Anna Todd's "After" Series: A Wattpad Success Story

Have you heard of Wattpad? Having a teen daughter helps keep me in the proverbial loop, but in case you haven't heard of it I'll give you the short version. Wattpad is an app that allows users to read, write, and share stories. So basically it's a free platform for budding writers and anyone interested in reading their work. When Bethany first told me about Wattpad, specifically that she is using it during her daily free reading time at school, I was a little skeptical. Okay, actually I rolled my eyes and implored my child to read a "real" book. But then my mind was abruptly changed.

I received a package in the mail with a book inside: After, by Anna Todd. My mind was immediately blown by that statement you can see on the picture of the cover up above: "1 billion reads online." That's B-illion, with a B, which is a massive number for ANY book, let alone one that was created on an app. Sick in bed with the flu, I read After in one day. Then I immediately ordered book #2 in the four part series, After We Collided, and read that the next day.





And then, you guessed it, I wasted no time ordering book #3, After We Fell. I was a little dismayed that it was a pre-order, and I had to wait a few days for it to be delivered to my Kindle. I've been distracted by life and haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but it's on the agenda for this week. These are 500+ page books, and I'm devouring them in binges.

The fourth and final book in the series, After Ever Happy, is due to be released next month on February 24th. I already know I'll be ordering it.

My point is, these books are good. And they were created on an app. Who'd have thunk it?

So who is the face behind the After series? Anna Todd, a young military wife and first time author.




The series actually falls into the category of fan fiction, which I'll admit I had to Google because I wasn't really sure what it meant. Fan fiction is when writers create fiction based on characters that already exist or real people. A famous example would be the Fifty Shades series, which is actually Twilight fan fiction. Having read all the Fifty Shades books and the Twilight books, I can't see the connection, but my understanding is that the characters (or real life people) provide the seed, or inspiration, and then the writer just takes off on whatever imaginary tangent they can dream up.

Todd is a huge One Direction fan and based her series on a fictionalized depiction of band member Harry Styles. In the printed version of the books, his name has been changed to Hardin Scott, and he is the bad boy love interest of naive college student, Tessa. The series is sexy (R rated), well-written, and fun to read. And get this...Todd wrote it all on her phone! Simon & Schuster, impressed with After's massive success on Wattpad, picked it up and turned it into a 4-book (expanded and revised) series. Paramount has acquired the film rights, so be on the lookout for After on the big screen.

What I find interesting about Todd's writing is that she created the books with ongoing, daily feedback from her readers and fans. Traditional book writing will never end (I have to believe), but this kind of interactive writing is not going anywhere either. Kids these days don't do anything without constant interaction with their peers, so why should writing a book be any different?

Find Anna Todd on Wattpad as Imaginator1D, on Twitter as @Imaginator1Dx, and on Instagram as Imaginator1D. Her books are available for purchase from Barnes and Noble or HERE for your e-reader.

Disclosure: I participated in the After by Anna Todd blogger campaign as a member of One2One Network. I was compensated for this post, but all opinions are my own.

Kindle Comparison

I never, ever thought I'd be a Kindle convert. But guess what? I am. Don't get me wrong, I still love actual books. I still buy them, I still read them. But I've been getting so many free & super cheap books for my Kindle, and I love (LOVE!) that I can have so many books at my disposal on one little device. I love that I can slip my Kindle in my purse and take it with me wherever I go. And that when I have a few minutes to kill, I can take out my Kindle and choose what I feel like reading at the moment. It's so convenient.

I actually have two Kindles. Yep, two. First I got a Kindle Touch 3G for Christmas. Then for my birthday I got a Kindle Fire. I am keeping both of them because I love them both.

The Kindle Touch 3G:

...is easy on the eyes - more like a book than a computer screen.
...fully charged, the battery lasts a really long time (they claim up to 2 months, but if you use it daily I would say more like a few weeks - which is still pretty awesome!)
...the (FREE) 3G lets you order books without wifi. I love this feature.
...holds 3000 books.
...is simple and easy to use.
...has lots of other great features that I haven't even begun to figure out yet. I really should play around with it more and learn how to do all the cool stuff.

The Kindle Fire:

...is a reader and a tablet (think iPad, but smaller). This means it has full internet capabilities: you can check your email, your Facebook, or go on any website you want; and you can get apps for it.
...is full color and lit up more like a computer screen - which means I can read in bed without a book light.
...can play movies from my Netflix account (or other similar).
...has a super easy to use touch screen (just as easy as an iPad or iPod Touch)
...keeps books in (free) cloud storage. Now, I'm not 100% clear on the cloud storage thing and what all it means. But I do know that when I purchase books on Amazon, I direct them to be delivered to my Kindle Touch 3G, yet they also show up in my Kindle Fire's cloud storage. At first I was irked because I didn't want the same book to be taking up space on both Kindles, but then I realized that it's not taking up space on the Kindle Fire - unless (maybe?) I decide to read it on the Kindle Fire. I think you might have to be within wifi range to get a book out of cloud storage the first time (don't quote me on that), but once you've accessed it once, you can read it anytime & don't need wifi (this I do know for certain).
...is very user friendly.

If you have a Kindle, make sure you "like" Pixel of Ink on Facebook. Every day they post free or very low cost (think 99 cents) deals on Kindle books.

Also "like" Amazon Kindle on Facebook, because they post lots of good deals on Kindle books too.

Do you have a Kindle? If so which one do you have, and what do you love about it? Maybe you can share some cool features that I have thus far been too lazy busy to figure out?

Stuff You Really Should Have Read Already, But It's Never Too Late

I thought I would share with you a couple of books I really think everyone should read. Not that my opinion is of any consequence, but nonetheless I will carry on as though it is.

Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
I can hear your excuses now. Let me guess...

I don't read romances. 

Get over your pre-conceived notions and make this the only romance novel (read: masterpiece) you ever read. 

I don't read historical fiction. 

Well make an exception just this once. Trust me. The story will eat you up and swallow you whole and you will be too dizzyingly caught up in it to care if it takes place in 350 B.C. or 5000 years in the future. 

It's so dang long. 

Yes it is, but you will devour each of it's 960 pages, get to the end, and wish with every cell of your being that there were 960 more pages. 

I have a confession to make, which is that is I read the sequel to Gone With The Wind, Scarlett, by Alexandria Ripley, and I have to admit it was somewhat satisfying in a totally inauthentic and Pollyanna kind of way. But the beauty of Rhett and Scarlett's true (fictional) story is its heart-wrenching ending. Read it and weep!

Catcher In The Rye and anything else you can get your hands on by J.D. Salinger

Catcher In The Rye is probably my favorite book of all time, which is saying a lot because I have read many, many, many books. I used to coerce all my friends to read it in high school, and I'm pretty sure no one was ever sorry they did. I always wanted a son named Holden Caulfield, but then I read that some celebrity (Denis Leary?) beat me to it and stuff like that just ruins names for me. What I love about the book is its realness. Life is going on around Holden and everyone acts like all the phony crap is the real stuff when we all know that is so not true. But because he doesn't want to go along with the delusion, he is the outsider. Doesn't every teenager feel like that at some point? Every adult too? This is why I love books. People don't tend to talk about these things in everyday conversation, so how else would I know that other people feel like I feel? Plus it's been banned periodically since it was published, and doesn't that just make you want to read it more?

Salinger's other works are gems too, I love each story and book. Many of his pieces share characters, which I also love. In high school I wrote this poem inspired by one of the Nine Stories, and while I am not much of a poet, it is my (self-proclaimed) crown jewel of poetry achievement. But you would probably need to read "A Perfect Day For Bananafish" in Nine Stories to fully appreciate it.

Blighted Hope

Mother called,

     asked how I was and she said

Daddy was worried about me.

And my irritated

     sun-burnt skin stung.

Sybil asked her mother, "Did you see more glass?"

Then she ran down the beach

                              (her canary-yellow swimsuit singing all the way)

                         to find him.

                         She was selfish

                              yet

                                 she basked in his lonesome obliging affections

                                    for awhile                              before she ran back the way she came.

                         And Seymour Glass once again hid his pale, sickly

                              (tattooed)

                                 body.

                         He was on his way to heaven

                               in an elevator

                         crying and wondering what was wrong

                              with his feet.

                         While I slept

                              and wondered in my dreams why

                         I couldn't see the dancing trees

                         And thought maybe

                              I should take up German.

So yeah I guess it really does not make any sense without knowing the story. Besides Cather In The Rye and Nine Stories, Salinger also wrote Franny and Zooey and Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction. Rumor has it he actually wrote a lot more that he never published. Maybe someday...

Date Night at the Greektown Casino Hotel

Like I mentioned we were going to in my last post, Chris and I went out last night, just the two of us. His mom had a voucher for a free night at the Greektown Casino hotel and $50 in bonus play for the casino, and since her husband is out of town and the voucher was about to expire, she generously gave it to us (with the bonus play too!). Aren't we spoiled? Being spoiled is fun! Did I mention she also came over and spent the night at our house to babysit our kids? 

We're not exactly gamblers, but still we were excited to get out for an evening. Our first pleasant surprise was the free (!) valet at the hotel. Our next pleasant surprise was that the hotel is really nice. We loved our room. We would decorate our whole house exactly like our room was decorated. Because I'm a dork and totally and completely uncool, I took some pictures. Of our hotel room 13 miles from our home.

 
Since we were in Greektown and all, for dinner we had...Mexican. It was our first time eating at Loco's, and we both enjoyed our extraordinarily cheese-filled dinners. I ate so much I felt like a stuffed cow, but it was just so good I didn't want to waste any of it. And then I had dessert. Because that's just what I do.

After dinner we headed over to the casino where we were faced head-on with more of our uncoolness. It took us an embarrassingly long time to figure out the slot machines. We stuck with the penny slots and cashed out every time we won anything over $1. Yes, that's right, one dollar. We made that $50 bonus play last us a few hours, and ended our casino foray with enough money to pay for our breakfast this morning, with a few bucks left over. Yay for free money.

Back at the room I got to enjoy one of the most wonderful showers I've ever had the pleasure of partaking in and the super comfy bed, which I called home until 11:00 this morning. The night we spring forward an hour for daylight savings time turned out to be perfect timing for us to be gone overnight, especially because I've been particularly sleep deprived lately. So Friday night I shared the couch with a fussy space hogging toddler, and Saturday night I got endless slumber on a king size bed of clouds. Fair trade I suppose. 

Also, my book review for The Atlas of Love has been published here. You should head over there and check it out. Luxury Reading is a really great website if you're into books, as I am.