Kate Marchant, a bestselling Wattpad author, is now getting her novel Float made into a feature film by Collective Pictures. We got the chance to sit down with Kate Marchant and hear about her experience with the self-publishing industry, working with Wattpad, and her future projects. If you are interested in writing for Wattpad, or any other online publishing site, this interview is for you!

Float by Kate Marchant

Caught up in the middle of her parent’s divorce, Waverly Lyons leaves Alaska for the summer to stay with her aunt in Holden, Florida. With such a change in climate, Waverly swears that the sun might just be her mortal enemy, and even worse she does not know how to swim. That’s when the stunningly hot neighbor boy, Blake, enters the picture. Now finding herself surrounded by friends and feeling like she belongs for the first time, Waverly cannot imagine the summer getting any better. That’s when she and Blake fall in love. But now, months later, as the summer is coming to a close, she will have to let go of everything that has made her feel happy for the first time.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Tell us about your story Float!

FLOAT is a young adult coming-of-age romance about Waverly, a seventeen-year-old who decides to reinvent herself while spending the summer in Florida with her aunt—and falls for the son of her aunt’s neighbors, a lifeguard who offers to give her lessons when he learns she can’t swim.

What inspired you to write it?

I started writing Float when I was fifteen! I was a massive fan of Sarah Dessen and Jenny Han, so naturally I decided to write my own take on a summer romance.

Discuss your Wattpad experience with us. How did you get started on the platform and how did you go from Wattpad writer to a movie in theaters?

Though I joined Wattpad as a teenager, it wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I got contacted about some producer interest in my first book.

This industry is 50% hard work, 50% being in the right place at the right time!

I wrote a story that did very well with my target audience (over 20 million reads at the time it was picked up for film) and then it happened to be in Wattpad’s Paid Stories program right when Collective Pictures was seeking out a project (and resonated with the team that went on to adapt it).

For those unfamiliar with Wattpad as such a big launching platform, do you have any tips for getting started/gaining traction?

My biggest tip for Wattpad (or any publishing platform) is to be a reader, first. It’s really important to familiarize yourself with the market and know what books your target audience will be reading before they come to yours. Being a reader first also makes it much easier to engage with and be supportive of the authors who will become your peers and (hopefully) friends! It’s also important to pick up on the little quirks of your chosen platform—for example, Wattpad is home to serialized fiction, which means you need to learn how to pace your story so that every chapter has twists and turns and a cliffhanger ending. It’s different than writing for traditional publishing, where you’re not going to be as concerned with keeping readers coming back week after week.

What are you working on next?

I’m currently writing adult romance under a “secret” pen name! My first book hit stores late last year and I’m working on book two.

Share a writing tip that has gotten you through the storytelling process.

As someone who can be such a perfectionist about my first drafts, the best advice I’ve received is that first drafts just need to be done. Writing on Wattpad taught me to draft clean, but it wasn’t until I went through editing for traditional publication that I learned how important it is to hold off on the nit-picking until you have a complete manuscript. Writing a novel is a lot like making pottery: there’s no point fussing with the intricate details and glazes until after you’ve put all the clay on the wheel and made sure you’ve got a stable structure.

You’ve been writing on Wattpad for ten years. What have you seen change in the digital publishing space and what are some tried and true realities that never change?

So much has changed in the last decade. I’ve seen tricks and trends and even entire platforms come and go.

I think the only tried and true constant is that authors have to keep changing and growing along with the landscape.

The authors who are able to nurture long and successful careers are the ones who are able to stay playful and flexible; to change course when something isn’t clicking; to keep finding new ways to tell stories they’re passionate about.

Where can writers and readers follow your journey and learn more about your work?

For now, my adult pen name is still private, but I have two YA novels published under this name (Float and Whistleblower) and you can find them both wherever books are sold!