Caught on Camera - Free Summer Read on Wattpad

by Madelle Morgan

Caught on Camera, my 55,000 word New Adult romantic comedy, was discovered by thousands of readers worldwide pre-publication. 

Wattpad.com, the social media site for aspiring and published writers, is the reason.

An unknown indie romance author has a very difficult time getting her books noticed in this new age of self-publishing. 

Building an e-mail list and followers can be a difficult, time-consuming and often expensive process. 

In this post, I'll describe how I went from four followers to over a hundred thousand followers on Wattpad, and why my awesome free read experience is one I will repeat with the second book in the Hollywood in Muskoka series.

I signed up on Wattpad.com in August, 2015 and started posting pre-copyedited scenes of Caught on Camera. Five months later, I had a grand total of four Wattpad followers. My book was ranked so low among thousands of stories it didn't even merit a number. No one could find it. 

Sound familiar?

Wattpad has three curated lists under each Discover/category tab: Hot, Featured, and Undiscovered. In January I submitted an on-line application to have Caught on Camera featured in the Discover/Romance category. It was featured starting mid-February, after I had posted approximately half the book.

As a condition of having my book featured, I agreed to leave the complete novel on the site for six months. "What do I have to lose?" I thought. My debut romantic suspense, Diamond Hunter, was never discovered despite good reviews, promo via KDP Select, deal sites, and Facebook ads, and eventually a permanent price of $0.99 USD. I crossed my fingers that I might gain a few readers via the Wattpad feature. Maybe a hundred followers. Optimistically two hundred.

Well, to my amazement, as of July I have more than 112,000 Wattpad followers from around the world! 

Granted, most followers wait until a story is complete to start reading. Over two thousand did read my chapters as they were posted weekly this spring, briefly pushing the book to #19 in Romance. Many readers commented with much appreciated feedback that made Caught on Camera a better story. I even added a sex scene due to popular demand!

Will many of those 112,000 followers buy the book when it's published, given that they had the opportunity to read it for free? That remains to be seen. I will advertise a special feature that is not in the final draft posted on Wattpad. However, having thousands of readers who can't wait to read Sex and the Screenwriter, Book 2 in the series, is a long way from four followers status!

I'll begin posting Book 2 scenes on Wattpad in the fall.


Caught on Camera Back Cover Copy

To achieve her dream of working on Hollywood film sets, star struck chambermaid Rachel Lehmann needs $35,000 for film school tuition by the end of the summer. When she's asked to fill in for a missing bridesmaid at a movie star's wedding, it's her big chance to secretly take candid photos of celebrities and sell them to the entertainment media. Then groomsman Mickey McNichol, agent to the stars, sweeps her off her feet.

Mickey cynically believes everyone in show business is out for what they can get. When he falls hard for the stand-in bridesmaid, he thinks he's finally met a beautiful woman he can trust. But if Rachel betrays the wedding party's privacy, Mickey will ensure she never works in Hollywood.

Caught on Camera is complete on Wattpad.com. I sent it to a copy editor last week, and it will be available on Amazon, Kobo, and iBooks in September. Meanwhile, treat yourself to a fun, sexy summer read. Sign up on Wattpad.com, follow Madelle Morgan, and read Caught on Camera for free.

Have a wonderful summer!

Madelle

Subscribe to MadelleMorgan.com and receive a free copy of her sexy short story, The Next Big Thing.

Madelle tweets and posts about Hollywood, filmmaking, the settings for her stories, and of course, writing. 

Follow Madelle on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Pinterest, and Wattpad. 

Free Reads - Short Stories

From an author’s perspective a Free Read is a promotional item. Like the free food samples at grocery stores, given a taste readers will (the author hopes) like the product and want more!

For readers, a Free Read provides the opportunity to discover a new author, sample the writing style prior to a buying decision, or spend more time with favorite characters.

Excerpts are one type of Free Read. As well, there are several free short story approaches to entice readers to put an author’s books on their “to read” lists, including but not limited to the following:

1.    Promote Author’s Voice and Brand

The way authors tell stories is as individual as their personalities. Are the stories light and humorous or gritty and dark? Fast-moving or descriptive? Whether authors write hot, kinky romance or high tension romantic suspense, their free short reads “brand” them as writers in a particular genre. When readers search review sites, the bookshelves at a book store or online book sellers such as Amazon, they’ll expect to find books in the same “voice” and genre that authors promote in the free short stories.

2.    Frame a Series

My free short story The Next Big Thing describes how Angela meets her match but also introduces the heroines of my next two novels: sister Sophie (For Love and Money - romantic suspense) and cousin Lucy (The Lust Factor - romantic comedy). The short story is a frame linking very different tales of three beautiful women who happen to be related.

I wish from the bottom of my heart that those two books were already written and published because it is asking a lot of a reader to wait that long. Lesson learned. When planning a series, authors may consider writing a short story that introduces linked characters. So as not to frustrate readers, they should publish the Free Read only when the first book in the series is available!

3.    Hook with a Prequel

Genre fiction does not allow for detailed backstory. However, many readers are keen to know more about the hero or heroine’s journey to that point.

Consider this example. An author would love to describe the incident years ago when the hero saved his sister from a murderous demon but was left emotionally and physically scarred, knowing the next encounter with the demon would kill him. However, the editor nixes the flashback, and the book opens when the same demon targets the heroine. A Free Read ‘extra’ can provide details of characters' pasts that the author had to cut; i.e., a deleted prologue or flashback scene is converted into a short free read.

4.    Satisfy With a Sequel

Romance readers follow the characters’ trials and tribulations for hours, only to be left at the altar, so to speak. In a short story an author can give readers proof there really is a happily ever after. At the wedding of the hero and heroine does the best man get together with the caterer? Does the bride’s sister fall for the groom’s out-of town college roommate? There may not be enough spin-off story for a full-length novel, but a short sequel gives readers a few more minutes with favorite characters while providing a satisfying story complete in itself.

What type of Free Read do you enjoy most?

Madelle’s Free Read, The Next Big Thing, was downloaded over 100,000 times and won a 'Superstar' award at Ellora’s Cave RomantiCon 2010.

My True Confession

by Madelle Morgan

What do you do when you’re a closet romance writer in a male-dominated profession and your first romance is published?

Back then I, a senior professional engineer and manager, had not informed my own employees, boss, colleagues nor industry clients that I wrote romance (and never intended to).

THEN  (drum roll…)

Soon after the print version became available, an amazing opportunity arose to sell copies of my debut romantic suspense Diamond Lust at my workplace annual charity fund-raising event. The offer included posters of my book cover plastered beside elevators throughout the 2,000 employee complex. Dozens of those employees were geologists, mining industry scientists and technologists — the ideal target audience for a novel about diamond mining in Canada’s far north.

BUT  (cue sad violin music…)

A manager needs respect, right? I’d acquired hard won credentials to counteract male chauvinism that had dogged me throughout my career. I’d been called Blondie, hit on in my younger, thinner days, and in two different jobs was assigned to a two man survey crew as a superfluous third until I proved myself, when I had exactly the same expertise as my male classmates. 

Madelle at 22

One summer I assisted two civil engineering professors with surveying and water samples in a remote area. 

One of them said to me, “I wouldn’t allow my daughter to do this work.” What did he expect the women in his classes to do with their degrees – sit at home and build bridges with Lego?

In 1987 I was the first woman in Canada to graduate from a civil engineering Master’s degree program in Construction Project Management. While searching for a new job, with five years of project experience and a construction boom underway, I was repeatedly fed the line, “We’re not hiring at this time.” At a very brief job interview a condo construction company executive asked, “What will you do with your child?” Apparently he’d never heard of daycare. I didn’t get the job.

Needless to say, for decades I only exhibited my logical, analytical left brain self at work in order to claw my way up the pay scale in line with male counterparts. I hid my creative ultra-feminine writer alter ego from co-workers. Meanwhile, naturally I incorporated occupational knowledge into my novels, as do other professionals such as MDs, forensic pathologists and lawyers who write commercial fiction.

Then my professional career and the opportunity to promote my romantic suspense novel at work collided. (Cue crashing cymbals...)

Dare I make my True Confession?

The excellent opportunity for Diamond Lust publicity was too good to miss.

(Ta da da DAH!) The Big Reveal of my romance writer persona to those in my professional life. I sold quite a few print copies at that charity book sale, including to men with whom I worked.

In the dark hours of second-guessing my decision — OMG, have the guys read the massage scene? What was I thinking? — I realized that the respect of those who “didn’t approve”, and indeed there were several, didn’t matter to me anymore. Besides, how many books had they published, eh?

At that point my two personas finally merged! I’m a romance author AND an engineer. To validate that, fans subsequently downloaded more than 100,000 copies of my free short story The Next Big Thing, which describes an engineer’s very sexy invention.

Do you think making my True Confession years earlier, instead of when early retirement was on the horizon, would have risked my professional credibility? What would you have done and why?

Postscript: Diamond Lust is only $1.49 in the Kindle and Nook Book stores, and $0.99 at Ellora’s Cave.