TGON Interviews Wattpad’s Head of Content at SDCC 2026

If you’re an amateur or aspiring writer, you’ve likely googled “Where can I publish my stories?” at some point. If you love reading but don’t have the space or money for physical books, you have likely googled “Where can I read stories for free?” Both these internet searches have likely led you to Wattpad, the online social storytelling platform where users can read and publish original stories and fan fiction.

Founded in November 2006 by engineering duo Allen Lau and Ivan Fuen, Wattpad began as an idea, an innovative experiment to change how people share and consume stories. Over the past twenty years, Wattpad has launched a mobile reading app, registered millions of users, and adapted countless stories into hit movies, television series, and published books. With millions of global users and billions of user-submitted stories, Wattpad has become a storytelling powerhouse.

While attending San Diego Comic-Con this past July, I participated in “The Love in Every Universe: The Great Romance Trope Debate,” which delved into several romance tropes and offered a fun, chaotic environment for friendly debate between panelists and the audience. One of the panelists was Wattpad’s Head of Content, Alessandra Ferreri, responsible for recognizing and championing Wattpad stories and writers. I had the pleasure of interviewing Alessandra after the “Love in Every Universe” panel. During the interview, we delved into her career with Wattpad, what makes a story adaptable, and how community and creativity have played vital roles in sustaining Wattpad as a global storytelling platform. Keep reading to learn how Wattpad supports and helps hone human voices on a global scale.

Alessandra, tell us your story. What led you to work at Wattpad and eventually become its Head of Content? How would you describe your journey in the writing world?

I started at Wattpad in 2015, and I was working in traditional publishing at the time. I had gone to creative writing school, and then I went to publishing school, and I just wanted to be in and around all the types of books and writers. I found Wattpad and I’d never heard of it before. I decided to apply, and I got this job as a community engagement specialist, which meant getting to know our writers, getting to know who was writing and what was happening on the platform, what they liked, what they didn’t like. So I spent a couple years talking to writers on the platform, and learning all about digital storytelling. I didn’t know anything about this space. I didn’t know much about fan fiction, to be honest. I was really just very traditional. So it opened up my worldview as well. 

I’ve been there ever since, and I went from community management to content, and then from content to the studio, where I did our acquisition pipeline, and worked on our adaptations, which was really fun. And now I’m back at Wattpad, and I’m the head of the team that I started on, which is really cool. I got to come back, and the team is so much bigger now. Used to be three of us. Now it’s ten plus people, and it’s evolved in so many amazing ways. So that was my journey, and it’s been very fun, and I’ve learned, every single year, new things, so it’s been lovely.

As Wattpad’s Head of Content, what would you argue makes a story adaptable for webcomics, television, and films? Which approach makes for a better, more successful adaptation: staying true to the original or modifying to fit its new format?

I think you always have to modify it for adaptation, because you are changing the format. It’s taking something that’s native to a digital platform where it might be 100,000 words, or it might have a ton of visuals, and it’s really hard to sometimes take that exactly verbatim into a totally different medium. We are publishers and development execs that look at the stories to see where they can adapt it in some way. But I think it’s important to always be really true to the source material, and that’s where my team comes in. 

We do a lot of analytics on stories, and we look at how the audiences are interacting with stories, we see where they’re commenting, to see this scene’s really big, or this moment is really important to the fans. And we also talk to the creators a lot. We want to get their input. So we capture those insights whenever we recommend a story for adaptation, and we’re looking at all those things — can this live in a different format? Should it be lifted off of the platform and somewhere else? Is the writer interested in this type of future for their work? We want everything to buy in. It doesn’t make sense for us to look at a story where the writer’s like, I don’t want to be adapted, or for something that feels very internet focused and maybe it just doesn’t work in a different format. So I think most things do, but it takes a keen eye to make sure that we are keeping the source material intact and being really truthful to that, because the thing about Wattpad and our adaptation is we are audience first. 

Stories are not living in a drawer that no one ever sees, and then we’re trying to adapt them. They’re living and breathing and evolving online in real time, and people are interacting with them in real time. Sometimes that means 10 readers, 100 readers, a million readers, but it doesn’t matter how many there are. We want to make sure that if somebody loves something, then we’re capturing it in some way. I think a good adaptation really just comes down to great storytelling, and so much of that comes down to authentic storytelling. 

The beauty of Wattpad is that we’re not really beholden to a traditional pipeline. It doesn’t have to have a perfect hero structure, or have to have a 3-act structure, it doesn’t have to follow the traditional thing. A published book has to be 50,000 to 80,000 words, there’s a criteria in the traditional pipeline, and that works for adaptation, and it’s important to maintain. But we get to look at stories very raw and organically, to see what is the output, what is the creative energy that’s there, and then see the potential in that. A lot of that comes down to authentic storytelling, new ideas, interesting takes, or perspectives that you might not see if someone went the traditional route. And people like my team, and our publishing team, and our entertainment team, can advocate for those things — we might not have taken a chance on this in other situations, but here, on Wattpad, we can see how many people love this. Look at what this is saying, and look at what this reminds us of. So we’re able to see through some of those things and advocate for smaller or hidden gems, and other voices that might not get the chance to do so.

As a reader and Wattpad’s Head of Content, what character types and tropes resonate most with you?

Personally, I’ve learned being at Wattpad to be very genre agnostic and very trope agnostic. I’m very much in the space of just convince me. I’m open to seeing, so I don’t have a lot of preferences necessarily, because I like to keep myself as open as possible. And by doing that, I’ve been able to get really into a lot of things I never thought I would get into. I wasn’t a big horror fan when I started at Wattpad, but then I had to do some projects in our horror genre, and now I love horror. 

It’s a nice way to keep yourself open. But I do love a grumpy/sunshine. I think that’s such a fun trope, because I love character tropes as opposed to situational ones. I think it can be really interesting to pick out what the character archetypes are going to be, especially when you’re looking at fandom fan fiction — usually when you’re writing a what-if in some scenario, you’re transplanting these people into these archetypes. So I love to see those archetypes go across fandoms. 

So I do love a grumpy/sunshine, generally, as my archetype. I spoke on the [“Love in Every Universe”] panel, but I love a time loop, and they’re very rare. They’re really hard to find. When I do find them, I’m thinking about the movie Palm Springs, where it’s a time loop set during a wedding day, between two guests, and it’s wonderful, and so fun, and I think it creates such a nice way of treading over the plot over and over, so that you have to have a really tight, foolproof plot to make it make sense. So that one’s more niche, but I do love that.

How does Wattpad and its sister company, WEBTOON, work together to encourage budding writers, bring in more stories, and adapt existing stories to new formats? 

Wattpad is primarily a UGC [User-Generated Content] platform, so you can join the platform for free. You can write whatever you want across any genre and build up your audience and test your stories out. You could be a really prolific writer and write whatever you want, and we have tons of writers that come and do stuff on the platform. You can also be a brand new writer that’s never written anything before and just wants to try it. So it’s pretty low stakes in terms of there’s no friction there. You don’t have to be the best writer in the world. You can just learn as you go, which is really wonderful and it’s such a great toolbox for any writer to have — put Wattpad in your pocket, easy. 

WEBTOON also has a UGC part of their website, called CANVAS. That’s where we’re the most similar — how do we break down the barriers of making it as easy as possible to write? Writing is hard. It’s very difficult and it’s very vulnerable and it’s also really lonely. You’re usually on your laptop, in your own head all the time, writing your story. So on Wattpad and WEBTOON, it makes writing and creating more communal. You are writing with the community. You are engaging with people. 

One of the things we do at Wattpad to encourage that is we have 30-day challenges every month run by an ambassador team. These are a bunch of Wattpad users that do different writing challenges and different genres, all the time — let’s meet you where you’re at. Just come and join, have some fun with it, no pressure. If you don’t want to finish your story, that’s fine. If you do, amazing. You want to meet some friends, whatever it is. So it’s really about making writing feel as frictionless as possible so that you can feel empowered to get your voice out there, get your story out there, and then see what happens.

Originally founded in late 2006 as a reading app and now a global social storytelling platform, what would you say are the core components that made Wattpad a cultural phenomenon? What keeps readers and writers with Wattpad today?

I think the biggest thing is community. We are a community platform. It’s lonely in the world. It’s hard to connect with people, and Wattpad made that a lot easier to do. So community is a big thing. I think fandom is also huge — everyone’s talking about fandom right now — it’s such a wonderful thing to be a part of, because it’s participatory. Participatory culture has come so far, but it was happening on Wattpad and on online communities for a really long time. So the participation element is really important. The community elements of how you connect with others, how you can be open with your creativity, embracing all different types of storytelling, all different genres, all different approaches to creativity — that’s important as well. So those would probably be the three main ones. And I think that’s enduring. 

Even in 20 years, people are still looking to make connections and build community networks around the things that they love or the things that they’re creating, or both at the same time. One of the things that’s interesting about Wattpad is there are a lot of places where you can create, and a lot of places that you can connect, but we allow you to do those two things at the same time together. That’s unique, where you’re not just passively reading, you’re actively reading, and you can leave a comment on a story, then see a comment that someone left eight years ago on that same story, and be like, I agree with this person. That’s just such a wonderful space to be in. That desire and psychology hasn’t gone away. It’s probably gotten bigger and more important. Content creators are everywhere, and everybody is a writer, and everyone can be a storyteller in so many different ways. So Wattpad’s still around, where you can use it if it suits you and your creative process, and we’re here.

Are there plans to celebrate Wattpad’s 20th anniversary this November?

Yes, of course there are. This is such a huge milestone for us, and I’ve been here for half of that time, which also seems like forever and ever. There’s a huge amount planned for us as we go into the future. Obviously, the main thing is to celebrate the users that have made this platform what it is — the storytellers and the readers and the really passionate communities. How do we celebrate them and advocate for how far so many of them have come? We’ve seen writers that started out as teenagers on the platform, writing fan fiction, that are now best-selling authors, or have movies out there in the world, or writers that have written 25 full novels across various genres. 

There really is so much to brag about, not even just Wattpad itself as a company — we’re here to enable that creativity. That’s one of the things I’m looking forward to celebrating the most. My team has been looking through our archives of old Watty winners, curating, finding older content — remember this story? So it’s been really nice to reconnect with some of the creators that are still there, still writing, and ones that haven’t been around, to say: we still have your story, we love it. That’s really the heart of what we want to celebrate for our 20th anniversary.

With Wattpad nearing its 20th anniversary, how can you predict Wattpad will survive as a storytelling platform, adapt to this highly AI-driven digital age, and continue to support human writers?

That’s such a good question. The first thing is Wattpad is a UGC platform. User-generated content means how you want to create your story is your prerogative. It’s up to you. Whatever tools our writers want to use — Grammarly, an outline, a plotline, or AI — it’s up to them how they want to craft their story. But personally, as someone who has looked at stories for the last 10 years on Wattpad, and seen the raw ingenuity and creativity of human writers, you can really see the passion that comes from people who are really working on their craft on the platform. I really want to maintain that component of it. 

The beauty of Wattpad has always been that it’s been a space for others to get a sense of their voice, their organic human voice. When that voice becomes flattened by using the same tools over and over, you can see the difference. From my end on the content side, we are always advocating for the writers that want to express themselves in their own authentic way. But at the same time, we’re a community platform that is open to how your creative process wants to be. It’s about finding that balance, but for me personally, the human element of storytelling is so important — your voice is like your fingerprint. It’s so unique to you, and you can really see that in the stories. That’s what I hope our readers and writers continue to do, come to our platform to find that space so they can craft their own voices in that same way.

With AI-generated content found everywhere online, what would you say to writers feeling discouraged from self-publishing or writing at all? Why should they keep writing when “AI can easily do it”?

It seems easy for everyone to say AI can do that. But if you’re a writer, or you don’t know how to write, and AI can write for you — okay, great. But you might say, I’m an artist and it could never draw for me — but AI can also do that. There’s always an answer that AI can do the thing. But AI is just borrowing from other spaces. What it comes down to is there is joy in creating yourself. There is so much dopamine in being able to craft your story, to get to that plot twist and do those things. Even though we have tools at our disposal, which are totally open to use, and you can use different tools at different capacities if you want to, there is something so joyful about creating something that comes from you, comes from your brain, that only you can do. 

You can see the difference. Even if there are some spaces where you might need a little brainstorming help, some outlining organization — sure. But nothing compares to, and nothing can really replace, the organic creativity that you find, and that’s really where the next trends and the next brilliant ideas are going to come from. Even though there are a lot of places in which AI can be useful, it is your prerogative as a creator, however you want to use it — have faith in your voice and your own brain and creativity, because it isn’t something that can be replicated, in my opinion. We’ll see a blend of a lot of different things, but authentic storytelling is what’s going to come out on top.

Do you have advice for up-and-coming writers and aspiring authors looking to self-publish through Wattpad?

Wattpad is a flexible tool for any creative. It’s such a wonderful platform for readers to access a bunch of stories. For writers, it’s a flexible tool to build your profile, start your stories. There’s no timeline, there’s no pressure. You can find your little communities. My best advice is to find those community spaces. If you’re a short story writer, go find the short story writers that are just like you and take part in challenges or writing sprints, whatever it may be, because that can be really encouraging. Writing, you always get to a wall. There’s always a hurdle you have to work out. It’s nicer to do that with friends, or with people you’re connecting with. Wattpad has those people — you can leave comments, read a story, do a read-for-read, find a beta reader. There are so many spaces for that. 

Because Wattpad is a space for community and creativity in particular, my best advice is to use it to your advantage. You can get out of your writer’s slump, use it, then stop using it for months and come right back — we’re still going to be here. That makes it such a great flexible tool for writers at any stage in their journey. But it comes down to the best advice I ever got in my professional career — when I was talking all about all the ideas I had, I used to bug my coworker about it all the time, and he eventually stopped me and said, “Alessandra, I don’t want to hear about it, I want to see it.” That’s the best advice I always come back to — just do the thing. 

Start the chapter, finish the chapter, start the next chapter. Just do the thing, because eventually you’ll be like, I’m 5,000 words in, I’m 10,000 words in. So you just have to do the thing. If anyone is looking to self-publish, everyone’s looking to write — use the tools to your advantage when you have them. Wattpad is there. Find your friends, find your community to keep you motivated, and then get it done, because you never know what’s going to be waiting on the other side.

Lastly, what are you reading now? Are there any webnovels, webcomics, or fan fictions that you would recommend?

I have somebody to recommend, but I’m going to do a plug instead, because we’re coming up on our Watty Awards [Wattpad’s longest-running annual writing contest] this season. The submissions are coming in, so I’m keeping myself open for when we rate all of them, because I’m very excited for that. It’s a new crop of titles coming in every year. It’s always so exciting and I love to see what people are coming up with. 

Currently my bookshelf is very empty because I’m waiting for this Watty submission window to close, and then I’m going to dive in there. I’m very excited to see what kind of things we get. In my spare time, I actually read a lot of nonfiction because I read so much fiction in my day-to-day job. I tend to do memoirs and audiobooks and stuff like that. But I’m really open to everything. I’m always open to be convinced — if you love something, I want to know why, and I want to experience it firsthand. I’ve gotten into so many different fandoms that way, which has been so fun. So the Watty Awards are coming, that’s going to be my reading shelf for the next little bit, but we’ll see what comes up from there.

That concludes my interview with Wattpad’s Head of Content, Alessandra Ferreri! Remember that Wattpad is a free-to-use platform, home to billions of human-generated original stories and fan fiction! Read, write, comment, and support human voices worldwide!