its users than the company behind it. The users are the ones who create contests, leave comments and reviews, post on each others’ walls, etc.
    It can be difficult to get engagement on Figment if you’re new and don’t quite understand how things work yet. The best way to get feedback is to post on other peoples’ walls asking for a swap, in which you leave them feedback on a piece of their choice and they do the same for you. I’ve done this countless times, and the feedback I’ve received is honestly incredible. The website as a whole has helped me improve my writing so much, and I am so grateful for its (soon to be terminated) existence.
    That’s all I have to say. If you do find any other writing community that is of a similar size (so as not to run into the same problems that Wattpad has), is relatively user friendly (unlike Fiction Press I’m sorry to say) and offers this same quality of feedback, do let me know. I will be checking out Scribophile but I’m not too sure how I feel about the karma concept.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Julia says:
      Reply

      Oh no! The shutdown of Figment is very disappointing. I’m extremely glad that it worked for you, but disheartened that you are losing such a great resource.

      I found Scribophile to be very helpful and hope you find a place there. Good luck.

      Like

  13. miaisclean says:
    Reply

    You should check out Inkitt if you haven’t I’ve gotten around 20 followers the past week without reading or commenting on any one else’s work. They seem to highlight the book descriptions more than the covers, though they still have their own cover design feature which has a decent enough selection of stock photos. They also say they’re geared towards getting writers published; after you post your first chapter, there’s a prompt asking for your number and email so they can contact you in case your story is picked for publication.

    Like

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