Tagged: publishing

How Data Can Help Your Story Get Discovered

Corley Frierson

Homepage of Wattpad, an online community of readers and writers.
Homepage of Wattpad, an online community of readers and writers.

Calling All Writers!

This article describes a new publishing trend. Using data to publish and edit stories. The article follows trend leader Wattpad, and their accompanying branch Wattpad Publishing. The app (and publishing branch) use data to guide users through the editing and publishing process.

How Can Wattpad Help?

Writers on Wattpad can learn how to: grow their readership, receive useful feedback, and gain the attention of publishers. This article cites research from the published paper Online Frenzy: How Wattpad can be used in traditional publishing. The paper’s author, Taylor Thompson, is a previous acquisitions manager. Thompson explains how the app’s design can direct writers to publishing houses, and supply an audience for posted stories. The article also cites company statements about Wattpad’s story insights report feature. This feature provides strategic editing feedback to writers. To explain how the app uses data to do this, the article cites messages from CEO Allen Lau.

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How Data Can Help Your Story Get Discovered

 

 

Writers’ unions bring digital contract work closer to trade work

Sam Lamourie

Writing and publishing industries have rapidly expanded into the online space. As a result, the working conditions of writers have also undergone rapid change. Rather than working full-time for a single publication, vast numbers of digital writers are now freelancers.

Freelance workers are usually ineligible for benefits

Most employers still only offer benefits to full-time employees, not freelancers. This has made it difficult for writers to access benefits such as health care, severance pay, or even a stable income.

Denied benefits, many writers have formed unions

A crowd of union members holding signs
A Writers’ Guild of America strike. The WGA started as a union for print authors but has expanded to include digital contractors.
The lack of benefits has led many writers and freelancers to form writers’ unions. As explained by Claire Lower, a senior editor at Lifehacker, writers’ unions allow digital writers to negotiate for the same benefits as any other worker.

The rise of unionization in online publishing has given more writers a higher quality of life. In addition to benefits, being part of a union gives writers a greater sense of self-worth.

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