IMPORTANT: DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN WATTPAD'S OPEN NOVELLA CONTEST
I won't waste your time: it's a scam. And as someone who participated in the contest on its debut and loved participating in it, this year's contest is nothing but a horror show waiting to happen.
If you don't want to know the reason behind it, that's all you need to know! Feel free to keep scrolling. If you'd like to know more about what's going on with Wattpad, please continue reading.
This post does not have a break due to the potential severity of the contest.
What is the Open Novella Contest?
The Open Novella Contest (ONC) is a yearly Wattpad event in which writers are tasked with writing a story between 20K-40K words in 12 weeks, basing their story around a set number of prompts created by Wattpad. For the past five years, the ONC has been received well among the Wattpad community, with tens of thousands participating. Some of the stories would later be sent/picked up by publishing companies, and with Wattpad's recent Premium update, authors are allowed to publish their stories through Wattpad.
So what's wrong with that?
Well, it should have been nothing. Previously, there was wrong with participating and having fun. This year, however, Wattpad decided they'd change the rules up, the first change being that mature stories are no longer allowed. Wattpad has always had strict guidelines regarding mature stories, and yet the platform is also a hotspot for mature stories. Previously, this was fine as long as it didn't break creative legal rules (ex. pornography) , This year, any mature story is likely to be disqualified from the contest.
But that's not the fun part, the publicity grant is:
Straight from Wattpad's rules:
Entry in the Contest constitutes permission for [Wattpad Corp.] Sponsor and its designees to use each entrant's and Prize Winners' Entries, as well as entrant's name, [Wattpad account] or other social media handle or ID, biological information, address (city and state) and likeness, for advertising and promotional purposes, in any manner, in any and all media now or hereafter devised, worldwide, in perpetuity, without further compensation, notification, or permission, except where prohibited by law and as otherwise provided herein. The preceding expressly includes, without limitation, any video associated with any winning Entry.
That's a lot to read, so let's break it down:
"Entry in the Contest constitutes permission for [Wattpad Corp.] Sponsor and its designees to use..."
By entering the contest, Wattpad and others associated with the contest can...
"...each entrant's and Prize Winners' Entries..."
Every entry is now Wattpad's and you don't have control over your own work.
"...as well as entrant's name, [Wattpad account] or other social media handle or ID, biological information, address (city and state) and likeness..."
Wattpad may use your real name (might not be preferred), your Wattpad name, your social medias, your birth date, your gender, your address, and all things needed to sign up for a Wattpad account...
"...for advertising and promotional purposes..."
Wattpad will use all of the above for "promotional purposes."
"...in any manner, in any and all media now or hereafter devised, worldwide, in perpetuity..."
Your name, address, social medias, and all others will be advertised freely and you'll have no control on which corners of the world it will reach.
"...except where prohibited by law and as otherwise provided herein."
If there's a law that will stop advertising, congrats. Your name, address, social medias, and all others won't get promoted there.
"The preceding expressly includes, without limitation, any video associated with any winning Entry."
Wattpad allows writers to add a video to your chapter which can help set the tone of the chapter. Basically, they're saying here that if you put Billy Joel's "Piano Man" with your writing, they don't care about the copyright. They'll still promote the story, which also breaks copyright rules in the music department. And if the company behind "Piano Man" decides to sue, the author takes the blow.
It doesn't stop there: let's talk Intellectual Property (aka copyright):
Straight from Wattpad again:
Each Prize Winner grants to [Wattpad Corp.] Sponsor and its designees the exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, transferable, sublicenseable right and license to use, perform, exhibit, reproduce, and/or otherwise exploit their winning Entry in any manner and in any and all distribution channels, venues or media no known or hereafter devised, without further notice or any compensation to entrant. The preceding grant of rights is subject to any rights retained by a social media operator in its social media platform. Each Prize Winner further waives any "Moral Rights of Authors" or similar natural rights of ownership they may have in user content. Each Prize Winner further agrees, upon Sponsor's request and without compensation of any kind, to execute any additional documents so as to effect, record, or perfect the grant of rights contemplated by this subsection.
By participating, entrants acknowledge that Sponsor may be working on or receive other Entries (or Sponsor's employees or third party independent contractors may create materials on their own), that are similar to identical in theme, format or other respects to that summited by entrant. By submitting an Entry, Sponsor does not waive any rights to use similar or related ideas previously known to Sponsor or developed by its employees, or obtained from sources other than entrant. Sponsor shall not have any liability to entrant for any direct, indirect, contributory, vicarious, secondary or other infringement or protection of any copyright in or to entrant's Entry.
I doubt anyone actually read that, so let's do a quick break down. First paragraph says that under the "Moral Rights of Authors," all winners (there are 5) give up the rights to their story upon winning. Wattpad may use the money earned off their work, which may be promoted at various venues or websites without he author's consent, to their own. The author receives nothing out of this.
Second paragraph says that any entrant gives up the rights to their story, and their work can be plagiarized. Paramount Pictures has already been called out for stealing Wattpad author's stories and turning them into original series, and this is basically saying the same thing. Because the work must be original, there are no legal liabilities for franchises to deal with.
It gets worse: Liability rules
Again from Wattpad (this was all in caps but for the sake of my sanity, I wrote it in normal writing)
Entrants hereby hold the released parties harmless from and against any third-party claim arising from use of the entry, including without limitation any claim arising out of or in connection with copyright, trademark, rights of publicity or privacy or false endorsement. Released parties are not responsible for lost, late, damaged, misdirected, illegible, incomplete, delayed, inaccurate, garbled, stolen or mutilated entries, or for any computer, online, telephone or technical malfunctions, delays or human errors that occur in the processing, transmission or receipt of entries, or for inaccurate transcription of entry information, or for entries that are stolen, misdirected, garbled, lost or delayed by computer transmissions, or if for any reason, the contest is not capable of being conducted as planned, including but not limited to infection by computer viruses, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or other causes. Released parties are not responsible for incorrect or inaccurate entry information whether caused by internet users or by any of the equipment or programming associated with or utilized in the contest or by any technical or human error that may occur in the processing of the entries in the contest.
No one wants to read that either so here's the summary: If your work is damaged, hacked, deleted (by you, someone else, or Wattpad), or Wattpad straight up lost it (as the site sometimes does), Wattpad is not responsible and will not compensate you for the loss of your work.
So, to close this out, here's a kicker: the prizes
Remember how I said there were 5 winners? That's a lie, there's only 2 who get prizes. First place gets a year long Wattpad membership ($60 USD) with a professionally designed cover, and 2nd place get a month long Wattpad membership ($5 USD). Past years had 5 winners with real money compensation, as well as help getting their stories published with a professionally designed cover.
If that isn't enough to convince you to stay away, then by all means do enter the contest. But if you're disgusted by what you've just read, please, by all means...