If one of your stories is eligible for entry, an eligibility banner will appear on the 'Story Details' page associated with that story and will remain there for the entirety of the submission window. If you make changes to your story to meet eligibility requirements, please allow up to 24 hours for the change to take effect and the submission form to appear.
To be eligible to submit and win a Watty Award, you and your story/stories must abide by the following eligibility criteria:
AGE
You must be at least 13 years of age or older. Winners under 18 years of age must have permission from a parent or legal guardian to enter and collect any prizes. Please ensure that you have added your birthdate to your Wattpad account to confirm your age, otherwise, you will not receive an eligibility banner on your story.
RIGHTS
You must own and control all of the rights to your story for your story (i.e. you can't submit a plagiarized story or a story where you have sold rights to someone else or anything else that means you don't control all the rights to your story) to be eligible to enter the Wattys and potentially win a Watty Award.
FOR COMPLETE STORIES:
Complete stories are completed novels with a clear beginning, middle, and end, and must meet the following criteria:
WORD COUNT
Your story must contain 50,000 words or more if written in English and must be marked as complete when submitted.
Your story must be 40,000 words or more and marked as complete if written in Filipino or Spanish.
DATE POSTED
The first part of your story must have been posted to Wattpad on or after January 1st, 2022. You can finish it at any time before you submit your story.
SEQUELS [English Only]
In English, sequels are eligible but must be able to be assessed as a stand-alone story. If you submit a sequel that cannot be assessed as a stand-alone, it will be disqualified upon submission. Sequels are not eligible in any other languages.
If a sequel is submitted in a language other than English, the sequel will be disqualified.
FOR ONGOING STORIES [English Only]
Ongoing stories are stories that are not yet complete and will intentionally continue for a long time to come. To be eligible, these stories must meet the following criteria:
WORD COUNT
Your story must contain 20,000 words or more and must NOT be marked as complete when submitted.
POSTING CADENCE
Your story needs to have existed on the Wattpad platform from at least June 5th, 2024. Stories need to have been updated 8 out of the past 10 weeks at the time of submission. We define posting once a week as posting at least once between Monday to Sunday before 11:59:59 PM UTC. Story updates are recognized as being 500+ words each time.
The story needs to have received an update in at least 80% of the weeks between the date you submit the entry and the date on which the Shortlisted Entries are announced (on October 14th, 2024) or your story will be disqualified.
SUBMISSIONS & SUBMISSION FORM
You must complete a submission form along with your entry to be eligible. Confirm all the information you declare on your form and ensure accuracy before submitting as you will be unable to modify your responses after submitting them.
You are welcome to submit more than one eligible story to the Wattys, but please note that only one story per creator can win per year.
Please also note that we no longer accept previously submitted Complete stories in The Wattys. Starting this year, we will only be accepting submissions once. Ongoing stories (English only) can be submitted once annually, at this time.
Ongoing stories that have been shortlisted for the Wattys in the past (but have not won) may be submitted so long as they meet all other eligibility criteria.
LANGUAGE & TERRITORY
This year, we have made some changes to which languages are eligible to submit. Please visit our FAQ for more information.
To enter the Wattys, your story must be written in one of the following three languages:
English
Filipino
Spanish
The Wattys accept submissions worldwide, where such contests are allowed by law.
STORY GENRE(S)
Stories will be assessed and awarded based on a system that does not separate Winners by genre. While we will still require genre declarations on the submission form, stories will not be awarded prizes per 'award categories'. For more information on this year's prizing structure please see our 'Prizing' chapter.
This year, the Wattys will accept submissions in the following genres:
Action & Thriller
Fantasy
Historical
Horror
Mystery & Detective
Paranormal
Romance
Science Fiction
For more information on the genre options, please see our 'How to Submit' chapter.
The Wattys will not be accepting FanFiction submissions in any language. We will also not accept poetry, short story collections, random, nonfiction, or classics.
Wattpad wants to make it clear that any story you submit to the Wattys remains 100% yours. Be sure to check out the "Legal Stuff" chapter for more information.
YOU ARE READING
The 2024 Watty Awards
RandomThe Watty Awards stands as Wattpad's annual tribute to the dynamic, imaginative, and inclusive voices, along with their devoted fans, who choose to share their greatest stories on Wattpad every year. For the last 15 years, The Watty Awards has honor...
