In a previous post, we mentioned Wattpad and described it to our readers as:
A “type and publish as you go” website for authors
Well, now we would like to add a bit more to our documentation of Wattpad in order to warn our readers and also warn potential or existing Wattpad members. For the most part, it’s a site that is fairly bully-free, at least among its members. The same cannot be said of its management, however. Just recently, we were tipped off to a story of injustice on the site, an injustice that happened to a very popular author (we will call him G) who was trying to help another author after she was harshly bullied. We will give you screenshots and proof as to what happened, and describe how it relates to our post on notorious bully, Linda Hilton, and the recent carpet bombs on her books.
First, we will start with Rants ‘n Stuff published by a friend of G who wanted to vent his frustrations about the incident (we’ve blacked any identifying information):
We also found another person who chimed in in a comment thread discussing the topic:
(Note: “hates” refers to a book of essays G was writing.)
Although the author of the article, Rants ‘n Stuff, will not name this member of hq who lied, we have no reservations in doing so. His name is Nick Uskoski and he is a member of the Wattpad Support Team:
He sounds very professional, doesn’t he?
Think again. We have screenshots that reveal his true colors. Here, he is mocking G, the author he banned:
In these screenshots, he calls G a troll and a tool:
In this next one, he continues to make derogatory comments about him:
We also have evidence that Nick doesn’t even follow Wattpad protocol:
So, how did this all get started? What was Nick’s excuse for banning G?
Well, the answer goes back to the post we did on Linda Hilton. G read Linda’s comment saying she supported down-rating authors’ books as a form of “punishment”:
Then, he shared this with his friends and followers on Wattpad, telling them that he did not agree, but specifically stating that he did not wish any harm to be brought down on her for saying it. He also shared with his WP friends the story of another author who was just recently bullied by Linda and her ilk from BookLikes. As a result, Linda’s books were suddenly carpet-bombed to oblivion and the bullied author received over 100 5-star ratings on her books. The devastation done to Linda’s books was out of G’s control, but he was nonetheless blamed for it.
Now, how does this get back to Nick? In order to retaliate against G, Linda contacted Wattpad, i.e. Nick, and made up a story that G had sent her death threats, which was a complete lie. She even admits to making up a story in this screenshot below:
Then, Nick, already having a grudge against G, decided to ban him permanently from Wattpad with NO warning or explanation. And that’s how it all happened. An abusive WP admin gets a hold of a lie coming from one of Goodreads’ and BookLikes’ notorious bullies and decides to ban an innocent person with no warning.
Pretty shitty, isn’t it?
That’s not all. To add insult to injury, G’s friends started a discussion thread on the topic, asking what happened to him. They were told to remain silent by WP management and their thread was closed:
So, this is why we are warning our readers about Wattpad. We realize that many authors love the site and rightfully so, just be careful of corrupt WP mods and managers. Apparently, there are some bad apples among them.
« A New Level of Author Bullying GR Deletes One-Star Ratings of Giveaway Carpet Bomber »
Wow, I guess my suspicions about the website have been true. I had like three arbitrary warns there there over in a specific promotion thread, yet they never felt like adding an additional section that has long been established in Trade fiction.
Also note that Wattpad now has competition, from Tablo publishing. I guess time will tell if they become like Wattpad.
Wattpad is weird for other reasons as well. Specifically in terms of a viewer base system. One book I’ve had had a little over 100 views (119 to be exact). The actual viewship was about 60 reads. Which is still good, but not 119. In a recent look at unique readers, while the views said 13 views there were in fact only two unique readers. What this means is that everything an author edits their work on there, it is counted as a view.
On the other hand, Tablo does it a little differently. You can edit your work through a continue writing function. This way you won’t accidentally make it so that your edit does not count as an extra view when you re-upload it. In fact re-uploading doesn’t happen, so you don’t have the scenario where re-uploading counts as a view.
While I love Wattpad, this view per read in general is slightly deceptive. As someone wanting to make a living as a writer, I want to know what the actual viewership base is.
This viewership problem I could ignore, except for the fact that it seems self-published books that are later trade published are grabbed from Wattpad, not Tablo. Thus the data being used to determine sales has a flaw in the system.
Thus, along with this guy banning a user for no reason, I don’t understand why I still use that crowd-publisher.
I appreciate your doing this story. Some time back, I recommended Wattpad to those who follow my FB page. Now I’m wishing I had not done that. —-
What I would say is the “commoners” are super nice, but the moderators.:/ Yea not so much.
I started a story on wattpad, one that I was really hoping to finish. I was banned for no reason before i could save it to my computer :\
Any additional word on this? That sucks that happened.:/
I got a warning once, just because I didn’t “properly” mark something as teen. Even though I had put teen fiction in the tag section.
This is one of the reasons I use Tablo mainly now.
Hey, I just wanted to address something that’s going on in the Amazon forums, and I wasn’t sure where to put it, so I’ll put it here.
As you may know, there’s a long thread in the Meet Our Authors Forum named “STGRB” after you guys.
It’s currently been hijacked by the trolls who are using it to trash you. Two in particular got my goat. One is ‘Misfit’, who writes:
In reply to an earlier post on Feb 20, 2015 4:37:27 PM PST
Misfit says:
Really? I’m on that list. SHOW ME a link to any forum on Amazon where I’ve been the least bit *mean*. Seriously, I give you permission to link to any post on the STGRB site that proves why I’m on that list, or a link to any thread in the Amazon forum that shows bully behavior by me.
SHOW ME.
I’m waiting…
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Well, Misfit, here’s a link to a book you shelved offensively:
And why did you shelve it? BECAUSE THE AUTHOR HAD DARED TO COMPLAIN ABOUT A REVIEW ON HER BLOG. Nobody had noticed for months, but when it was pointed out in the Amazon forums, a bunch of people went and attacked it.
I’d have a lot more links that show Misfit what a bully she is, but her GR profile is set to private, so I can’t.
The second post that got my goat is Pete Morin’s.
Posted on Feb 20, 2015 4:41:25 PM PST
Pete Morin says:
I admit to being one of the evil, vicious “trolls” on their list that Ms. Rice is so concerned about.
How did I get on that list?
Did I one-star an indie author? Noooooooo….
Did I pick on a newbie and make her cry? Noooooo…
Did I write blistering reviews of inferior work? Nooooo…
What did I do?
I made a few animated videos that lampooned specific instances of bad author behavior. Here’ go look at one or two and see how awful they are.
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He does this ALL THE TIME! Pretending that he doesn’t know how he ended up on the sidebar of Amazonians to avoid! So here’s the link to the article you guys did on him: https://stopthegrbullies.com/2013/05/19/pete-m-review-swapping/
PETE, YOU’RE ON THE LIST FOR DOING ALL THE THINGS OTHER AUTHORS GET ATTACKED FOR. Except that you get away with it because you sucked up to the trolls.
So to all the people that think this site is unreliable, vicious, hypocritical, or whatever? Do your homework. There’s a reason why it’s influential.
Is wattpad going to remove that Uskoski or whoever he is? Sounds like they’re as bad as amazon and goodreads. I don’t think any indie author book site is safe from those maniacs. I guess with trolls it’s all about the “power and control syndrome” (just like a stalker). Looks like that Uskoski guy was cyber stalking that author. Such bizarre and irrational behavior.
As for that nutcase Linda Hilton, she got what she deserved on the carpet bombing. I don’t think the bombers were harsh enough though. I think she needs another dose of her own medicine.
They should remove Nick, but we’re pretty sure he’s still there.
I didn’t know that about the STGRB review. I would sign in to defend STGRB, but I think anyone with a brain even a micro bit larger than a peanut takes KBoards and that other writing board with a grain of salt.:/
Note as an update, Wattpad seems to have really gone downhill. For one, instead of moderators doing their job, it’s been replaced by a culture more common in abandon ware. That is, a culture of group vigilantism, where people can say any slanderous or libelous thing about people with very little consequences. All you can really do is mute people, because the moderators seem more focused on cornering people who put their book in the wrong category than actual cyber bullies.
There also seems to be growing resentment among the older crowd, who are starting to notice some of the weird updates the website has been having. Like I was once interviewed for my poem, but now it would be almost impossible to find it. And it’s not really worth asking the person where it is.
Let’s take someone labeling someone a book copier. Doesn’t even need to be actual copywrite infringement. This kind of blatant slandering and libeling goes unchecked on there.
It’s starting to become like how Absolute Writers Water Cooler became in later years, focusing more on “background checks” than giving out actual writing advice. I would strongly advice avoiding crowd-publishing altogether. Especially in a place that’s esentially the booklikes of crowd-publishing.
Also to note, for a website that claims to focus on fiction, there is an inordinate amount of accounts devoted exclusively to using the website as a blogging platform, where they post rants about members instead of what its there for, which is to post fiction.
Again this is how these bullies get away with this shit. They are ambiguous who they are referring to, because they know if its actually investigated they would not have a case in question. (Speaking of the people that go on these witch hunts about people on wattpad, but no if they specified who they’d have a lot harder case to prove.)
I’m boycotting Wattpad completely now. Using Talbo instead.
Due to the ambiguous of above post, I talking about a wattpad user. You don’t just storm in and label anybody a copyrwrite infringer.