Wattpad Novel

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From Publishing Perspectives:

With more than 905,000 reads at Wattpad to date, the first installment of author Kara Barbieri’s ‘Permafrost’ trilogy has a January release date, potentially the next platform-born YA bestseller.

. . . .

In the latest platform-to-Big-Five cover reveal for a title that began life on Wattpad, Macmillan’s Wednesday Books has announced January 8 as the publication date for Kara Barbieri’s White Stag.

. . . .

The YA series then was described as having been “pitched as Twilight Meets Game of Thrones, featuring a 17-year-old girl who was captured from her village to live in the brutally beautiful Permafrost, where she finds herself becoming more monster than human and must uncover secrets to find the truth about who she is and the world that has become her home.”

In a prepared statement provided to Publishing Perspectives, Gardner is quoted, saying, “Kara’s story exploded among readers shortly after she started writing, finding a home in the Wattpad community.

“It’s a story we knew would connect with audiences of Wattpad. People couldn’t put this story down, enthralled by its mix of fantasy and action combined with themes of female empowerment.

“White Stag is a perfect example of how Wattpad creates opportunities for authors. We can’t wait to see this story take the world by storm as a book next year.”

Link to the rest at Publishing Perspectives

PG had to double-check the dates in the OP.

In an article dated April 27, 2018, Macmillan is publicizing a novel that it acquired in 2016 that will be released in January 2019.

Does it really take three years for a major publisher to release a book that (by virtue of nearly a million reads on Wattpad, seems to be attractive to readers) is already quite good?

5 thoughts on “Wattpad Novel”

  1. Slots, methinks.
    All the release slots until then were already taken.

    And making the announcement now gives them chance to see how preorders ramp up at Amazon and B&N before committing to a print run. Once they do, it’ll probably take two to three months to bring the books over and ship them out to the distribution centers.

    Ocean liners don’t turn on a dime.

    (Mind you, that summary sounds like a hundred other recent YA fantasies. Her narrative voice must be really good if the series is to thrive for her.)

  2. I have to agree PG. In what business school would they teach you to sit on a high profit product for 3 years? What value added idea does it take 3 years to add to a story that has already been liked by a million consumers? If there’s an innovation that trad pub desperately needs, it’s figuring out how to get products to market faster.

  3. PG, takes them even longer to realize that a “read” on Wattpad is counted when someone reads a chapter rather than a whole book! I wonder if the publisher who acquired that first Wattpad book and trumpeted its millions of “reads” ever figured that out…

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