Elif Nur Şafak. Image: Kalem Agency
By Porter Anderson, Editor in Chief | @Porter_Anderson
See also:
In Türkiye: Wattpad outage: “No explanation”
In the US: Open Road Integrated Media offers geo-targeting to open banned books
In Canada: Censorship and library visitors’ interest in books
In Norway: WEXFO on democracy and freedom of reading
In Brazil: Publishers denounce alleged censorship
Wattpad “has had a positive impact on reading culture”
FFollowing our August 1 article about perceived disruptions to the Wattpad service in Turkey, an agent specializing in children’s books at Nermin Mollaoğlu’s Kalem agency in Istanbul sent a note to colleagues.
Agent Elif Nur Şafak wrote that her email newsletters about children’s literature are usually “cheerful and happy,” but that this month this was not the case because “my beautiful country has become one of the states where the authorities have imposed a ban on Instagram.” What is normally a collection of Instagram posts from colleagues has, she wrote, become impossible to send the expected content for this reason.
As you’ll recall, Wattpad’s Toronto administration – as a person familiar with the situation inside the company described to us – was frustrated by customer complaints from users in Turkey that it couldn’t respond to because the Canadian company couldn’t reach government contacts to determine whether the reported glitches were actually government repression, technical glitches, or something else.
In her email to colleagues, Şafak makes a plea for aspiring writers who have seen Wattpad as a springboard to a career in publishing. You’ll note that she and others in Turkey refer to these and other disruptions as bans, but as Wattpad’s administration has noted, it can be difficult to determine the accuracy of that perception. (Of course, many national governments prefer evasions to outright admission of unpopular measures.) This is why we speak of disruptions, while you’ll note that Şafak speaks of bans.
“If one way is blocked, we find another way to reach the audience. It’s a survival method we’ve developed over the years.”Elif Nur Şafak, Kalem Agency
“Just recently,” she writes, Wattpad, “which supported my dreams of becoming a writer at a young age, which helped me make friends when I didn’t have many in high school, which gave me a platform to express myself when I felt insecure,” was also banned by the authorities. When Wattpad was banned, some people supported it and shared their joy on Instagram.
“Now Instagram is banned, the same people are angry.”
Regional news has mentioned government blocking of various social media and platforms in the past, but confirmation from the West remains hard to come by. Nevertheless, it is clear that many in Turkey believe they are experiencing government suppression of various platforms and are far from happy about it.
“An important platform for teenagers”
We are happy to have a conversation with Şafak, in which she tells us that Kalem Agency itself has worked with authors who started their writing careers on Wattpad’s serial author channels – and with some whose work was actually discovered outside the country this way.
Related article: Wattpad’s outage in Turkey: “No explanation.” Image – Getty Aivita
“Authors who first became popular on Wattpad and then published their works in physical form,” she says, “have seen an increase in their book sales thanks to their online presence. And indeed, there are cases where a foreign publisher sees a Turkish book on social media and sends us screenshots to acquire the translation rights.
“In addition,” says Şafak, “Kalem has actively worked to gain greater recognition and respect for the platform.”
She points out that since 2009, Kalem has been organizing the ITEF-Istanbul International Literary Festival, an event well known to our readers that brings together international writers and literary experts with Turkish readers.
“Every year a theme is chosen,” she says, “and in 2016 it was ‘City and Voices’. The festival included an event called Audible voices of youth in which young authors shared their writing experiences with large reader communities and came together with their readers.”
When Publish perspectives When we spoke to a source at Wattpad for the report earlier this month, we learned that the Toronto-based company no longer discusses the size of a specific market’s following, even though it says it now has 90 million total monthly users.
But one thing is clear from her work in Istanbul, says Şafak: “Wattpad is considered a key platform for teenagers in Turkey because it offers them a place to try out their skills and build communities. It’s much easier to test yourself and get immediate feedback from real readers than to approach editors directly and bluntly,” she says, “where the chances of recognition are slim.”
“There was a boom towards this trend about ten years ago,” she says, “but that doesn’t mean the hype is over. It has had a positive impact on reading culture, especially among young people, and revived meetings between authors and readers. In fact, many Wattpad authors were among the first bookstagrammers in Turkey, as they already had a community that loved to talk about books. It’s ironic that they can’t post on Instagram now.”
“The value of freedom of expression”
Şafak says the current level of disruption stems from a period between 2017 and 2020 when, as she recalls, Wikipedia was not accessible in Turkey, “and I think that was the peak of such repression recently,” she says.
Related article: At the Norwegian WEXFO: Democracy and Reading Freedom. Image: Publishing Perspectives, Porter Anderson
And of course, we also ask Şafak what impact such perceived platform oppressions might have on creative people, including writers. The pressures on the “trinity of freedoms” in so many cultures today—as explored at both the Frankfurt Book Fair (October 16-20) and the International Publishers Association (IPA) International Publishers Congress (December 3-6)—can trigger an alarming impulse toward self-censorship in creative people. The freedom to write, read, and otherwise express oneself can easily be challenged by those who live in fear of intimidation tactics of the kind of oppression described here.
She seems to see this as evidence of the kind of dogged determination she and her people are accustomed to displaying.
“I think it depends on the author,” says Şafak, “how a writer experiences disturbances of the kind described in Türkiye.”
“Of course, protest is always justified,” she says, “but when one path is blocked, we find another way to reach the audience. It’s a survival method we’ve developed over the years. So while these disruptions cause discomfort, they also remind us of the value of freedom of expression.”
See also:
Rights Edition: Frankfurt’s “Center for Words” 2024 in Hall 4.1
Rights Edition: Paola Passarelli on Italian rights, translations and stereotypes
Rights Roundup: Last break before the fall season
For more information from Publishing Perspectives on digital publishing, see here, more on the Turkish market here, more on Wattpad here, and more on the “trinity of freedoms” – to publish, to read, and to express yourself freely – here.
Publishing Perspectives is the global media partner of the International Publishers Association.
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