I've been wanting to do this for a while, but Wattpad's Story Analytics were down for the longest time, so I could only do it now.

DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to be attention-seeking or snobby here. I understand that I am considered a "bigger" account on here and that I am very fortunate to have the amount of followers and reads that I do. I am extremely grateful for all of that, and the information presented here does not make me any less so.

I have been on Wattpad for a long time. I published a book the same day I joined on January 5, 2013, so I have been writing on this site for, quite literally, as long as I have been on it. In recent years, I have noticed a serious decline in reader engagement. By this, I mean that the amount of reads my stories would generate would vastly contrast the amount of votes or people who commented.

For the purpose of this data collection, I picked my two most overall popular (in terms of reads) books, Different and Conflate, three of my ongoing stories, and two stories that have been popular recently even though they are completed.

I used the Story Analytics feature on the Wattpad website. This can be found by going to your works and clicking on the icon with a bar graph beneath the orange "continue writing" tab:

This is what the Story Analytics will look like under the "Overview" tab:

DEFINITION: Wattpad defines a "Unique Reader" as "someone who reads your story, regardless of the amount of parts they have read, and was logged in while reading. This number can be different from the amount of reads on each part." (Found on the "Understanding Writer Analytics" article on the Wattpad Support website.)

This definition means that it counts a unique reader as an individual who has read the story. This does not count one person clicking on the story several times or me going to the story multiple times to reply to any comments. The first time someone clicks on a story is the only time it will be counted.

DISCLAIMER #2: I am a simple college student and my data calculations may be incorrect. If you notice any errors, please kindly correct them.

For this data collection, I took the numbers of each individual readers for August 25–August 30th because, as you can see in the screenshot, the reads were broken while the analytics were down, but the votes still show up. Since August 31st was yesterday and there were errors showing the reads on some of the stories, I decided not to include it.

I divided the number of votes by the number of unique readers and changed the decimal to a percent. I am now realizing the error in this because one person can vote on multiple chapters, but it doesn't really change the purpose of this data collection, which was to show how little votes I get compared to readers. That is still confirmed by the numbers.

I literally sound like I'm typing up a lab report lmao but here's the actual data:

DIFFERENT
august 25th
        unique readers: 151
        votes: 22
        percent of readers who voted: 14%
august 26th
        unique readers: 77
        votes: 8
        percent of readers who voted: 10%
august 27th
        unique readers: 139
        votes: 26
        percent of readers who voted: 18%
august 28th
        unique readers: 124
        votes: 26
        percent of readers who voted: 20%
august 29th
        unique readers: 120
        votes: 13
        percent of readers who voted: 10%
august 30th
        unique readers: 103
        votes: 11
        percent of readers who voted: 10%

CONFLATE
august 25th
        unique readers: 54
        votes: 32
        percent of readers who voted: 59%
august 26th
        unique readers: 38
        votes: 9
        percent of readers who voted: 23%
august 27th
        unique readers: 55
        votes: 37
        percent of readers who voted: 67%
august 28th
        unique readers: 53
        votes: 29
        percent of readers who voted: 54%
august 29th
        unique readers: 54
        votes: 11
        percent of readers who voted: 20%
august 30th
        unique readers: 48
        votes: 41
        percent of readers who voted: 85%

MOSTLY GHOSTLY
august 25th
        unique readers: 25
        votes: 25
        percent of readers who voted: 100% (YAY!)
august 26th
        unique readers: 35
        votes: 14
        percent of readers who voted: 40%
august 27th
        unique readers: 31
        votes: 1
        percent of readers who voted: literally only one person voted... so...
august 28th
        unique readers: 35
        votes: 6
        percent of readers who voted: 17%
august 29th
        unique readers: 36
        votes: 3
        percent of readers who voted: 8%
august 30th
        unique readers: 41
        votes: 4
        percent of readers who voted: 9%

AFTERMATH
august 25th
        unique readers: 22
        votes: 16
        percent of readers who voted: 72%
august 26th
        unique readers: 17
        votes: 2
        percent of readers who voted: 11%
august 27th
        unique readers: 21
        votes: 7
        percent of readers who voted: 33%
august 28th
        unique readers: 20
        votes: 6
        percent of readers who voted: 30%
august 29th
        unique readers: 37
        votes: 2
        percent of readers who voted: 5%
august 30th
        unique readers: 25
        votes: 1
        percent of readers who voted: again, one person

FIREHEART
august 25th
        unique readers: 54
        votes: 36
        percent of readers who voted: 66%
august 26th
        unique readers: 46
        votes: 13
        percent of readers who voted: 28%
august 27th
        unique readers: 34
        votes: 5
        percent of readers who voted: 14%
august 28th:
        unique readers: 44
        votes: 10
        percent of readers who voted: 22%
august 29th
        unique readers: 30
        votes: 1
        percent of readers who voted: again, one person
august 30th
        unique readers: 28
        votes: 1
        percent of readers who voted: again, one person

HAVOC
august 25th
        unique readers: 45
        votes: 37
        percent of readers who voted: 82%
august 26th
        unique readers: 49
        votes: 10
        percent of readers who voted: 20%
august 27th
        unique readers: 69
        votes: 14
        percent of readers who voted: 20%
august 28th
        unique readers: 61
        votes: 18
        percent of readers who voted: 29%
august 29th
        unique readers: 40
        votes: 0
        percent of readers who voted: 0%
august 30th
        unique readers: 43
        votes: 12
        percent of readers who voted: 27%

CAGED
august 25th
        unique readers: 41
        votes: 26
        percent of readers who voted: 63%
august 26th
        unique readers: 34
        votes: 12
        percent of readers who voted: 35%
august 27th
        unique readers: 27
        votes: 0
        percent of readers who voted: 0%
august 28th
        unique readers: 32
        votes: 1
        percent of readers who voted: one person
august 29th
        unique readers: 39
        votes: 3
        percent of readers who voted: 7%
august 30th
        unique readers: 31
        votes: 2
        percent of readers who voted: 6%

So, as you can see, the votes are pretty bad, even if one person is voting multiple times, which would actually make the percentages tank even lower. There were several days where nobody who voted at all, no matter how many parts they may have read.  And the percentage was below 25% for the majority of the time— especially on the book that gains the most reads every day.

To make this more accurate, I would have to see the amount of votes by each unique reader, but Wattpad doesn't allow me to see that, so alas, this will have to do.

WHY DID I DO THIS? WHAT'S THE POINT?

Us authors, poets, graphic artists, and other people who use Wattpad to put their work out into the world pour our hearts into our work. Yes, we do it because we love it, but it's also a way to get feedback— if I didn't want feedback, I wouldn't have moved to online platforms and just kept writing in notebooks for nobody to see.

Putting so much work into posting something only for less than a quarter ratio of votes:readers is like presenting your end-of-the-year project to an auditorium full of people and only 24 of them clap at the end while the rest just get up and leave.

In my opinion, silent reading is taking advantage of what authors & etc. put out on this site. The vast majority of us (not counting paid stories) do it for FREE. We have ads on our stories that do not profit us at all. We spend hours working on updates. It takes half a second to tap that star icon and let an author know that you enjoyed their work.

I don't know how many times I can remind people that this is not a job. We do not profit via money for our work. Our only form of profit is the satisfaction of creating something and getting feedback. When people like what we do, it gives us a rush of joy.

I spend at LEAST four hours just writing a chapter, and that's the bare minimum. I also have to revise, edit, come up with ideas, format the chapter, find gifs, and type up author's notes with the intended purpose of interacting with you guys. I don't want to be an author who just posts chapters and doesn't talk to you. I try to reply to comments whenever I can because I truly want to connect with you.

I mean it when I say that I establish relationships with the people who continuously come back to my updates and comment, or people who comment on my books in general. I have made so many friends this way wnd get genuinely excited when I see them in my notifications again. Feedback makes me excited to update so I can see people's reactions to my work. It makes me feel like people care. And when the votes drop, there's no shortcut way to say I feel like garbage. Not good enough. Like I didn't do my best on the chapter even though it took me so long.

Again, I am not trying to sound ungrateful for the overall success my stories get. I know that what I consider "low" amounts of reads/comments may be high for others. However, most of it is below what is considered "normal" for me and my account. The data still shows that the numbers are low in accordance with the purpose of this chapter. The votes are mostly drastically different from the reads.

Please vote. Please comment. I am taking 17 credit hours this semester (above the average at my university) and yet I'm still trying to adjust my schedule to find time to write between studying, homework, class, personal time, and looking for a job. We creators are not machines. We are people. We cannot put everything aside to continue updating, especially if nobody seems to care.

If you are a silent reader, please interact with the next book you read. Nobody is going to come at you for voting for the very first time. Instead, they will be ecstatic that you did. It's a great way to let the author know you enjoyed their work, especially if you're too nervous to comment.

To all of my fellow creators out there: Have you noticed this, too? What are your experiences with reader engagement? Do you feel the same way? Do you have anything to add?

That's all, folks. Don't take advantage of 
creators on this site. Interact with their work!