If you are reading this, it's because you are looking for contests to enter, or you are looking for advice on how to enter and do well in contests. Maybe both.

Wattpad has a lot of unofficial contests. (I am not going to discuss the official ones here; they are beyond the scope of this introduction).

I entered my first contest a week or two after publishing the Wattpad edition of my novel, Ancilla.

I was in a state of panic. I'd seen another contest advertised in my notifications feed, and missed the deadline for entry by a mere few hours. And that contest looked like a massive one, even if it wasn't an official Wattpad contest. January was nearly over - in the "real world" off Wattpad, most of the literary competitions had either closed to new entries, or were getting ready to close. What if Wattpad was the same way? At least the contests on Wattpad weren't charging me money to enter the way regular contests do...

Other Wattpadians who had been active on here a lot longer than I had soon reassured me that contests are a constant on this platform, and missing one or two does not mean waiting an entire year to try again, and hoping one's book publication date wasn't too far in the past. 

Wattpad is not like the "real world."

Whew!

I found that Wattpad is a place of many, many contests. Most are hosted by other authors and content creators, not by Wattpad itself.

There are regular contests, which have a single author as a host, or a community doing the hosting. Those contests have genre categories such as Romance, Mystery, Science Fiction, Fan Fiction, etc, and the genre categories have their own judges, who are usually not the host. If there are many contestants, there may be multiple judges for each genre. The larger the contest, the longer it takes. 

Then there are "mini award" contests. These may be hosted by a person or a community; the judge is often the host, though not always. "Mini awards" focus on aspects: best book title, best character aesthetics/art, best protagonist, best writing style, etc. They may or may not limit the entries to a specific genre. Mini awards have fewer slots for contestants because there is often only one person judging, also, the mini award contests are often designed to wrap up relatively quickly - in a matter of weeks, rather than months. As such, slots fill up fast. Anyone who wants to enter a mini award contest should enter within hours of seeing the contest in their notifications feed.

Contests do not require monetary payment as a condition of entry. Payment usually consists of permanently following your host and judge, reading and commenting on a few chapters of something the host and/or judges have published, upvoting the contest and/or assigned book chapters, and promoting the contest via tags and a general feed announcement. Remember: these contests are designed to increase views for the host, the judges, and the contestants, which hopefully will result in some new readers and followers for all, which in turn will fox Wattpad's almighty search algorithm. 

Everyone participating benefits from this. 

(Come on, aren't you tired of seeing Seduced By Kylo Ren as a sidebar suggestion or main page suggestion, just because it's had a massive amount of clicks? Wouldn't you rather read something published a little more recently - preferably something independent, rather than something written by an Official Wattpad Creator and available if you spend coins to read it? I know I would...)

The most important reasons to enter contests, in my not so humble opinion, are to increase visibility for your own work (i.e. self-promotion) and to have fun. Other reasons can include the contest having pretty graphics, you having an insane competitive streak (if you absolutely must win, and win over and over again to feed your ego, my advice is to only enter contests when you are close to the judge of the category you are entering, and can count on a little nepotism to give your entry a boost - which is unfair to the rest of us, and Not A Nice Thing To Do At All, but I've heard it's common), wanting a host community to promote you, wanting to get new readers by making other contestants interested in your blurb, wanting to discover new books by going through contest entry blurbs or lists of winners,  wanting a review from a judge... 

All reasons are valid. (Some reasons may be more valid than others).

Contestants who are entering primarily for reasons of winning awards or publicizing their books will want to enter as many contests as possible. The reasons for this are twofold. 

First is that judging is inherently subjective - your work may wow a judge in one contest and take first prize, but utterly unimpress the judge in another contest, and in yet a third, the judge of that contest may already have their heart set on giving prizes to their friends, not that this will be anything resembling overt (and again, just a reminder: nepotism is Not Nice At All. It's possibly common, but that doesn't make it all right). The more contests you enter, the more likely it is that you'll win a prize somewhere. 

By the way, do not get discouraged if your work does not win prizes in a contest. Just keep entering, and have fun! Connect with your competitors - do some mutual follows. Browse the graphic portfolio of the community sponsor, if the contest is hosted by a community - most communities have graphic workshops, and looking through the art galleries is a great way to pass time.

 Second is that contests are sometimes discontinued. The judges may go AWOL; the host may decide to leave Wattpad. It happens. And yes, that's a bummer.

Entering more often thus makes mathematical sense if you are looking for awards or visibility. You're playing the odds.

The more contests you enter, the more experience you will get, and the easier it will be to position your book for award success in future contests. This is especially true if your book is in a large, popular genre that contains many subgenres, or if it's a book that could fit in multiple genres. Pay close attention to where your work seems to do well, and where it doesn't get winning results. 

I have found that Ancilla does extremely well as an LGBTQ entry in contests that have a category specifically for LGBTQIAP+ content, also in the "adult"/erotica category if there is one, and in romance. "Dark" romance is hit or miss, because the male main character of Ancilla is an almost ridiculously wholesome dom, and dark romance is not about wholesomeness; also, there's no crime, organized or otherwise, and crime is popular. On the other hand, BDSM is considered dark, and Ancilla has plenty of that. 

Also hit or miss: Paranormal (the two main characters of Ancilla are energy vampires who can bend elements when well-fed) and Fantasy (Ancilla is magical realism, thus borderline low fantasy, although the magic in Ancilla is mostly Thelema, which is philosophy/mysticism, not fantasy/fiction. The element-bending is where the magical realism comes in). This puzzles me, because multiple judges suggested I enter Ancilla as a Paranormal or Fantasy category book, but there it is.

Since it's genre soup litfic, the most logical category for Ancilla is probably General Fiction, but I'm finding that General Fiction is the kiss of death. Other contestants may have a different experience.

I also create collage art (I never would have discovered this art form had I not needed to create character "aesthetics" for Ancilla to make it as interesting as the other books on Wattpad - I am so glad I decided to get active on this platform!) and very occasionally, I write poetry. I've entered my art and poetry in competitions, too. If you want to do the same, dear reader, please do not be discouraged if you don't do well in contests. There is nothing more subjective than art and poetry. Judges have their own personal tastes. You may or may not be to the taste of your judge. Just keep entering!