This is a very interesting discussion. Things to take into consideration when stating your answer are, how well do they take care of their authors?. This refers to the way the more popular authors are treated, not just in terms of money, also in terms of exploitation and protection of intellectual properties.
how big is the reach? this refers to the amount of people who are likely to see the story and read it. Also consider how easy or hard it is to gain reads.
And overall which has the better format? believe it or not, your eyes will be biased towards the layout of one over the other! So consider this when giving your answer. Which is easiest to use?
I think a poll would be a good add to this thread.
Episode
Wattpad
Both
Neither
0voters
Personally I’m not the biggest fan of either of them, but at least recently episode seems to listen to their community better. And I think the format is nice with the visible part of it.
It’s harder for me to navigate wattpad but it’s easier for me to write. I hate coding and having to make sure it’s perfect takes a lot of time. Obviously it takes time to write a chapter but nowhere near as much time as perfect directing . Obviously some people find it easier than me.
I like the directing part tbh, I kinda see extremely difficult coding as a puzzle I have to solve if that makes sense and that makes writing there fun. I’ve never tried writing on wattpad, but it seems to be easier to start writing there than on episode.
Well I think I prefer wattpad because it does advertise stories that don’t have many reads when you read a book.
So if I’m reading one about vampires, at the end of a chapter there might be a link to another story about vampires.
And I like reading episode stories, but writing them is just a pain and the mobile create made it so much easier to do.
On mobile create I spent 10 minutes writing a scene, then I went to a laptop and saw 600 lines worth of text, then spent the next 2 hours writing 100 more lines.
Both apps are okay. I work on stories that I want to publish, but I think I’ll publish my very first story on Wattpad, considering the fact that the whole coding thing on Episode is really tiring (and a bit of soul-destroying).
I do think there are a lot of similarities! The types of stories produced are quite similar, mostly.
Of course, you have the communities! Both writing apps have a Discourse forum. Wattpad seems to be more active than Episode in that respect right now.
I also see fewer arguments on Wattpad with fewer people strawmanning and getting angry for no reason. It happens, but the moderators over there are better, and I have a feeling the average age of users is a little higher there, at least on the forums.
I think it’s easier to find a gem on Wattpad. I don’t know if this is because there’s more content on it or because more traditionally-published authors are on there. It’s pretty hard to be published traditionally, so people tend to learn a lot of great lessons!
Plus, I think having to write in prose makes you a better writer overall. It improves your writing abilities. Why? Well, for a few different reasons
There are fewer visuals, so people have to make sure that they keep readers engaged in other ways.
People get quite lazy with dialogue. I mean, if you can make all your characters speak in slang, why bother trying anything else?
You get a lot more constructive feedback because people can comment specifically on lines that they either like or have something to say about.
There is a much better atmosphere when it comes to critique in general. People tend to get less butthurt and they get properly ridiculed if they ask for feedback and then complain when is negative
I guess it depends on what type of stories you like writing or reading. I’m a huge fan of visual storytelling which is why I love reading and writing on Episode.
However, on both platforms, it’s easier to find good stories by direct recommendations. A few years ago, I tried looking for YA fiction on Wattpad, thinking I’d find something similar to the pre-teen series books I loved in the 90s, but all I found were stories with a lot of sexual content, which is something I personally hate.
The same happens on Episode if you’re looking for stories in the trending section or in the featured stories. Almost all the good stories I’ve found on Episode have been because of recommendations of other authors on Instagram or the forums.
I can’t really give my opinion about the community because I haven’t participated on a Wattpad forum. I haven’t seen any offensive comments from readers on the stories I’ve read as of yet, though.
While I do enjoy reading Episode stories, I think I’m gonna go for Wattpad because you can write without worrying so much about coding. Plus, I may lose my patience if I do decide to turn my story into an Episode story but it would be for the mature app because my target audience for the story is going to be 18 and over.
But it’s cool to see a lot of visuals on Episode because it can be entertaining at times lol.
I’ll always take wattpad more seriously than episode because I always used to treat episode as a game. It would be easier to forget that I was reading a story that somebody had actually written because it just seemed so childish.
. Obviously some people find it easier than me.