Vintage Dreams and the Wattpad experiment

It's week 3 of my Wattpad experiment. I have uploaded three chapters on the website and have had 26 reads and 3 votes. I have 13 followers, which is not much.

So at this point the Wattpad experiment is not really making much gains, however it has given me much needed space and impetus to really think about my blurb and my cover.

I had a cover that I made which was just a typical romance cover of man and woman in bed, however I wasn't happy with it. On the RWA threat I read this article about how self published authors are taking risks with their covers. My original concept was something quirky, but I backed away and went with the typical out of fear, then I realised I have nothing to lose. This is my ship and I can steer it however I want it and so I designed this new cover that I'm in love with.

I've also been working on the blurb slowly. I usually have no trouble writing blurbs and my two romance novels and young adult novels I've had published in the past two years have featured the blurbs I wrote (with a few editorial tweaks), but this time around I've struggled to capture the essence of the story. However, once I had the cover that I was enthused about it all came together.

Everything I've read about Wattpad emphasizes that it's about the community and that to get readers you have to engage, which is something I really struggle with. There is only so many hours in the day and with a demanding full time job as a high school teacher and finding writing time between corrections and lesson planning, I don't have much left. I was reading on a forum about how to get readers and a thread was posted by a Wattpad Ambassador here so my goal over the next few weeks is to implement some of these strategies.

To read my book on Wattpad click here.

---

Vintage Dreams blurb

She had to nearly die before she could live again. Can she build a new life on the embers of her old one?

After being diagnosed with breast cancer Allegra Kenton finds new direction using her passion for vintage items by renovating a dilapidated mansion she inherited into a dance studio. When she meets Emmett Dennison and begins falling in love it seems that her new life is on track, until a mistake from her past puts everything in jeopardy. Can she hold onto her dreams and Emmett?

Emmett Dennison had a plan: the right type of fiancé, the right time to get married, the right career rung, but his plan took a detour when he became a guardian to his autistic brother and his fiancé broke off their engagement. Now his life is all about the day to day, until he meets Allegra. She inspires him to dream again, but his fiancé’s betrayal makes it hard for him to trust. Will Allegra make him believe in happy endings?