This may sound strange to say, but I don’t think I fully grasped the absolute power of influence that fandom or even fanfiction has had on the entertainment industry.
Fandom as the New Industry Powerhouse
When I spoke with Wattpad’s Head of Content, Alessandra Ferreri, it was still very much early in the first BookCon convention day. We chatted about webnovel adaptations, fanfiction, and the changing landscape of entertainment now influenced by fandom.
I did acknowledge this fact of the conversation in the moment, and then afterward, while spending time at panels, workshops, and simply speaking to other convention-goers on the show floor and in The Grove, I realized that we had all reached the same destination through different methods.
I mean, what other convention can you currently walk into, and hear a rendition of “In My Blood” by Vitamin String Quartet from Netflix’s Bridgerton being played live on violin while overlooking the convention veranda?
Why the Entertainment Industry is Finally Listening to Audiences
It’s the shared experiences of interacting with books and even webnovels turned into TV shows and films that has cemented the current, creator-driven, cross-pollination of international media to fans worldwide. And Wattpad has played a huge role in the industry’s most successful fan-driven stories.
From Beth Reekles’ The Kissing Booth, to Anna Todd’s fanfic inspired hit webnovel turned successful film franchise, After, to even the recent film adaptation of Christine Duann’s Kissing Is the Easy Part, it’s become abundantly clear that fans worldwide crave emotionally-charged stories that don’t always follow the traditional methods of storytelling.
We sat down with Alessandra at BookCon 2026 to discuss this emerging phenomenon, and to hear her thoughts on where Wattpad, web novels, and the state of fandom are heading toward in the near future.
Note: This interview has been truncated and lightly edited for length and clarity.
Q: The Kissing Booth and After are often cited as the gold standard for Wattpad adaptations, but in many ways, they feel like lightning in a bottle.
In your view, what made those specific works “outliers”, and was it a specific narrative trope that resonated at the right time, or is there a new data-backed framework you’re using now to identify the next project with that same ‘breakout’ potential?
Alessandra Ferreri: “Yeah, of course, those are massive hits for us, and it’s so exciting to see how the adaptation of a story that started off on Wattpad, all of a sudden became such a global phenomenon, and such a huge hit. But I think it’s funny, because it’s not like anyone could have necessarily predicted it. It was, in a way, lightning in a bottle, but it also took a long time, and basically a village, to get to that point.
The “Village” Behind Global Hits like The Kissing Booth and After
I’m the Head of Content now, but I worked closely with our entertainment and adaptation teams. So, I have a bit of a bird’s eye view on what that process looks like, and I find that the entertainment industry really works in a cycle. It’s a lot slower than what we might see on Wattpad. I look at Wattpad kind of like this incubator space, where the ‘lightning in a bottle’ kind of happens when people start to pay attention to the possibilities that Wattpad is sitting on.
It really takes somebody, or many people, to be like, ‘Hey, I think I want to push this forward’, and ‘Let’s push it forward even more’. It’s never one person, one time, one instance. It kind of takes a village.
So, I think those are two really good examples of when the industry listens to the audiences, first and foremost, and starts to say, ‘Hey, maybe we’ll stop trying to be taste makers on our own, in our own silos, and start to think about the broader appetite of the people we’re trying to market to that people are trying to adapt for, let’s start listening to them’.
You can get a bit more eclectic and have some more fun with what we’re adapting, and seeing where it takes you. So I think it’s really about listening to audiences, listening to communities, and that’s really what Wattpad does very well.”
Wattpad as a Creative Incubator for Every Writer
In Asian Spaces: “Have you noticed that established authors have a better chance of garnering a larger community, as opposed to somebody just starting on Wattpad?”
Alessandra Ferreri: “Not necessarily, it actually kind of runs the gamut. The way that I look at Wattpad, it is a very flexible tool. It’s a social platform, you can kind of write at your own pace. You can absolutely be like a machine on it, but you can also kind of take your time. And it really just depends on what your vibe is, and what your aspirations are as a writer, and as a creator.
We’ve seen some writers just nail the formula. They just know what their audiences want, and gravitated towards them. We’ve seen other authors take quite a long time to kind of find their voice and figure it out, and then eventually hit. We also have seen a lot of authors flex their muscles a little bit, kind of just do it quite casually, and have a really wonderful time in the community space as well. So, it kind of just depends.
I find it’s really whatever you want to make of it. Wattpad is meant to be a flexible tool, but obviously with writing, it’s a grind; it’s hard, it takes a lot of passion and effort. So, you want to make sure you put that effort in, and then kind of see what happens from there.”
Breaking the Hollywood Formula: Genre-Blending and Self-Expression
We’re seeing a significant shift in digital fiction away from traditional tropes toward high-concept genre-blending (similar to the hybrid horror-romance of “horromance” or sci-fi-fantasy trends) currently dominating webcomics.
How is Wattpad’s content strategy evolving to support these complex hybrids, and do you find that streaming services are becoming more confident about greenlighting these unconventional stories?
Alessandra Ferreri: “Oh, that’s a good question. Wattpad has always been a bit of a blender when it comes to genres, and mixing different things. We don’t really follow a formula, and we’re not here to be a traditional space. We’re here to be an alternative space. And that tends to support more complex genre bending, like ‘just pull from this genre, pull from this space’, you just have to make it your own.
So, it’s really exciting to actually see other industries start to see the power of blending horror and romance, or, you know, sci-fi action, or whatever kind of blend you want to see. Romantasy, obviously, is having a moment”
In Asian Spaces: “I love it” (Laughs)
Alessandra Ferreri: “Yeah and it’s like, of course you do, it’s so fun.”
In Asian Spaces: “It is!”
The Rise of “Horromance” and Alternative Storytelling
Alessandra Ferreri: “Why do we have to stick to a very specific formula? I think now the industry, whether it’s entertainment, streaming services, or publishing, they’re starting to be a bit more flexible there, because they’re kind of saying, ‘Oh, there’s a lot of possibility here’. And you don’t have to like just one thing, we have layers. We’re complex people. We want to see a little bit of everything.
But Wattpad has already always been that space, and so that’s why when trying to figure out, ‘Oh, what could work?’, use it as an experimental platform, have fun with it, because there’s no real risk in trying things out in a place like Wattpad. We have no agents or producers [that are] ever going to tell you that the idea is not good, or needs some more time to bake. It’s kind of just there to, you know, be there.
So, I think that alternative spaces are important. I think that traditional industries are starting to have a bit more insight into, like ‘Oh yeah, this is working. We should lean into these spaces a bit more’ and that’s always nice to see.”
From Tumblr to the Boardroom: How Fandom Raised a New Generation of Tastemakers
In Asian Spaces: “Do you think it’s also due to a certain age group? Because, I wrote fanfiction, I did AO3 and Tumblr, like, way back when. And I feel like for a lot of people… I feel like we’re around the same age, somewhat – do you think it’s because our generation is getting older, and it’s a reflection of what we want to see in content? So, that’s what streamers are probably catering to?”
Alessandra Ferreri: “Yeah, I think so too. And also think about it, like you’re interviewing me-”
In Asian Spaces: “Which is cool” (Laughs)
Alessandra Ferreri: “Thank you, that’s very kind” (Laughs)
Alessandra Ferreri: “But, you’re interviewing me. And then, you’re interviewing amazing people in these spaces. But then think about who’s in those board rooms now.”
In Asian Spaces: “Yeah.”
Alessandra Ferreri: “It’s people that grew up on Tumblr and Wattpad, to a degree.”
In Asian Spaces: “Yeah, which is crazy!”
Alessandra Ferreri: “I absolutely think Wattpad raised a generation of writers who are now becoming really media savvy. And they’re all those entry level, managerial level heads, they’re starting to be the taste makers in these rooms. And they have their baselines in AO3 and Wattpad, like fanfiction and Tumblr in fandom, so they’re starting to bring that into these spaces, and start to be the ones to make those decisions. And that’s so exciting.”
In Asian Spaces: “It is, it is!”
Alessandra Ferreri: “It doesn’t surprise me at all that all of a sudden we’re seeing a shift, because it’s not the same old people that are in these rooms. So, you just want to push that even further. You want to say, ‘Yeah, take this kind of content seriously’, because even though some of it can feel unserious in some ways, it’s very fun, and it’s escapism, wish fulfillment, all that stuff.
It still can make for amazing adaptations and amazing new types of content. We don’t just have to rely on the same old franchises, over and over. We can make new ones.”
In Asian Spaces: “Yes, original stories are still good, right?” (laughs)
Alessandra Ferreri: (laughs)“I know, and we need that.”
In Asian Spaces: “We don’t need remakes for everything.”
The Future of Global Storytelling
At In Asian Spaces, we’ve noticed that international audiences are increasingly craving the specific emotional beats found in K-Dramas and the ‘slow-burn’ pacing of Romance Manga.
Is Wattpad seeing a rise in Western creators intentionally adopting these East Asian storytelling structures as opposed to the ‘Hollywood’ formula, and do you see an opportunity for Wattpad to lead the way in producing Western-born, K-Drama-style adaptations?
Alessandra Ferreri: “I think anything is really possible right now, because we have so much access across media, with streaming services, with places like Wattpad, it’s global. So, we don’t have to stick with a Western point of view at all, and we are exposed to so many different types of storytelling and so many different storytellers now in a way that we never really were in the past.
So, I think that it opens up the possibility, from a creator point of view or from a reader point of view, you don’t have to refine your taste. You can expand your taste. So then, all of a sudden, you get inspired by so many different things.
So absolutely, I think there’s so much possibility on thinking outside the box, thinking outside the formula, and the Hollywood formula is going to be there, and that’s okay, and sometimes that works really well. But it doesn’t have to be the only thing that we look at.
If your appetite is drawing you in a direction, I think you should follow it and absolutely see where it takes you.”
In Asian Spaces: “That’s exciting to hear, because there’s been just so much crossover, everywhere. Like webcomics and manga, anime, Kdrama, and now webnovels are being adapted into TV and film. It’s really exciting to see.”
Beyond the West: Universal Emotional Beats and Cross-Platform Adaptations
Alessandra Ferreri: “Stories are so universal, and I think we will always be responding to the technology that we have available to us in order to tell those stories.
The way that storytelling changes is like, oh, suddenly, TikTok is changing the formula a little bit, and then Instagram’s changed the formula, and Wattpad and AO3, and there’s so many of those spaces that I think are kind of all in a soup of like, ‘Okay, well, what works for me? What do I like to lean into?’. I also think with Wattpad, it’s interesting because Wattpad is both a fanfiction platform and an original fiction platform.
So we have both spaces, a little bit different than AO3, which is predominantly fanfiction.
But I find that the way of fandom, that way of fanfiction writing that’s really emotive, that’s based on different types of beats than you would see in a Hollywood formula. Its very character driven, shipping driven, obviously all that stuff I find tends to blend into original Wattpad content. Because you might start out writing fanfiction, and suddenly you move over, and you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m going to write original fiction’, but it’s still going to have the same flavor.
I see that quite a bit in some of our genres, like romance or teen fiction, for instance. Which is really cool, because you get that emotional pull and characters front and center, but it’s an original story. So I think we’re going to see a lot more of that kind of blend into the Hollywood formula, because that’s what people really gravitate towards.”
One of the most unique aspects of Wattpad is the real-time feedback loop between reader and writer. When you are looking at a story for a potential TV or film deal, how much weight do you give to sentiment analysis in the comments, versus raw read counts?
Alessandra Ferreri: “Real engagement is so important to Wattpad, and in general, to understand the story. It’s not just about what is viral. It’s figuring out why it’s viral, not just what is big or has a read count or why it doesn’t have any reads, for instance. It’s trying to figure out why.
So what me and my team try to do more often is just ask those questions, over and over. We don’t really take any of the stories at face value, because there’s so much more to creativity and storytelling than just, ‘Oh, it’s trending’. If you don’t want to get into the meat of the story, or the meat of the creator and their aspirations, what is the point of reading it?
Reading is such an emotional experience, and you build that relationship with your writer, even if you’re reading at home alone, or you’re on Wattpad, and you’re writing comments. But that’s the special part about Wattpad, is that we have access to engagement. We have access to actual comments and people reacting in real time, sometimes down to the sentence level. And that’s such a meaningful data point for us to look at, because it’s emotion and its real insight that just goes well beyond the read count.
So, we look at both.
I would say read counts kind of get us to the door, just to understand in general. But if you really want to understand a story, you have to go to the people that love it, and you have to ask them.”
In Asian Spaces: “Does the size of a story’s fandom necessarily matter? Is that something that is factored in?”
Alessandra Ferreri: “Not necessarily, no. I think these are all just ways for us to understand stories, but I don’t think it limits them. I think especially when you think about traditional spaces, producers, editors, all that stuff, they’re looking for great stories. They obviously love a viral story, but it’s not the only thing. If you love something, you love something. And that’s going to be what’s going to drive you forward, if it works.
So read counts are great, and our data, and having access to understanding how things ebb and flow, what is trending, what’s not trending, is good. But it’s not really the point. I think the point is being engaged in a story, finding the things that you love, and having that eclectic, unique experience to you, whether you’re a reader or a writer. It’s really about defining that authenticity, and we try to pick that up more often than just relying on pure vanity metrics.”
In Asian Spaces: “And have you noticed a certain genre that typically gets more views? Is it romance?”
Alessandra Ferreri: “Yeah, romance, for sure, is our biggest genre. I say romance and fanfiction, which have a lot of overlap.
Mostly because I think that with romance and fanfiction, because it’s so emotional and because it tends to be so character driven, it elicits reactions from people.
With romance, you kind of want to react a little bit more, so that tends to drive quite a bit of engagement. So, it tends to be a little bit more popular, but there really is space for everything. And I’m always surprised when I see new little pockets of genres kind of pop up that genre blend, that have flavors of romance or flavors of other types of things, that get those types of reactions as well. Kind of just depends.”
Note: My first introduction to the world of webnovels came in the early 2000s through a film adaptation of a wildly popular Japanese web story called Koizora. Touted as a true story, “Sky of Love” told the (tragic) love story shared between high school characters Mika and Hiro.
Since Koizora (alongside The Little Rascals) is what I wrote about in the essay portion of the application that ultimately got me accepted to film school over a decade ago, it holds a special place in my heart, and demonstrates that webnovels can influence (international) audiences in a positive way. So while it’s kind of an obscure reference to lead with for successful webnovel adaptations, I just thought I should give some context on why I named that specific one, next.
We’ve seen the success of Japanese webnovel adaptations like Koizora (2007) and the recent surge of webcomic-to-Anime hits.
Given Wattpad’s global reach, could you envision a future where a Wattpad-original story bypasses the traditional Hollywood route and is developed directly by a studio in Seoul or Tokyo for a serialized K-Drama or Anime, or even just animation in general?
Alessandra Ferreri: “Yeah, absolutely. Our parent company is WEBTOON. They are a webcomic platform, so we’re already collaborating and just having experiments to figure out what works. They’re taking some Wattpad stories, making them into webcomics. We’re seeing some webcomics get novelized, as well. So, the format expansion is pretty endless.
I don’t think we always have to follow the same formula. There’s always alternative ways to figure out what is the best route forward for a specific story. And as you know, WEBTOON is a Korean company, and so they have tons of studios that they work with as well.
We’re all kind of in the same friend group. We’re in the same group chat now, so let’s just see what happens. But absolutely, I think that there’s so many possibilities, and it’s exciting to think outside the box in that way.”
What’s Next for Wattpad? Maintaining a Fun, Accessible Space for 20 More Years
Q: Where do you see the projected future of webnovels heading?
Alessandra Ferreri: “I love webnovels as a format because I find it’s important to have, and to maintain those alternative spaces. We talked a bit about the Hollywood formula. We talked a little bit about those traditional spaces, and those will always be maintained, but I think it’s so important to have these alternative spaces where users can feel free to experiment, try out their stories without having to fit into a specific hole.
So, I hope that webnovels continue in that direction. I hope more people know that you don’t have to even know what you want to do with your story to start writing it. There’s kind of a storyteller in all of us, and so places like Wattpad are there to just make it easy, to get you to that first step, that first chapter, and then see where it takes you.
Especially with Wattpad, we’ve already had 20 years behind us of basically raising a generation. We’ve raised a generation of writers, and given an opportunity to find your voice. I hope that continues for another 20 years, because we’ve seen just how many amazing new brains have now gone on to do incredible things. And I’m not just talking about getting your movie made or getting a book published. I’m talking about you sitting beside me, it’s so cool to think about stories in this way.”
In Asian Spaces: “Yeah, it is.”
Alessandra Ferreri: “So I hope it continues. And while I’m here, I’d like to maintain that and make sure that we’re always that fun, accessible space.”
In Asian Spaces: “Thank you!”
Alessandra Ferreri: “Thank you!”
There is simply an amazing amount of creative energy coming from East to West, and vice versa surrounding TV, video games, animated films, and of course, webnovels.
This new international rise of fandom is something we’ve thankfully been able to platform here at In Asian Spaces, and I believe we will read, and see, even more interesting stories be brought forward onto the world stage thanks to the creative teams at Wattpad, and their dedication to finding unique voices and giving those writers, fans, and commenters alike a platform to enjoy their own mixes and flavor of genre bending and popular culture stories.
Thinking about starting your own creative journey? Whether it be fanfiction or even romantasy, it is clear that all writers, readers, and cultural connoisseurs are welcome on Wattpad’s platform.
You can visit Wattpad’s official website to create an account, read stories, and browse a vast online community that has been around for two decades.
Is there a fanfic or story that you read years ago, but simply cannot forget?
Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, we’d love to hear from you! Also be sure to follow us for more Pop Culture Interviews!
☆ In Asian Spaces ☆ Ephesians 6:12 ☆
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