MANILA -- ABS-CBN teen sensations Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla topped the list of love teams featured in fan-fiction on Wattpad, an online community for discovering and sharing stories.
"There's a huge fan base for KathNiel on Wattpad," Kristel Tan, country manager for Wattpad, revealed during the opening of the Manila International Book Fair on Wednesday. "There are 2,500 stories on them alone."
Tan also reported that the love tean of Nash Aguas and Sharlene San Pedro, or NashLene, "is also among the top-rating fanfic loveteams on the site."
Wattpad has 25 million unique monthly users, 20% of which are Filipinos.
"The Philippines is our No. 2 market, right after the US. There are between 300,000 to 400,000 works in Filipino uploaded on the site," reported Wattpad co-founder Allen Lau.
A number of Filipino users whose stories first appeared on Wattpad have also been picked up by publishers and are now selling well in bookstores, including "Diary ng Panget" by HaveYouSeenThisGirl (PSICOM) and "She's Dating the Gangster" by Bianca B. Bernardino (Summit).
Recognizing their growing Filipino market, the Wattpad team is in the Philippines to join the book fair at the SMX Convention Center and meet their readers for the first time.
Lau is scheduled to give a talk on "How we amassed 300,000 fans and 100 million reads" on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. at the stage area.
The event also features a meet and greet with Wattpad’s hottest young writers, including, Denny (HaveYouSeenThisGirL), Louisse (fallenbabybubu), Ciara (seeyara), Janelle (greenwriter) and Ate Casper (mercy_jhigz).
Over 900 Wattpad users have already registered to attend the event.
The Manila International Book Fair runs until Sunday.
The co-located event, Best of Anime convention, kicks off this weekend, September 14-15 at Function Rooms 3 and 4, showcasing J-rock singer Joe Inoue, J-pop girl group Starmarie, international cosplayers Karael, Jiaki Darkness and Yuki Godbless, and Filipino cosplay celebrities Myrtle Sarrosa and Alodia and Ashley Gosiengfiao.
source: www.abs-cbnnews.com
