Why Wattpad makes us flip our book and swipe our screen at the same time

by Nickky Faustine De Guzman
September 14, 2014

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Hardbounds and paperbacks like Harry Potter, Life of Pi, Hunger Games, The Book Thief, A Walk to Remember, World War Z, The Great Gatsby, The Giver, and Twilight, to name a few, all enjoyed international bestselling recognition and reviews before hitting the silver screen. In the Philippines, there seems to be a growing fad: E-books are being published and turned to chick flick movies. She’s Dating the Gangster started it. Talk Back and You’re Dead followed suit. Take notice of today’s bookshelves, including online shelves, and you’ll see a plethora of short, YA novels from young, emerging authors. Summit Media has published, and ispublishing, online stories like Three Words, Eight Letters, Say It I’m Yours, The Bet, Secretly Married, and A Place in Time, among others, into books.

Thanks to technology, aspiring new and young writers are given a voice, a modern platform, to publish their own book and read stories online. Wattpad easily comes to mind. It’s an online writing and reading community for netizens. According to its website, so far, there are 25 million “wattpadders,” 40 million stories to read, and 85 percent mobile access across all devices.

Besides Wattpad, there’s also Buqo, a local online bookstore, newsstand, and e-reader all in a single app. It hosts Filipino reads, including Manila Bulletin magazines likes Sense&Style and Cruising, books, and other reads featuring poetry, economics, religion, fashion, and what-have-yous.

It is ironic, however, that National Bookstore has collaborated with Kobo, an e-book retailer offering reading devices like Kobo Touch, Glo, and Arc. Is NBS competing against itself? Purchasing director Xandra-Ramos Padilla says no. In an article published in Manila Bulletin, “A New Way to Read,” Padilla says, “We’re always big supporters of reading, and we want to give our customers options on how to read. As an e-book, you can take it anywhere. Kobo was our choice for an e-solution.”

In 2011, several publishers said e-books have outnumbered hardcover and paperbacks worldwide. Although e-reading is still considered a fresh breakthrough in the Philippines, schools like Laguna National Science High School, Miriam College, and De La Salle Greenhills, among others, have started replacing heavy textbooks with one gizmo, yes, a tablet. Vibal Publishing house has also deployed 18,000 e-books for the school year 2012-2013.

Experts said that Internet and gadgets have opened new opportunities for non-readers because they can get a chance to read, albeit briefly, the “stuff” deemed interesting online. Besides Wattpad, Buqo, and Kobo, there are sites like fanfiction.net, Buzz Feed, and thereadingtub.com that offer reads and interactions among gadgeteers.

So what becomes of our beloved books? While technology has vastly affected print media, there’s no way books will be chucked into oblivion. Look at Wattpad. While it’s originally an app that has become the new voice of the e-readers and e-writers, the success of electronic reads has helped the publishing industry by printing their online version. Yes, there are still traditional readers who love the smell of an old book and a new magazine. There are still readers who’ll stuff their bag with a hardbound copy of Haruki Murakami’s 19Q4 and its 924 pages, because yes, nothing beats flipping a real book and seeing your book collection grow. Perhaps every bibliophile has dreamed of having a mini library in the comforts of their home.

E-books or paperbacks? The debate between traditional reading and e-reading is a long and winding issue. Nick Harkaway says in his article “Paper vs. Digital Reading is an Exhausted Debate,” published in The Guardian that “Ebooks are here to stay because digital is, and quite shortly we’ll stop having this debate about paper vs. ebooks because it will no longer make a lot of sense.” Flip a book or swipe your screen. Whatever. What’s important is you are engaged with words on paper or on screen.