Hello, if you're curious about what the heck kind of story this is, it's not actually one. If you've read my bio, you sort of know my situation. I'm WingedKelpie. Or I was until the afternoon of August 18th, 2022. Wattpad screwed up and screwed me over along with all of my other readers/followers as well.
What happened? Well, if you don't know my situation, here it is:
On the 18th of August 2022, I went to look at my notifications. There had been a lull for about ten minutes according to my phone's lock screen, which wasn't weird or unusual. I entered the Wattpad app, only for the screen to flash and tell me something went wrong. I needed to log in again, so it kicked me out. Once I tried, I received a red error message that told me that there was a problem with Wattpad servers and to try again later.
I gave it a couple minutes, then tried again...only to be told that I no longer had an active account with my email and password. I was floored. I tried again and received the same response.
I asked a very close friend of mine (who also has an account on Wattpad) to check and see if my account was accessible. It wasn't, but my stories were in her private library. That made me think even more that this was an error.
Back when Daddy's Little Wolf was removed early this month (August 4th or around then), a few people told me it was still accessible in their private libraries. I assumed this would remain the case, which was pretty awful to think about in some ways. Well, it didn't stay that way after blatant refusal from Wattpad to restore my account.
I sent in two report tickets from different anglesâonce on the day of and the second on the day after, clearly expressing my confusion and desire to restore my account. But I never got a response from a human being. Both times I received the auto-generated response email for whenever a story/account is banned and or removed as if not was not their fault.
To say I was upset and angry would be a slight understatement.
Around 27 published stories and over 35 unpublished works are now gone. Well, not fully. I saved all that I could of my works starting in 2019 and updated the off-site files every couple months. However, I lost at least 10 (probably 30) unfinished chapters of different stories and had just broken through my writer's block for a story I had been working on since 2018-2019 (I thought it was 2020, but I realized I updated it back then).
I've been loyal to Wattpad for 11 years (10 with having accounts). My first account was in late 2012, although I starting reading in late 2011 (back when you didn't need an account if you weren't going to vote/comment). I learned to write on Wattpad. I wrote my first story, my first series, and even my first (and only) trilogy on Wattpad, and continued to do more. I reached 1M reads several times on Wattpad for different stories over the course of the last five years, which was all absolutely amazing.
And yet, Wattpad doesn't care about an insignificant scrub like me. Of course they don't care. They didn't even care about PrinceKenzie and a ton of other Wattpad users who were both big and small, getting removed at the drop of a hat with no reason given. If they cared even a smidge, they would have given some warning (like 24-48 hours) so people can at least try to save their works if they don't plan on giving the user under fire a chance to explain their side.
Let this serve as a lesson, I guess. Don't trust Wattpad whatsoever. You might find yourself removed thanks to a server error or because of an unhinged lunatic who doesn't care how others might feel if they get an author with well-loved books banned/removed. You never know.
Anyway, please read this:
(Tapas WAS the site I had planned to post most of my works. Hear me out with what I thought of it at first.)
Stories can be reached through both the website and the app, although some people have problems with the latter. I can only write through the website, which is extremely annoying for me (although helpful as I can get my works on there). Another issue is that there is a character counter set at a max of 15,000. That's around 2,500 or so words, so some of my chapters have to broken down into two to three parts (or more for special chapters).
The two things I dislike most about Tapas so far is the character counter and where you enter your text has no concept of good/bad spelling. You just have to scour every single word to find where the problems are. That, or I'll just take even more time to edit the stories in my files to get where I need to be.
Ugh, it's making me sick to my stomach... I saved all the unedited chapters for works like DeLuca's Home for Mentally Disturbed Boys, the Domination series, and Break Me...all of which have well over 100 chapters (the series has over 160 chapters total). Great. Just great.
And here's where things changed:
And I just learned as of the 22nd that someone on Tapas had uploaded five chapters of my book DLHfMDB with my title and my cover, to boot. And this was over the course of November 2021 to April 18th, 2022. I sent in a report on the 22nd and it's been taking some time to get the issue resolved. It's disappointing that Tapas isn't as advanced with their help systems as some other platforms, but they do work with you to get the issue dealt with instead of being thrown to an AI when you don't want that like with Wattpad. (The same personâKarma is their usernameâuploaded seven chapters of DLHfMDB on Dreame with no credit given, just like on Tapas, if you exclude the short sentence hidden away in the description that almost no one reads.)
Until that point of seeing my stolen work and the lack of interest of removing that story, I was planning on doing what is below.
But even if I go elsewhere, everything should remain free. If possible, I won't ask for people to pay out of pocket for only partially edited stories.
If I have no choice whatsoever, I might have to put my extremely explicit works behind a paywall like Patreon for the lowest possible amount of $1, but that's a last resort.
Other than that, I might just put my more explicit works like the aforementioned books along with Nightmare Wolves plus some others on Ao3 (Archive of Our Own) if I feel like it's too risky with Tapas. I feel like I could probably get away with at least a few because a follower of my previous account told me they hadn't heard of any stories getting taken down (either in general or since they joined, I don't know).
I'm still looking into novel-writing platforms where I can feel slightly more reassured that my works won't get snatched off it by unsavory characters or removed with no warning like *ahem* Wattpad.
Wattpad is incredibly convenient and you don't have word limits (as far as I'm aware), unlike the vast majority of other platforms. But the more they show the lack of care/respect towards their users by doing these practices, I sincerely hope that people take their loyalty elsewhere. I always thought I would use Wattpad until the grid went down some years in the future. At that point, I felt like I would be satisfied and wouldn't write anymore. But this, what happened to me, grinds my gears.
And while some platforms aren't the best, an influx of users can help support them to be better. That's what happened with Wattpad in the last ten years. The UX/UI became so much easier and the graphics were better. And as all of that became more usable, more people flooded in. That can happen with other platforms. We just need to send in bug reports and ones that explain how things could be better. Like Wattpad, but not exactly like it. Because we don't want any other platform that we support to turn into this Wattpad ever again.
So this is how I felt about my situation until I discovered Karma on both Tapas and Dreame with the former being almost totally unresponsive for three days about my report, which doesn't really bode well for the future. With all of my research, Wattpad is (unfortunately) my only real option. I have looked at numerous websites, articles, and other platforms, but none seem to be what I want and need.
To name a few platforms that haven't already been mentioned in this note:
Radish
Inkitt
Penana
Movellas
Books and Writing Amino
Mirquilla
Sweek
NovelCat
Webnovel
Booksie
Commaful
So what about my current plan of attack?
I know it sounds crazy, but I think I just have to repost all of my works on here again. I definitely won't trust Wattpad again, even with unfinished chapters. I will edit everything over time and slowly post it all back up. I hope you will be patient with me. I am kind of in the midst of looking for work.
I did some snooping around and so far it looks like only DLHfMDB was partly stolen of my numerous works. That's a really good sign, honestly. The vast majority of my readers were/are decent people (some really weren'tâto me and others). That's partly why I do feel more secure about that aspect of Wattpad.
But here's the thing. I want to change my username. It may not seem like a big deal, but I made a name for myself as "WingedKelpie" and, as an author, people remember me with that name or that I wrote some of their favorite works with it. But calling myself "WingedKelpie2" now elicits bad memories and makes me both depressed and angry. I don't want to feel that way, to be honest. The fact that I even had to make an account called that is just upsetting to think about.
I still want to keep "Kelpie" in the name because the mythological female water-horse (a shifter in a different version of the myth) is from half my ancestry. And I like the name, honestly.
So I'll still be your usual Kelpie, but maybe just a little bit different.
I love you all so much. I appreciate all of the support everyone has given me during this rough, head-beater of a week I've had. It honestly feels like it's been much longer than a week because of how stressed I've been every day and due to all the research I've done.
I always feel anxious and uncomfortable now with headaches plaguing me worse each day. I haven't been sleeping well since this happened either. Legitimately, my body does not handle stress well at all. I basically physically break down (and no, not to dance).
Funny business aside, I am going to leave this "book" up for people to read, even after my name has changed. That way, people know that I haven't stolen my own works or whatever. Haha! (Although I say that, universities/colleges will actually fail you in whatever class if they find out you've reused your own research materials or essays to write new ones because it's "plagiarism." So yes, technically you can plagiarize yourself in college/university and fail classes because of it. Fun, right?)
Anyway, please share this "book" with people you know who used to enjoy my works. I don't like thinking that people believed I deleted my account or blocked them or whatever. Believe me, this definitely was not my first choiceâor any choice of mine whatsoever. But I just have to play the hand I was dealt.
Please let me know which books are priorities for you folks. I do plan to get some of my newer works up first because they don't need as much editing as the older ones. Unexpected Attraction is one such book. I have to rewrite sections of Daddy's Little Wolf and cut some useless stuff out aside from intense editing, so that will take time. I don't think Break Me needs a huge amount of editing, but it will still take quite a bit time with over a 100 chapters to edit and post.
As you know, I am not looking forward to editing and posting the Domination series (same with DLHfMDB), but I want people to be able to finish the third book eventually.
I had been working on a new version of Their Pup, of which almost no chapters were saved because they were all unfinished in my eyes. So I literally lost all of that... (And so I technically lost about 53 unfinished chapters total overall, now that I think about it.) I think I could sense that I would lose something big soon, but I ignored my gut feeling and chose not to save much of the new version. How dumb am I... I knew better than that.
Once I get my chapters for Unexpected Attraction back into drafts for editing, I plan to do the same with another book I originally planned on releasing after Dominating the Warrior (Book 3 of the Domination series) had been marked complete. And I will post that at the same time as Unexpected Attraction (each one once per week as per my usual schedule) to give me time for editing.
The other book is something I've been working on since very late 2018 and it has never been seen before, but it's close to my heart.
As for when this starts, I will let you know. Same with my username.
(Edit 9/2/2022: For people who didn't notice, I changed my username from "WingedKelpie2" to "Origin_of_Kelpie" five days ago. This book is on my profile, not anyone else's. You can see that from the bio, haha.)
Much love and I hope to hear from you all soon,
- Alessa (Kelpie) xoxo
Posted: 8/26/2022