For years, serialization has been discussed as a significant area of opportunity for reading and publishing in the digital age. (We’re using the terms serial and serialization interchangeably to refer to any situation where content is parceled out in small bites and delivered on a specific schedule, whether the content is finished or in progress.) Wattpad, one of the darlings of the digital writing and publishing community, operates on a serial publishing model, and Amazon has a serials program as well. (You can read Jane’s full report on the serialization trend, as it stood in 2014, here.)
It has been challenging for both established publishers and indie authors to pursue serialization models because it’s difficult to publish on or profit from them through the existing tools. Wattpad is entirely free for everyone; Amazon’s serial program is part of its formal publishing operations and closed to outsiders.
A new startup launching this month hopes to offer a viable business model and distribution platform for authors and publishers to profit from serialization. Tapas Media is an app-based publishing platform that helps anyone publish content specifically for mobile devices, distribute it widely (outside of existing retail channels), and monetize it.
On the reader-facing side, Tapas offers bite-sized stories and the ability to try any story free before purchasing or “unlocking” installments. To unlock new installments, a reader might invite friends to read, watch ads, complete some other offer, or simply wait. (The founders are calling it “Candy Crush meets books.”) Tapas is betting that its mobile platform and freemium model will reach people who don’t already buy books.
Tapas is based in Seoul and San Francisco and is being spun off of an existing service called Tapastic, the leading online publishing platform and community for comics. Tapas already has a partnership in place with Korea’s leading mobile content marketplace, Kakao Page, where the top creator earns $90,000 per month.
Bottom line: Once launched, Tapas will work only with content that is finished and ready to be loaded onto its platform. Tapas will be open to all authors and is working on attracting traditional publishers to the service. Find out more at the Tapas website, or follow news on their Tumblr. They’ll also be making an appearance at Digital Book World (March 7–9 in New York City) and discussing Tapas as part of the Publishers Launch Pad panel.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
