(1) Title & Description:

(a) Mention (preferably following the title, but at the least in the first sentence of description) whether the contest is (OPEN), (JUDGING), or (COMPLETE).

(b) If your contest is for a specific type of work, make that obvious in the title or first sentence of the description. It is irritating to read through a few chapters of a contest, only to realize that the contest is something you can't participate in.

(2) Hashtags:

(a) Make sure you add appropriate hashtags, so that Wattpad authors searching for contests to enter will be able to easily find it. Examples: award, awards, contest, contests, competition, judges, judging, prizes, winning.

(b) If you are running a specific type of award, you could include that as well (e.g., HarryPotter, harry, potter, for a Harry Potter fanfic contest).

(3) The obvious:

(a) Use real words and coherent sentences. If no one can understand what you're saying, they won't enter. Slang specific to an age group will reduce interest from authors of differing ages.

(b) In order to avoid large blocks of text, make sure you (at the minimum) include paragraph breaks in your chapters. It is ideal if you have some pictures and/or gifs to help liven things up. How much effort you put into the contest will show.

-There are free websites you can find online that will 'optimize' both gif and picture files.  I suggest using this on any pics/gifs that are not very small files.  It will make the pages of your contest faster to load and less irritating to potential applicants.  As of this writing, I use ezgif.com

(c) Be mindful of keeping your contest up to date and consistent throughout all the chapters. For example, if you decide to extend the date for submissions, make sure you change the date everywhere it is mentioned in all the earlier chapters as well. This will avoid confusion on the part of potential applicants.

(4) The arrangement of the body of the contest:

(a) Be sure to mention what categories are available for entry (both which ones are accepted and whether they are full yet) in an earlier chapter. It is irritating for someone to have read through six chapters only to discover their genre isn't accepted or is no longer open.  The same should be the case for clarifying whether your contest accepts mature works or if you have anything that you have banned from entry.

(b) The above also applies to the rules for your contest. A potential applicant should be able to skim those quickly, early on, to make sure they would even want to participate/are eligible.

(c) List the categories that are accepted on the same page as the entry form, if you are requiring inline commenting of the entry form next to the entered category. Having to toggle between two pages is a pain. Not even sure how one would do that on the phone app.

(d) It is not a bad idea to have a chapter where you list the accepted entries. This will both allow entrants to know their work has been accepted, as well as give any judges an easy place to access what they need to know.

(e) It is also not a bad idea to include a 'tagfest' chapter, where you encourage your participants to tag as many people as possible. This is one method of spreading the word about your contest that can sometimes have a fair amount of success. Some contests hold mini-contests and award the entrant that tags the most other Wattpad users, which is a fun idea.

(5) Categories:

(a) Most contests have categories based on the Wattpad genres. While special categories are very cool, they tend only to work under certain conditions.

-Firstly, the description of the category has to provide concrete guidelines regarding what sort of entry would fit. (Some random examples of decent ideas: unconventional heroine, a near-disaster averted, a major plot twist, best tearjerker, best under 1K reads. Bad ideas: brightest star, most gripping, most different, diamond in the rough.)

-Secondly, most Wattpaders will err on the side of caution, and enter traditional, genre-based categories, over innovative/special categories, if given the choice. This is especially the case if they can only apply to one or the other.

(6) Regularly held awards:

(a) If your awards are large in scale and there are many chapters, it may be easiest for everyone if you just publish a new contest book for each iteration. It can be difficult to navigate contests with many chapters. It can also be challenging to try and figure out which older chapters apply to the current 'season,' and which are no longer relevant.

(b) If you wish to maintain the same book, get rid of all the obsolete chapters, aside from a concise, single-chapter list of the previous winners, so that they will not lose their validation a proof of achievement. (E.g., get rid of things like lists of old judges or entries, old updates, etc. Keep any rule chapters that are unchanged.)

-Note: a recent variation on this that I've seen is the inclusion of previous results in another book made specifically for that info (e.g., 'Winners of the Rainbow Contest.'  This is a great idea if you plan to run your awards several times.