Data-driven publisher Wattpad Books is to publish a contemporary romance story collection, Lockdown on London Lane by Beth Reekles. The book follows the love-lives of a group of Londoners in lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The title will be published as part of Wattpad Books’ Winter 2022 list and is the publisher’s first contemporary romance title after having had success with diverse and data-backed Young Adult titles.
Lockdown on London Lane was started on Wattpad in April 2020 and has already become a hit on the platform, accumulating more than 329,000 reads. It tells the stories of an apartment block in sudden lockdown.
Author Beth Reekles says, ‘Lockdown on London Lane was such a fun book to write. Self-isolating in lockdown posed some strange challenges, so it was exciting to find a creative outlet for that, and connect with readers on Wattpad by sharing it on the platform. Having a project and that sense of community definitely helped keep me sane!
‘Wattpad has always been such a huge part of my career as an author so I’m thrilled to be publishing Lockdown on London Lane with Wattpad Books.’
Reekles had a hit book and film with The Kissing Booth, which was first published on Wattpad in 2011. The story got 19 million reads on the platform and won a Watty Award for Most Popular Teen Fiction before being published by Penguin Random House UK.
The story went on to become a hit film from Netflix and Komixx Entertainment in 2018, and the sequel, The Kissing Booth 2, will be released on Netflix during July 2020.
Wattpad website hacked
The Wattpad website was recently hit by hackers and the company says some user data has been accessed.
The firm is using external security consultants to investigate the data breach but claims that no financial information, stories, private messages, or phone numbers were accessed during the incident. Wattpad is resetting passwords and advising users to change passwords on other sites if they used the same password.
Wattpad’s site is accessed each month by more than 80 million users who spend over 23 billion minutes on the platform a month.
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