(NEWS)

By Grace Bello, Publishers Weekly –

“We want to spread the written word to billions of people. That’s our mission,” says Allen Lau. He’s a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of Wattpad, the Toronto-based free online community for writers.

Created with Ivan Yuen in 2006, the site is a network of user-generated content—a YouTube for stories rather than videos. For aspiring and experienced authors, it’s a platform to publish their work, receive feedback, and connect with fellow writers and readers. Its most established writer by far is Margaret Atwood. For readers, Wattpad offers its nine million user-generated stories for free, accessible on one’s computer or mobile device. And for the publishing world, Wattpad serves as a scouting ground, where literary agents discovered debut authors Abigail Gibbs and Brittany Geragotelis. Both received six-figure deals, from HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, respectively, for the YA e-books that they serialized on Wattpad. The Web site is changing how writers, readers, and publishers all across the globe create, interact, and discover stories.”…

Read the full article on PublishersWeekly.com.