#WattpadBooksAreRealBooksToo started with a misplaced and insulting internet comment, as many hashtag movements do these days. If you didn’t know, my co-author and I write a science fiction series on the free to read site. It’s a video game inspired novel called Bone Diggers. Since I have one foot in the publishing world, and another in the Wattpad camp I feel like I’m qualified to weigh in on the subject. But, I’m not here to talk about Bone Diggers today, at least not directly.

There are obviously many differences between the two paths, just like how a serialized newspaper story in the old days was different than a novel. But these differences don’t matter. Writers put in as much heart and soul into their Wattpad stories as any other writer does. All writing is an act of creation, and that creation has value no matter where you end up posting it.

I’m thrilled to announce that Bone Diggers has recently been handpicked to be featured on the site, but that doesn’t mean it was any less real before this. Just like how a any well written novel that isn’t widely known isn’t less meaningful. Wattpad specifically has given me countless things that my publishing deal can’t. It’s a trial run in ways, and very real in many others.

Last year, I posted a chapter of Bone Diggers every single week. It wasn’t as spotless or query tested as Hello World which is going to be published with Pandamoon, but I was given something I never thought. Each week I felt progress, I felt that I was building to something great. Bad weeks had a beacon of hope at the end of them thanks to Wattpad.

We all quickly learn that the traditional route is slow. It can take years to get a book deal, and while Wattpad books might not be traditional, they have as much hope and longing from the writer to share and connect with people as any other piece does. Wattpad books are as real as the writers creating them, and can sometimes give a momentum like nothing else can.

What do you think? Does the platform where something is posted dictate value, or does writing always speak for itself no matter where it is found? And remember you can check out all of Bone Diggers over on Wattpad!