One look at the Commaful landing page and you know this isn’t your mother’s amateur fiction website. It’s polished, it’s colorful, and it looks a lot more like Instagram than classic fiction websites like Wattpad and AO3.
If you’re like me and totally out of the loop, then this guide is for you. We’re going to give a full breakdown of the new fiction site Commaful, what it means to be a multimedia site, its features, and more.
What is Commaful?
Let’s start with the basics. What is Commaful?
Commaful is a multimedia fiction site that pairs writing with graphics in a bite-sized format. Stories are clicked through on desktop or swiped on mobile, and new stories autoplay when the last one ends, turning reading into a TikTok-like experience. Readers can like, shoutout, or leave a reaction.
At first glance, the average userbase seems younger, judging by the content and quality of the uploads. It’s optimized for short bites of fiction, so you probably wouldn’t want to read longform fiction on Commaful.
That, and the format is fast-paced, making it almost easier to start with a random story rather than searching for what you want to read. This is a great thing when it comes to being discovered as a writer, as the algorithm is constantly feeding readers new content based on their previous click.
How do I start a Commaful?
That might sound pretty appealing to you, whether you’re just starting out or a veteran in the amateur fiction game. Let’s figure out how to start a Commaful. Here are the steps to making a Commaful account.
- Sign up with your name, username, email, and password
- Tell Commaful what topics you’re interested in
- Link your social media
- Pick a story to start – finish the Commaful reader tutorial
It’s super quick to create a Commaful account. I just created mine while writing this section. If you want to be friends on Commaful, you can follow Writers_Method.
How to publish on Commaful
If you want to get started publishing content to Commaful, it’s very easy to do. I’m going to work through making my first upload and take you with me. Let’s get started publishing on Commaful.
- Navigate to the Commaful home page
- Click the blue “Create Story” button
- Pick a theme for your story
- Create your title slide
- Click “next” in the bottom left corner to create a new slide
- Fill in details like title, description, and tags
The tutorial on Commaful is very simple to follow. It only takes minutes to create a new upload, and it’s a lot like making a PowerPoint. Your slides appear on the left side of your screen, and you can navigate back and forth to edit.
How many people use Commaful?
As an independent author, it seems worth your while to have some uploads on Commaful. The format may not be the ideal place to host your 90,000 word novel, but it’s always a good idea to have a presence online where readers are looking for content.
Commaful currently gets between 150k and 200k visitors per month to their website according to analytics data, but much of the traffic is app-driven. 60% of their users are under 30 years old. Their Apple Store app has 260 reviews, averaging 4.7 stars. In 2017, they boasted over one million users.
It can be difficult to measure a userbase from an outside perspective, but it does seem like there is a strong userbase on Commaful of young readers and writers. If you’re writing in YA genres, you’ll want to start interacting with this app.
Features of Commaful
Here are some of the most important features of Commaful.
Interacting with stories
- Shoutouts – like reblogs or shares
- Comments
- Likes
Uploading your own stories
- Multimedia format – graphics and post editor
- Custom profile with ability to link social media
- Sharing to other platforms
- Ability to pay for increased traffic to stories
Why you should be on Commaful – final thoughts
I’ll make updates to this article as I continue to experiment with Commaful. The site seems young and fun, with lots of angst and plenty of memes, which is what you can expect from the Gen Z userbase.
The most important thing to remember about targeting them as an audience is to respect them as consumers. A lot of creators in the Millennial, Gen X, and Boomer generations don’t totally get the irony inherent with being in Gen Z, but just like when you were a teenager, there’s always going to be love, heartbreak, and humor.