Watt's Good Enough For Atwood...

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… is good enough for me.

Wattpad — for those of you who haven’t heard of it — is a free app for smartphones and similar devices that allows writers and readers to share their work, comment on stories and poetry by other Wattpad members, and follow writers they like.

I first downloaded it months ago, but never really explored it. Then in June I saw a news item about the fact that Margaret Atwood was posting her new poetry collection on Wattpad.

I tweet about books and literature on a semi-regular basis, so I tweeted this tidbit of news. The Wattpad staff saw the tweet, checked me out, and invited me to join their Writer Partner Program.

The tweet

I decided to give it a try.

After all, Atwood is on there. So is doctor-cum-Giller-Prize-winner Vincent Lam. I could be in worse company.

I posted my novel Luck and Death at the Edge of the World and beginning today (August 31), Luck and Death is a featured book on Wattpad.

Luck and Death featured on Wattpad

What’s that you say — why give one of my books away?

Reason One: New Readers

Like any writer, I want to expand the number of people who read my books and Wattpad is one way to reach new readers.

The app has 8 million unique visits per month — nothing to look down your nose at. With any luck a few of those users will like Luck and Death and continue on to other books of mine, whether it’s the Gat Burroughs Series or my standalone fiction.

Reason Two: The Commercial Edition Has Exclusive Bonus Material

Even with Wattpad, there are good reasons to buy the commercial version of Luck and Death from Amazon or Kobo.

It’s permanent (the Wattpad version won’t stay up forever) and you don’t need a web-enabled device to read it (the Wattpad version can’t be downloaded).

Best of all, though, I’ve just released a second edition that includes an awesome new section, The Facts in the Fiction.

For people who enjoy DVD extras and “making of” stories, this is a behind-the-scenes look at the factual background behind some of the elements in the fictional story, including:

• the 1920s celebrity home that served as the model for Max’s mansion at Cloud City
• current work in robotics behind the Dogware, including nanorobotics, swarm robotics, and the military application of robots
• the scary reality behind the emerging infectious diseases that cause sudden quarantines in 23rd century Los Angeles
• the real science that may one day permit the uploading of a human consciousness into an artificial body
• the historic computer genius behind the fictional AI in Luck and Death, and
• the lowdown on why meditation is catching on with many atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and science-minded folks.

The Facts in the Fiction is also crammed with links to web pages, PDF documents, and videos, so if you’re reading Luck and Death on a web-enabled device, you can click through to get more details on any point that interests you.

Reason Three: I Enjoy It

I like participating in Wattpad. Not everything is to my taste, but I’ve found some  really good material, like:

• Cabaret, which is poetry by Tshegofatso Seboni
• Toucannuí: Gringo in Brazil Stories, non-fiction by awesome comic book creator Dan Goldman, who writes and draws the Red Light Properties series, which I never would have found except for his presence on Wattpad, and
• The Edge of Darkness, indie science fiction from Lissa Bilyk — I’ve only started this one, but it looks promising.

So there you have it. It’s an experiment — give it some time and we’ll see how it works out.