April 25, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode of Romance at a Glance, Bridget interviews Emma Tonner, the Executive Producer at GalateaTV and Chief Innovation Officer at Inkitt. Emma shares insights into how Inkitt leverages AI and data-driven algorithms to turn unknown stories into blockbusters. She discusses the creation and success of Inkitt’s app Galatea, which produces million-dollar ebooks and now converts them into TV series on GalateaTV.
The conversation also covers the process of using AB testing, predictive algorithms, and user engagement to craft compelling stories. Additionally, Emma details their approach to producing vertical video content, their innovative methods to keep readers engaged, and how they are staying female-driven with female directors and creators.
Finally, the episode touches on Inkitt’s ambition to expand into feature films beginning with Keily. The novel Keily, by Manjari, was produced as a vertical TV series. The feature film, with the same main actors!, will release this summer.
Check out GalateaTV and dip into your bully romance dreams with Keily.
Emma Tonner is in her Executive Producer Era at GalateaTV. As Chief Innovation Officer at Inkitt & co-founder of Galatea, she leads at Inkitt Media. Emma is championing the company’s systematic approach to creating blockbusters across emerging platforms. She joined Inkitt as one of its first ten employees, co-founded the Galatea reading app, and rose over the past eight years to become Chief Innovation Officer. Emma’s enthusiasm for romance and cutting-edge technology positions her as the perfect person to guide multiple teams under her towards innovative solutions not only in digital storytelling, but now media.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction to Romance at a Glance
00:06 Meet Emma Toner: Innovator in Entertainment
00:18 The Power of AI in Storytelling
00:40 Gala TV: From Books to Screen
02:40 Exploring the Technology Behind Storytelling
03:08 The Funnel Process: From Ink It to Gala TV
05:11 Vertical Video: A New Era in Filmmaking
23:59 Casting and Chemistry: The Key to Success
26:48 Navigating YA Romance for Older Audiences
28:05 The Power of Escapism in Storytelling
30:39 Personalizing Reading Experiences
33:10 Expanding Content and Future Goals
34:25 Innovations in Audiobook Production
36:55 From Indie Publisher to TV Content Creator
40:49 Producing Content Across Locations
42:30 Localization and Language Adaptations
48:07 Ensuring Authentic Romance in Productions
49:45 Rebranding and Future Directions
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Well, hello everyone andwelcome to another episode of Romance
at a Glance.
Today I'm going to rag onRomance with Emma Toner.
She is the Executive Producerat Galatea tv, Chief Innovation Officer
at Ink IT and a co founder ofGalatea and leads Ink IT Media guys.
Emma does it all.
She is working with Ink it.
If you don't know about InkIt, IT is a data driven, almost AI
(00:21):
driven company in the world of entertainment.
They leverage AI predictivealgorithms and discover unknown stories
and turn them into blockbuster hits.
You guys, they are producing anew million dollar ebook every four
weeks and they sell itdirectly to consumers through their
Galatea app.
It is the 11th most bestsellergender rating publisher in the world.
They are also now moving intoGalatea TV where they are turning
(00:45):
those hit books into TV seriesand then selling them directly episode
by episode on their Galatea TV app.
As well as now they areturning one of their hits, Keely,
into a feature film which willbe on their app.
So I am talking to Emma aboutall of that.
About how they use technologyand romance and pair them together.
(01:06):
How they are really reallyinterested in staying female driven
and having female directorsfor their Galate TV stories.
How they're releasing a newseries of stories every week which
is insane.
I was given the opportunity topoke around in both apps, read some
of the content, watch some ofthe TV and I can tell you right now
(01:28):
I thought Keely was great.
I can see why it's a runaway success.
If you are into bully romanceguys, do not sleep on it.
The tension and the funbetween the two characters of her
being like he's such a jerkbut also like hashtag he's so cute.
And him being like I shouldn'tlike her but also I do cause she's
the best was amazing.
And I'm very excited thatthey're keeping those two leads for
(01:49):
the upcoming feature film.
When they expand the world,add 30 minutes to it and keep going.
This is just a fascinatingtalk also about how people consume
content, about the differentways they consume content.
Whether that's audiobooks,reading actual books, whether that's
wanting to read everything allat once.
Wanting to only read a chapterat a time.
How to keep people engaged intheir apps, how to keep keep them
(02:12):
coming back and how theyactually use AB testing and use technology
to figure out what the beststory is and what story is working
best for their audiences.
I had such a fun time talkingto her and I hope that you enjoy
this episode.
So without further ado, let'sget this shit popping and talk to
Emma.
Romance at a glance.
(02:33):
Romance at a glance.
What'd you say?
Romance at a glance.
Go ahead, girl.
I want to talk about sort ofthe technology piece of storytelling,
because unlike a lot ofplaces, you are telling stories vertically,
(02:54):
which I think is different,and almost more like a television
show with, like chapters whereyou imagine there'd be like a commercial
break almost.
How did you guys come up with that?
Come up with the technology of that.
And how that evolve?
Yeah.
So Galate TV is kind of likethe third step in our funnel.
Right.
So as a company, we have Inkit, which is a platform where anyone
(03:16):
in the world can upload a workof fiction.
And then on that platform, wehave an algorithm which is analyzing,
like, reading engagement andreading behavior.
So it's not AI makingdecisions, but it's basically an
algorithm which is looking at behavior.
So, like, if you read a bookfor, you know, 20 minutes at 9:00am
and 20 minutes at 5:00pm, wewould classify that as a convenience
(03:36):
read.
Like you're probably on thetrain on the way home from work,
for example.
Example.
Whereas if you sit down at 4amand binge for four hours, that addiction
metric is a lot higher.
So we're really just lookingat user engagement to make informed
choices.
And then the next step in thatfunnel is the app Galatea, which
is a reading app where we takethe stories from Ink it, and then
we move them over to Galatea,and that's where we monetize.
(03:58):
So Ink it is completely free,reader powered, just to learn what
are kind of the best stories,and the best stories get moved to
Galatea.
That's when authors startearning money through people reading
on that platform.
And then on Galatea, we'realso using a lot of data and technology
in terms of we kind of testthe story as if they're a product.
(04:18):
So in product, there's a lotof something called A B testing,
which is essentially like ifyour husband was at a startup, I'm
not sure if it was in the tech space.
Oh, yes, Cool.
I'm very familiar with AB testing.
Perfect.
So we're essentially applyingthose product principles to story,
Right?
So, so we'll release a storyand have three different alternate
(04:39):
beginnings, or we'll end atdifferent cliffhangers, or we'll
figure out what is the bestconversion moment for a user.
So essentially trying to applythose principles to story, and then
we can really shape a story tobe the best version of itself again
through those user insights.
So if we launch threedifferent beginnings and 33% of readers
get a different version ofthat story.
We see which one becomes themost popular, which one people read
(05:01):
and love the most, engage withthe most, and that becomes the new
main version.
Right.
And so that's the next bigstep in the funnel is really kind
of perfecting the story.
And then the next step afterthat is now Galatea tv, which is
now.
We take the stories afterthey're really tight and great, and
we're confident that it's thebest version of itself on Galatea.
And we're producing it now asVertical Video.
(05:22):
This was kind of inspired by.
We always wanted to get intofilm and tv.
And when we signed contractswith our authors, you know, we do
have 360 rights.
We've always known that wewanted to make this kind of entrance
into television, but we justnever saw a very clear path there.
And when we spoke to studios,it felt like we were giving up a
lot of control and kind of,like, creative ability.
(05:43):
And in the past, we tried tobe more traditional with publishing
and working with big five publishers.
And our authors that we wererepresenting felt really kind of
like, lost in the sauce of publishing.
And so we ended up kind ofowning that funnel ourselves.
And we want to.
We were kind of really awareof that when it came to film and
tv.
And we want authors to bereally involved and really kind of
(06:04):
like, yeah, taken seriouslyand having their word really valued
in the process.
And so, yeah, Vertical Videokind of came about because we saw
it was something that's beenhappening in China for the last,
like, four or five years in areally big way.
Vertical Video has been reallyhuge there, and we saw an opportunity
for us to do the same and wecould produce these ourselves.
We're obviously not in thefilm and TV business, but we thought
(06:26):
if we can find productionpartners to help us sort out how
to do this, this is somethingwe can do for, like, the right price
to take a chance and see whathappens without having to put $5
million into producing a movie.
And then, yeah, what's reallycool now is that with Kaylee, the
movie that you watched inVertical, we're now taking the next
(06:47):
step as well, which is toproduce it in Vertical.
And everyone really loved it,and we got tons of kind of buzz and
users are obsessed.
And, you know, these two youngactors who have never been in anything
before are now, like, blowingup on, you know, Instagram and their
socials.
And Shannon, the actress Iknow, was, like, having a callback
for Nickelodeon.
And, like, we're kind of,like, creating these little stars
(07:07):
as well, which is really fun.
And so now is the next step.
We've gone and now we'reproducing the big budget horizontal
theatrical release and doing apremiere in June, red carpet event.
All of the things.
So I think like, is that going.
To be the same cast?
Same cast, yeah.
Mostly like the two, the twoactors, the principals are the same.
We've kind of recast a few roles.
But like Addison, so thecousin Shannon and the male lead,
(07:32):
all original cast as well,because people loved them.
But things like teachers andfriends and you know, like the, the
best friend who turns out tobe the bad guy kind of like recast
some roles that we just feltwe could level up a little bit.
First of all, that's excitingbecause I think a lot of times when
something gets remade or theyrecast and you're like, but no, the
special sauce was thatchemistry of those two main people.
(07:56):
Okay, before I forget, I wantto go back to the multiple beginnings
and, or changing things.
So how does that work with an author?
Do you pair them with aneditor and then you say, hey, we
want three different chapterones or we want like, hey, we're
seeing that this subplot isgetting a lot of interest.
Does that evolve?
(08:17):
So it really depends on the author.
Right?
Like we given the nature ofInk it and the fact that like people
upload these stories at verydifferent points in their lives and
some people are doing this asjust like a passion side project.
They're like a lawyer withnine kids and they're very, very
busy.
Right.
Versus we have people who arepublishing who are doing this as
a full time career.
So it's really up to theauthor of how much involvement they
(08:37):
want to have.
And in our perfect world, theyare writing these, these alt versions
for themselves.
And we have something calledGalatea University where we have
kind of a story partner fromour side that's partnered with authors
to coach them and help themwrite these beginnings.
Write different cliffhangers.
Kind of like we know that thefirst kind of five chapters are going
to have the biggest impact interms of how a user consumes a story.
(09:01):
So they have a partner to helpthem with that coaching versus some
people who are like, oh mygosh, I put this story on your site
10 years ago and I'm just havethe time to be invested.
Then we have an internal teamcalled Story Intelligence who will
write these versions forthemselves, for the author on their
behalf and still kind oftailor them that way.
So it really just depends caseto case.
(09:25):
I think the combining ofsomeone enjoying an Actual story
with technology is reallyinteresting because all of us have
read stories where we're like,I wish it ended this way.
I wish, like, this characterdidn't make that dumb decision.
Having that, like, feedback asa reader that's, like, taken in by
(09:47):
that author or that story andevolves it.
I think it's a reallyinteresting idea.
Yeah.
And that's happening even,like, a final, Like, a step up on
that ladder, too, on Ink It.
Like, I know from speaking toauthors who are writing on Ink it,
even before they moved toGalatea, they were kind of doing
this already, right?
This idea of, like, AB testingindependently before we had the infrastructure
(10:10):
to, like, do differentbranches and stuff just by, like,
they'll write something andthey'll write chapter by chapter
and then wait and see whattheir audience thinks.
Or they'll ask, right?
Like, that's what's reallycool about this process, is there's
just a direct line betweenreaders and writers.
And so they are actively like,hey, this isn't something I'm thinking
about doing in my next chapter.
What do you guys think?
One of our authors, E.J.
(10:32):
lace, she was actually in LAwith Jay and I recently and was just
telling us about kind of herprocess on Ink it and how sometimes
she's, like, really, reallywants to do something crazy, but
it's just like, I don't knowwhat's going to happen.
Right?
Like, I want to kill off mymale lead.
I really, really want to.
He's starting to piss me off.
I'm annoyed with him.
I think he's got to go.
(10:52):
But readers are holding himvery, very preciously.
Right?
So she'll go in and kind of dosomething wild and be like, this
is my plan.
What do you think?
And they'll be like, oh, no,don't do it.
So then she'll kind ofbackpedal and find an alternate way
to kind of solve bothproblems, which I think is really
fun.
What is the kind of fanfiction to Ink it pipeline?
Because I imagine a lot ofpeople who are writers through your
(11:15):
app and your website come fromthat fan fiction world.
Yeah, definitely.
So we definitely, on Ink it,has open funnel your fanfiction,
do what you want, come havefun, for sure.
And then if we see an authoror a novel is really trending really
positively as fanfiction,we'll have a conversation with that
author and say, do you want toturn this into an original work?
Right.
You have something here.
(11:35):
Your writing is really good.
Do you want to go and changeit so that it can Be a standalone,
and then we can publish it on Galatea.
But definitely, kind of thatexploration and fun is very, very
encouraged on Ink It.
And there's a huge reader basefor it as well.
And what I really love to seeis, like, we'll see certain stories
come onto Ink it that are fanfiction of Ink it stories.
And so it all stays in, like,that fandom.
(11:56):
So it starts on Ink, it movesto Galatea, it gets really popular.
Then people start reading itand be like, oh, I want to take a
stab at this.
So they write fanfiction ofthat story, and it kind of, like,
becomes this ball that'srolling, which is really fun.
If I pick up, like, ahardcover book, let's say, at a bookstore,
most likely I'm going to,well, me, I'm gonna read it in one
(12:17):
day, you guys, because, youknow, I'm insane.
But regular people might readit half a book and half a book the
next day, or a couple chaptersat a time that you're not leaving
the book necessarily on, like,little cliffhangers.
Every chapter, like, the waythat you write is much different
to hook the audience because,like, you were talking about earlier,
like, you're trying to getthem to keep going.
(12:40):
Like, you don't obviously wantthem to take a pause.
You want them to binge thatwhole thing or keep keep going through
the story.
How does that, like, thetechnology behind that help?
Or is there some sort oftechnology, like, how fast the story
swipes or how fast, whatever.
(13:01):
So essentially, like, we justare really intentional with how we
craft chapters in terms of,like, that first paywall, for example,
right?
That first countdown timerthat you reach.
So on Galatea, you have Xamount of chapters for free at the
start, somewhere usuallybetween, like, 5 and 15.
Given that, we just test andwe see where is the best moment to
get people really hooked, right?
And then once you hit that.
(13:22):
That paywall, you'reessentially asked to pay to continue.
Or you can wait six hours, andyou can wait six hours to come back,
which are both big asks, right?
Like, at this moment, wereally need users to be invested
to continue on with that story.
So that moment needs to bereally, really hokey.
It needs to have a reallystrong cliffhanger.
And then after that, we wantto make sure that every three, four
(13:42):
chapters, we do have a momentthat gets people really poked, and
it's really talkable andengageable, becomes less critical
for every single chapter.
And one kind of reallyinteresting thing that we've learned
over the years is thedifference in conversion stories
and retention stories on theplatform, which is in a world where
we only have pay by chapter,we wanted them to be really, really
(14:05):
hooky and cliffhangery andhighly converting.
Whereas we also have an annualsubscription, which is 70 bucks.
You can read as many books asyou want over the year and you never
run out.
It's a constant flow of content.
And so speaking to users whohave the annual subscription, they
maybe a slower pace or aslower burn.
(14:26):
And so we are reallyintentional about the different types
of stories we recommend tousers at different parts of their
journey.
So when you are subscribed,you want to make sure you see a variety
of different tastes anddifferent types and different subgenres.
Whereas if you're a new userand we're just looking to get you
across that starting line,then we do want the punchier version.
So it's more about just likerecommendations and making sure we're
(14:49):
surfacing the right types ofstories on a user level.
How does that play into, like,the way authors are getting paid,
like Kindle Unlimited, theyget paid per page view.
How does that all work?
Yeah, so very similar toKindle Unlimited.
We have like a royalty pooland then they're paid by chapter
read.
And then in a world wheresomeone buys a subscription, that
(15:10):
subscription value isdistributed across of across every
chapter that they read acrossall authors.
And then there also is.
Because like I mentionedbefore, right, Authors are very different
in terms of their level ofinvolvement depending on their life
situation.
So every author, no matterwhat, is going to be in this royalty
pool, is going to be earningoff of every chapter of their story
read.
And there's also a versionwhere they receive a lot bigger percentage
(15:34):
based on if they're doing thatmarketing themselves.
So if they're advertisingtheir story and users come in through
a link that they own, thenthey're getting a much bigger piece
of that pie because they'redoing that legwork on their own in
terms of marketing.
Yeah.
Almost like they're their own affiliate.
Exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
When you decided to go uprightfilming versus horizontal, do you
(15:56):
feel like people now are moreused to binging something that's
vertical?
Yeah, I think part of it islike, obviously there's just a level
of familiarity with your phoneinteracting it this way.
And when you're like,scrolling on social, it feels really
natural.
And right now a lot of, likeour placements is on your feed.
(16:18):
Right.
So when you're scrolling andyou're like watching your favorite
influencers and suddenlyyou're seeing, you know, the story
for Kayleigh for example, itfeels really natural and you don't
feel like, okay, this is goingto be something I have to invest
time, and you kind of fallinto it really naturally.
But then also on the samefront, it's just a lot more efficient
to produce in that format.
Right.
Given that you now don't needto have as many extras and you don't
(16:40):
need to dress a full set or,for example, we have a scene shot
in a bookstore.
Let's say we don't necessarilyhave to rent a bookstore.
We can just put a bookcasebehind someone because in the frame
it will look like they're inthe store.
Right.
So there's a lot of kind ofjust like production cost considerations
as well, in terms of.
Let's make sure we, as newbiesin this space and in this world of
(17:01):
film and TV are doing it in anefficient way.
But then obviously, Endgame isseeing this as another step in the
funnel, like we're doing with Kaylee.
And then once we kind of provea story is really valued and really
exciting and vertical at themore cost effective approach, we
can then go spend the milliondollars and shoot it in theatrical
release and make it really bigand powerful.
(17:21):
So it's kind of just like, youknow, I think we say we have a systematic
approach to creatingblockbusters, and that's like another
step in that approach.
So, for the feature film, isthat something you're going to release
theatrically?
But are you.
Do you have a plan where itwill eventually only live on the
app or where it willpotentially distribution rights with
(17:42):
whatever, Prime Video,Netflix, Hulu, et cetera?
Exactly.
So the plan for now is we'renot going to do a theatrical release
in terms of any theater aroundthe world.
You can watch it.
But we're doing one bigpremiere event in la.
Would be happy for you to join us.
I'll send you a Save the Date,where basically we've rented out
a beautiful theater in BeverlyHills and we're inviting media and
influencers and the cast,obviously, the author, Manjari, just
(18:05):
got her visa, so she'll bejoining us from India, which we're
excited for.
So we'll do like a panel withthe actors and the director and the
author.
It's all really about, like,women creating content for women
and just being like thisreally fun kind of step and this
really fun celebration interms of the directors and the crew
and the actor and all of.
And the author and all ofthese things.
And so the theatrical premiereis just an event, essentially.
(18:28):
And.
But then we're going to bereleasing it on the app as well.
And so still kind of figuringout if for that premiere we want
to also do a horizontalversion because obviously we'll have
it and maybe that might be ourfirst forlay within Galatea TV to
do both.
You could do the vertical andthe horizontal, but we'll definitely
have the vertical versionthere as kind of like, hey, guys,
(18:49):
you loved the first one.
Here's the elevated version.
We've added an extra 30minutes, obviously spent more money.
We have a lot more of thesescenes that like people really desire.
Like we have a homecomingdance, we have football games.
Like, I think, I don't know ifyou felt it when you were watching
Kayleigh.
I think we did an amazing jobof showing those moments, but you
can't show a stadium full ofpeople in this format, right?
(19:11):
So the football's really tighton the actors and really kind of
like you're seeing one or twoplayers versus now we have a whole
team and stuff like that.
So I think also just momentsthat our audience really loved in
terms of like the motherdaughter relationship in Kaylee.
People were really, reallyloving that relationship.
So we made sure we fleshedthat out more and showed more moments
between mother and daughter.
So we really took kind ofthose most beloved scenes or shots
(19:35):
from our users and made surewe kind of extrapolated them and
made them into somethingreally wonderful for the horizontal.
So long winded way of sayingyes, it will live on the app.
I think the interesting thingabout watching the show and then
I watched a couple, you know,popped in and out of a couple of
the other ones as well isbecause you're filming in that upright
(19:59):
version, everything is likecloser in and so you're really like
feel like you're sort ofspying on this relationship in a
fun way.
I want to talk a little bit.
Maybe not for Keely, becausethey're teenagers, but for some of
the other shows that you havewhich feature adults.
(20:19):
How did you guys balance thefact that romance novels have open
door sex with the TV showbeing slightly more faded to black?
Yeah, it's an interestingproblem because users and authors
especially are always like,can we push that further?
Can we show more?
Like, I want this to be more physical.
But obviously in the world offilm and tv, like we have intimacy
(20:41):
coordinators on set, right?
We're working with a lot ofnon union actors who we have to be
really careful of theirboundaries and respectful of those
things.
And so as you mentionedthough, like with this format and
with like the Intimacy of howclose in it is shot and being very
female gaze.
I think just like the pan ofthe male torso is really, really
(21:02):
powerful.
Or just him kissing down herchest in a way where it can be really
meaningful.
And you still feel really inthe moment and in the scene without
showing full penetration, for example.
Right.
Because that's just notsomething that we can do on the app
yet.
We'll see one day.
Hopefully, like, we can have avariety of different types of raciness
(21:23):
and different kind of likelevels and ratings, but right now
we're just an app on the app.
So we have to be a little bitconscious about those decisions.
We do have a few shows comingup though, that are a little bit
grittier in terms of like,like the sex.
And they're very like BDSM andvery more physical in that way.
And so we're trying to makesure we're really intentional with
casting and finding people whohave had more experience doing, you
(21:46):
know, sex stimulation and thatkind of stuff in their work.
Because, yeah, it becomesreally important and you just want
to make sure no one feelsuncomfy in those moments.
But also, like, the fact thatwe have the novels, I think is really
cool because we can say, youknow, hey, if you want the X rated
version, go read about it.
And so I think it's also anopportunity need to kind of cross
promote the two products.
(22:06):
Like on Galatea tv, we have ashelf of like, these are the books
that made the movies.
And then people go, andthey're like, okay, if I want the
raunchier version, let me goread about it.
I think long term, in terms oflike a product kind of idea that
I have that we haven'timplemented yet is, you know how
on like SamCloud, for example,you have like these waves of moments.
(22:27):
You can show those waves ofmoments, like, within the story and
then add like the peak waves.
You can be like, hey, here'sthe pages.
If you want to pause it, readthis, like one shot about this erotic
moment and then go back toyour movie.
You can make it really kind offluid that way.
But that's just the idea.
I love that idea.
Well, I also think there's.
(22:49):
Visually, you need less, like,I don't need to see like the full
thing because visually I getthe idea with the tension and the
whatever, versus in a bookwhere I'm like, well, I'm in your
head, so what are you thinking?
Spell it out.
(23:10):
So it's definitely a differentsuper fair.
And like, because, yeah, whenyou're reading, you're.
You're doing all of that workyourself, right?
And you're.
Right, you're imagining that,that whole moment on your own, whereas
here we're kind of doing a bitof that work for you.
And so I think it's kind oflike the assumption of what comes
next is very, very obvious.
(23:31):
I want to talk about castingbecause I think casting is very important,
dear listeners.
You know, I've harped on thismany times over the years.
Like, I don't think.
I think the Keeley show isgood as is.
I think the writing is good as is.
But I think it really worksbecause the two leads have such good
(23:52):
chemistry and they're so charming.
And you can, like, feel thatsizzle when they're bantering.
As you guys are sort ofexpanding how much you're filming,
are you sort of outsourcing that?
Is there someone whointernally is kind of in charge of
making sure that story andthose characters fit?
(24:12):
Yeah, for sure.
So we have, like, Alana, who'sour creative development exec, and
she is really kind ofresponsible for owning story at every
level.
But we also work with acasting agent full time who helps
us find appropriate people.
And we often, like withKaylee, for example, we did like
just a national casting callwhere we're like, anyone apply and
let's see what happens.
And what's really cool isShannon, the lead actress who plays
(24:34):
Kaylee.
She had never acted before.
She was a camp counselor in,like, small town America and was
like, let me go for this, right?
And she was just magic on the screen.
And we're like, this girl isgoing to become something, and let's
make sure we're part of that story.
So we're very, very intentional.
Obviously, in this space, themale lead is so, so, so important
because it's someone we needour users to lust over.
(24:55):
It's someone we know needs tokind of fit the bill.
Especially, you know, inromance, right?
Every main character is six,seven, huge, dark, the hottest man
in the world.
And that's not the easiestrole to cast for.
And you don't want todisappoint people in terms of their
expectations because when theyread it, they've dreamed up this
kind of unbelievable man, right?
(25:19):
And so it's a lot of pressureto put on, to put on actors in this
vein, but I think we do areally good job.
And at the end of the day,it's the tension and the connection
that matters so much.
And so even if we can't findsomeone who's six'seven and huge.
We can find someone who, whoconnects really, really well with
the female lead.
And so I think we're alwaysdoing chemistry reads.
(25:42):
We're doing multiple callbacks.
We're making sure they're inthe room together and we could battle
them out.
Because as long as I canbelieve there's tension and romance
between these two people, Isee him through her eyes in a way.
So it gives us a little bit ofgrace in terms of the level of hotness
when it comes to casting.
I agree with that.
I also feel like as a reader,me and Shawnee, my co hosts, talk
(26:03):
about this all the time, thatwhen we read books there will be
character descriptions andthen we're just kind of like, throw
that away and we make up ourown thing.
Because whatever I think ishot or I think means a tattooed badass,
that immediately sparks animage in my mind which is not the
same image you have oreveryone else.
(26:26):
And I agree with you.
I think it's less about howthey look and more about how they
feel.
Feel like he felt like acocky, like, bully, but who also
wants her.
You know what I mean?
So it's like you're like,well, of course she's lusting after
him.
Like, look at him stare at her.
(26:49):
Which I think is, you know,it's tricky because people, readers,
we have a lot of opinions,obviously a lot of feelings.
And I think Kelly was like aninteresting one in YA in general,
right?
Because most of our audienceis older, not old, but like they're
like not in high school, right?
So like our age, let's say.
And so really like, you know,I was a little nervous about, like,
(27:11):
how do we like, do these YAromance stories in a way where it's
going to be attractive forpeople who are in their 30s, right.
Where it doesn't feel like akids show or it doesn't feel like
I'm here for romance and steamand connection.
And I'm not going to lust overthis kid in high school, right?
Because he's my son's age.
And so figuring out kind ofjust like who the users are.
(27:33):
And definitely like, same withbooks, with fya, right?
It's more about kind of thisstep back and be like, I can imagine
myself.
We all went to high school, weall lived this.
I could really imagine myselfas Kayleigh in these moments and
understand what thatconnection was like versus on these
ones.
I'm not going to go home andfantasize about James in the same
(27:54):
way as I am about someone fromSecrets of Sin.
So I think it's really justabout understanding the different
value these shows play in ourusers lives.
For me, one thing that's justreally special about our products
and what we're doing is Ispeak to a user, every single person
at Ink it speaks to a userevery second week either from one
(28:15):
of our products.
It could be galatea.
Galatea2ink it.
And kind of the commonalitybetween all of our users is just
like our lives are so busy andso hectic and sometimes so horrible.
Right.
Like, people have really,really stressful lives.
And, you know, I have 30minutes or one hour to myself every
single day.
And this is how I choose tospend that 30 minutes on your app.
(28:36):
And it's definitely this levelof escapism.
And just like for 30 minutes, I.
All my problems wash away andI can lose myself in the world and
in different worlds, right?
So whether it's high school,whether it's a motorcycle club, or
whether it's, you know, stripclub or whatever it might be, I think
that level of kind of escapeis so, so important.
(28:57):
And I think it's a reallyimportant thing that we're doing
at the end of the day isproviding the space for women to
just like, totally losethemselves and totally.
Yeah.
Get consumed by these stories,which is really special and fun.
And I love that.
I love that we have that opportunity.
Yeah, it's so important.
I think that's the reason whyromance is such a great genre, is
(29:19):
you get to test out differentthings that you would never do in
real life.
Like motorcycle club.
In real life, for me, that's a no.
For other people, yes, maybe.
But for me, no.
But in a book, I mean, let mejust see what we're getting into.
And the same thing you weretalking about, like, going back to
the imagination of high school.
Like, I remember being in highschool, and for me, it's like I remember
(29:43):
that feeling of being in lovefor the first time and, like, not
sure if they love you back.
And when they do love youback, that, like, you know, feeling
of your whole body explodingand just like your cheeks are hot
and your grin is big.
And like, I think like yousaid, it's not necessarily like lusting
about the kid on screen.
It's about, like, feeling likeher and like this, you know, charming,
(30:10):
beautiful kid smiling at you.
And you said, I like you.
He said he likes you back.
Like, I think that that is awesome.
And as someone who does escapeinto literature and romance every
day, it is nice to have aplace that you're like, you can go
and choose your own adventure.
(30:32):
How does that work?
Like, with the algorithm youwere talking about earlier about
figuring out which books torecommend or, you know, oh, they
liked this book, they read itto completion.
That means likely they'll likeXYZ or, oh, they stopped halfway,
then maybe that means weshould point them in this direction.
How do you guys kind of keepevolving that?
(30:55):
It's exactly that.
It's similar to, like, goingon Netflix rate and being like, netflix
knows me better than I know myself.
That's the goal, right?
Is making sure that you'reserving users with stories that they're
going to love based on theirprevious reading habits.
We're also making sure you'reputting in a little variety.
Right.
Because no one wants to watchor read the same thing every single
(31:15):
day.
So it's a balance of makingsure you're introducing new tropes
and new stories and newsubgenres to them to keep them kind
of interested, but at the sametime making sure the pace or the
level of writing or these kindof things are really, really matched
to them.
And that's one thing we'reconsidering moving forward on the
book side with like, hyperpersonalization and the possibility
(31:37):
to take a story and change,like, the level of reading comprehension,
for example.
Right.
And based on, like, the personreading it, they can read the same
story that's just written intwo different ways based on simplicity
that they can really enjoy.
Right.
So that's something that wewant to explore as well, is tailoring
content in that way for a user.
So, like, a store never feels unapproachable.
(31:59):
How would that or how wouldyou determine?
Is that something the userwould select or is that, like, how
would they.
Yeah, it's basically based on,like, recommendations again.
Right?
Or it's basically if a usermostly reads stories that have a
certain level ofcomprehension, this is where they're
comfortable.
(32:20):
Right.
If they finish it to like,completion, then maybe they prefer
a simpler story or a simple,simpler, like, language.
Then we can take a story thatmaybe is a little bit more complex
and simplify it for them.
Right.
And it's not about necessarilycomprehension, but it's both, like
how fast you want to read itor what you're there for.
Right.
Or someone maybe doesn't wantto take three days to really sit
(32:41):
down and read this.
They just want.
Want to whiz through it.
So those kind of things, we can.
It can be both.
Right?
We can and we may try it justlike, hey, choose the version you
want and you can flip back andforth and be like, okay, right Now
I have 10 minutes.
Let me just read it really easily.
But when I'm laying in bed atnight, I want to sit back and kind
of lose myself in the words.
(33:02):
Or we can do it in a way wherewe're just learning and we learn
what you resonate with, basically.
So as you guys are goingforward, like, in five years or whatever,
what would be the roadmap?
Like, what's the ideal goal?
Are you producing 10 featurefilms a year?
(33:23):
Are you just growing your user base?
Like, how are you sort ofdetermining that success for yourselves?
Yeah, so definitely, it's alljust about, like, eyeballs on our
ip, right?
And so I think in whateverformat makes sense, like, we're always
trying to make sure thesestories that we have, this IP that
we have, can be seen andaccessed by as many people as humanly
(33:44):
possible.
Right?
So whether you're a reader oryou listen to audiobooks or you watch
tv, like, you can still enjoythe story.
And so I think it just.
It depends what people want, right?
Which I don't.
I don't know, what ifhorizontal video is what people will
want in five years?
Or if it's the mobile gamethat maybe we want to develop Kaylee
as most game.
Right.
Or do we want to create merchso people can wear, you know, the
(34:06):
letterman jackets from Kelly?
Like, all of these things, Ithink, are the world.
And so it just really dependson what people need or what people
want.
But I think that the main goalis, like, we have this amazing IP
that we really, really believe in.
So how do we make sureeveryone in the world, no matter
what they're into, can access that?
Yeah, I love that we didn'ttalk about audiobooks yet.
(34:26):
Yet.
Do you produce them for everystory, or is it based on a certain
threshold of readers where youfeel like that story might be beneficial
to have in both places?
Yeah, so up until recently, itwas definitely based on threshold.
So when a book kind of takesoff then, and it gets a lot of engagement
and readers are like, okay,let's now produce this as an audiobook
(34:48):
now with AI developments and stuff.
And the fact that you can,like, produce pretty high quality
AI books right now with,sorry, AI, like audio recordings,
we are trialing that a lot.
And so that makes the pipelinea lot faster, right?
Where essentially you canrelease a book and the next day have
the audiobook version out.
So we're trying to get toparody, where every book that launches,
(35:09):
launches in both versions, butwe're Obviously, super conscientious
about.
We don't want it to sound robotic.
We want to make sure we'reusing, like, human voices.
So, for example, we have,like, people at the company who just
have beautiful speaking voiceswho will have them read a few chapters
of a book so that we can usetheir voice and then kind of like,
turn that into, like, with 11labs, a tool that we use often, we
(35:31):
can then basically use theirvoice, but turn it into an audiobook.
Right.
This is something we're alsodiscussing with actors and stuff
as, like, the possibility ofputting that within the contracts.
We're still kind of navigatingit because there's a lot of sensitivity
around AI in Hollywood still,so we don't really have, like, 100%
clarity on where we'll go.
(35:51):
But, you know, there's certainactors that when people watch the
movie, they love their voiceso much.
And so it'd be cool if wecould then use their voice for audiobooks.
So we're trying to figure outhow to, like, meld all of those worlds
together.
But, yeah, right now it's alsopart of the unlimited description
on Galatea.
So a lot of people will kindof flip back and forth based on the
(36:12):
time of day or what they're doing.
Right.
So they'll listen to the audiochapters running the car, and then
when they're home, they'llswitch to the book version.
Yeah, I think that's.
My co host only listens tobooks, so we don't cover any books
on our podcast that aren'taudio as well.
And so I think that that's agreat feature for people who are,
(36:32):
like me, running around aftertheir little kids who are long commuting
or whatever the case, maybethey have options.
When inkit first started,like, presumably you always imagine
there'd be some sort ofpaywall somewhere, but, like, did
you ever think that you guyswould be producing TV content for
(36:55):
me?
Not really.
So ingot.
Like, when I joined in 2016,kind of when I came to the company,
we were like, ink, it existed.
We were finding stories, andthen we were essentially acting as,
like, an indie publisher.
And we were publishing thebooks through IngramSpark and on
Amazon and, like, paperbacks,ebooks, pretty, like, traditional
in that sense.
It just wasn't, like, workingfor us in the sense that we felt
(37:18):
really disconnected from our users.
Right.
Our readers.
We would, like, put the books up.
We get rave reviews.
People would love the stories,like bestseller badges.
They would do really well.
But we just had no access tothose readers to be like, what do
you want more of?
What do you want less of?
How do you make sure you buythe next book?
Which just felt reallydisconnected, which felt very unnatural.
(37:38):
And so we would do things, wetried to make mailing lists, we would
try to get the authors really involved.
But like it was just hard.
It's a hard ecosystem to exist within.
So Ali, who's our founder, waslike, we need to find a way to own
that reader base, right.
And basically be able to haveconstant contact and service them
in a way we just can't throughlike other distributors.
(37:59):
And so that's when we startedto think of Galatea.
So when I joined inc.
It was this idea of even apaywall or the idea of monetizing
outside of other distributorswasn't on our mind yet.
But we knew we wanted to be areally tech forward publishing house.
Like we knew we were alwaysgoing to use data to empower publishing
decisions.
So that was already happening.
But the other stuff wasn't inour minds yet.
(38:23):
But when Ali was like, we haveto figure this out, then myself and
Lauren, who is actually mycousin, she's also on the, on the
content marketing team here.
And then Ali, our founder,kind of shut herself in a small little
room in Berlin and we're like,okay, we have to, we have to figure
this out, right?
So started by doing a lot ofresearch and how people were comfortable
consuming romance fictioncontent outside of just like an ebook
(38:45):
or a paperback, right?
So I was lucky a lot into likemobile games, like when you have
your little avatar that youtake into their first day of college
or whatever.
I was looking a lot into likechat fiction, which was really popular
back in like 2016, 2017.
Looked a lot into like alsojust like script writing, like soap
opera writer writing in termsof like cliffhangers and intentionality
(39:08):
in terms of bringing peopleback the next day.
So it was really just kind ofunderstand more about romance space
outside of just books.
And through that we came upwith the idea of Galatea in terms
of like it's kind of thishybrid model of having pulling different
elements.
So there is text messages withelements of chat fiction, right?
There is really theseintentional moments similar to a
(39:28):
soap opera.
There is characteristics fromlike making choices and whatnot.
And so I think we kind of justdeveloped this first.
And we always knew we wantedto do movies like that.
We always knew that wassomething we wanted to do just even
when we were on like ourAmazon days, right?
Because that's every author's dream.
(39:49):
When you speak to an authorthey're like, the two things I want
in my life is to hold my bookin my hand and to have a movie made.
Those are the two things.
Right.
So we always wanted to be ableto do that for authors and so.
But it was just like the paththere wasn't really clear.
And so when we started seeingVertical as an option for us, we
were like, we see a path there.
So we jumped on it really,really quickly.
(40:09):
And you know, within I thinkthree months of having the idea,
we had like an MVP of theproduct up.
We had two shows produced.
And then within about eightmonths of the initial idea, we were
in a rhythm of launching a newshow every single Friday.
And since we got into thatrhythm in July, things have really
been kind of trending in avery positive way.
So I think we always knew wewanted to, but we didn't know how.
(40:34):
Yeah, also that's an insaneamount of content.
As someone who participatesproduce web series and content in
la, guys, I can tell you rightnow that's wild.
That's a wild amount of videosand shows.
Are you, I mean, you justtalked about Berlin and I think when
(40:55):
I was looking online, you guyshave offices in Berlin and San Francisco.
When you're producing content,are you trying to produce like near
the offices so that you guyshave more control?
Are you producing in differentparts of the country depending on
the story?
Right now when we first gotstarted, so I'm based in San Francisco,
(41:15):
I was in Berlin for like sixyears, but I've been in San Francisco
for the last three years now.
And so when I like since we'vebeen kind of first started producing
them, we were producing themlargely in LA because it's easy to
get to.
We've started hiring out likea production team.
Yeah, started hiring out aproduction team in LA and just like
really easy to move quickly in la.
Right.
In terms of this is a newformat, we're trying something different
(41:37):
with Vertical.
People are like excited tolearn something new and also like
we can do it.
Yeah.
Quickly and efficiently andall of these things.
So LA was like the no brainerplace to start.
Now that we're scaling, we'restarting to move to other places,
also a very expensive place to start.
So we're also producing likewe have production partners now in
Oklahoma and in New Mexico andin Mexico, like in Tulum and we're
(42:02):
trying to distribute it alittle bit just in terms of producing
at lower costs.
And we also are trying to beintentional about like places we
shoot in terms of where if wehave a cowboy romance.
We can do that in New Mexico,for example.
Right.
So we're trying to, like, geta little bit ahead of Slate and understanding
where is the best place tomatch it.
But we're trying to justbasically get out of LA for certain
shows, but also keepingcertain shows that we want more oversight
(42:26):
into in la just because, like,it's close and homegrown right now.
We're very like.
We haven't produced otherlanguage original shows.
They've all been English.
And then we subtitle them ordub them into other languages.
But we've seen in Germany thatdubbing works a lot better than subtitle
Leaf.
And so we're actually in theprocess of producing our first, like,
German original show ofSecrets of Sin, which is a very popular
(42:49):
show we have in English.
We're now producing that in.
In German.
And so we'll be shooting thatclose to Berlin and full.
Like, right now the script isbeing rewritten to be a lot more
localized and, you know, in German.
And then we're gonna.
In a different cast, though,because they're gonna speak.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fully different cast becausethey're gonna be all.
Yeah, German speakers.
(43:10):
I mean, I'm all for it.
Maxton hall was like myfavorite show last year on Prime
Video, so.
So, no, I think.
Yeah, I'm really excited about it.
I think it's going to bereally, really fun.
Can we talk about subtitleson, like, baked in, I guess.
Is that something you thoughtabout, like, having them on.
Forcing them on options toturn off?
(43:30):
Like, it's basically just likecopying TikTok essentially, right?
Or Instagram or whatnot, whereit is very like you're used to as
a user when you're scrolling,having that.
That information.
Right.
And so a lot of people arewatching with sound off when they
first address the story.
Right.
A lot of people are kind oflike in between and half paying attention.
(43:51):
So it's making sure we kind ofgave users the same grace when they're
watching our content as whenthey're scrolling social media, because
it does feel really similar.
But I definitely thinkeventually we'll have an option for
a user to toggle on off.
It just hasn't been like, themost immediate priority in my mind
right now because it is very.
It feels very natural whenyou're watching vertical to have
to have those subtitles baked in.
(44:12):
I think so, too.
Also, weirdly, in a horizontalvideo, I feel like subtitles take
up more of the story versus,like, vertically.
It's like, down by their feetor whatever.
So it's like, not as annoying,I guess.
There's also not likespoilers, like in horizontal, like
you read ahead and you getspoiled, but with vertical, they
just don't have that much space.
So it's really just as they'retalking, you're seeing the words.
(44:33):
So I feel like sometimes I getfrustrated with horizontal subtitles
because I'm like, oh, no, Ididn't want to know that yet.
With vertical, it feels veryin the moment.
I know you already talkedabout Keely, but in my mind it's
like, how much of a runawayhit is it?
Because you're obviouslyinvesting quite a bit of money behind
that project.
(44:54):
And was that something whereyou're like, dang, this is like 4x
more page.
Views for us, like, looking atkind of just like generally, like,
so Kaylee, I mean, we haveKayleigh is like one of many stories
that fall into this category, right?
Sure.
But this one got a lot of kindof organic buzz as well and a lot
of like, users making likelusty fan videos about the main characters
(45:16):
and stuff like that.
So in terms of like, just kindof organic buzz, we saw it in a really
powerful way.
But Kaylee has had like morethan a million unique readers on
Galatea and like more than 22million million chapters read on
Galatea.
There's also like paperbackversions and whatnot on Amazon, where
we don't have that granularity.
But it very much is beloved on Galatea.
(45:38):
And then on Galatea TV, we'vehad like more than 12 million episodes
watched.
And, you know, it's only beenout since September, more than like
200,000 hours watched of the show.
Like, it definitely does havehigh engagement and high finishing
rates.
Like people that start it,finish it, which is obviously a great
indicator that people areenjoying it because given the fact
that, you know, you don't sitdown and watch the entire movie or
(46:01):
you.
I mean, hopefully you do, butyou do have to spend or wait to do
that.
Finishing it is a feat and itmeans it's a really good quality
of addiction or like engagement.
So I think definitely itlooked really promising.
And yeah, we just loved thecast, we loved the director, we loved
everyone that worked on the films.
We're like, do this one.
(46:22):
It felt really good andnatural and also just really easy
in terms of approachabilityfor a wider audience.
And so when we do the Kayleepremiere, we want to make sure that
media is covering it and whatnot.
And also I think this kind ofalignment between YA and Vertical
feels really natural to me.
And so it feels like in termsof telling our story and being like,
hey, we're here.
(46:43):
Look at us.
This is a cool new thingthat's happening in the romance book
movie space.
It felt kind of copacetic.
Yeah.
And also, like, as someone whojudgy about many things, romance
being on TV and when passionwas announced years ago, years ago,
(47:06):
I was hop.
I was hopeful, cautious, cautiously.
Then I watched one understandwhy we like romance.
Right?
Like, you don't.
You're not.
You're not budget to make it,make it look cinematic.
But also like, I want.
I want that chemistry.
(47:27):
Like, I want that romanceversus, like rest of it for you guys.
Really hit the head withfeeling like it's a wrong romance.
Like, I want.
If it's a bully romance, Iwould like someone to be bullied
and I would like that personto like the bully against their best
(47:48):
interests.
And I would like the bully tofeel some sort of way and sad or
something changes them.
But they still want the girlthat they're bullying.
Even though they don't want towant her, they still want her.
And then I want everything tobe happy at the end.
I feel like you guys delivered that.
Yeah.
I think that's what puts us ina really unique position is because
(48:10):
we have been sitting in theromance book world for so long that
now the same people who havebeen all consumed in this world are
now making our movies.
Right.
So Alana, our creativedevelopment exec, has worked here
for six, seven years.
And then we have Elizabeth,who's our head of production.
She also has a romance appthat she built, like between projects.
(48:32):
And so I think definitely whenwe're very intentional and hiring
people that understand thespace and we try to make sure all
our producers and directorsare also female because, like, female
gaze is really, reallyessential, but also just understanding.
Yeah, what women want, whatwomen need.
And like, yeah, the tropes andstuff are really important.
So we make sure we have.
(48:53):
We are handing every directorlike a guide, a pretty clear guide
in terms of this is how to dothis trope.
Well, this is the keynotes youhave to hit.
These are the shots you needto make sure you have, you know,
like if the male and femalelead are in a bar, make sure you
get their eyes.
We want their eyes looking ateach other across the room.
Right.
We need like, just like getclose ups on their eyes.
(49:14):
Overdo it as much as you can.
Because we want to make surewe can have that glance shot in every
single way.
Right.
So just, I think, given thatwe all deeply understand, like, the
book side makes it a loteasier to produce these movies in
a way that do them justice.
Well, this has been such aninteresting chat and so fun.
I'm so glad that you couldcome on podcast.
(49:35):
Thank you so much for having me.
We'll let everyone know againwhere they should start, what they
should download, how theyshould access it.
Yeah.
So right now, so Galatea isthe name of our app, our reading
app.
Galate TV is the name of ourTV vertical series where we're producing
the men's tv.
We're also about to undergo arebranding to candy jar.
(49:58):
GalacticTV will be coming.
Candy Jar.
In terms of just kind of likeguilty pleasure, you know, losing
yourself in a moment, we'rereally trying to pull on those heartstrings
a bit.
So in the next, like, three,four weeks, we'll be seeing a rebranding,
but you'll be able to stillfind us by searching Galatea TV.
Yeah, just search Galatea,GalateaTV on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook,
where everywhere you'll find us.
(50:18):
And yeah, please come join us.
It's a really exciting time.
Well, dear listeners, untilnext time, may your books be your
lover and your hand your best friend.
Bye for now, kids.
Thanks for hanging in withthose romance readers.
Head over to Instagram tocontinue chatting with us.
We're super friendly.
We want to cackle with you.
We want to know what yourfavorite sex scene was, and we need
(50:39):
more book recommendations.
If you want to read along withus, go.
Go to our website,romanceataglance.com to see what
we're reading next.
And we'll see you next podcast.
Well, hello everyone andwelcome to another episode of Romance
at a Glance.
Today I'm going to rag onRomance with Emma Toner.
She is the Executive Producerat Galatea tv, Chief Innovation Officer
at Ink IT and a co founder ofGalatea and leads Ink IT Media guys.
Emma does it all.
She is working with Ink it.
If you don't know about InkIt, IT is a data driven, almost AI
(00:21):
driven company in the world of entertainment.
They leverage AI predictivealgorithms and discover unknown stories
and turn them into blockbuster hits.
You guys, they are producing anew million dollar ebook every four
weeks and they sell itdirectly to consumers through their
Galatea app.
It is the 11th most bestsellergender rating publisher in the world.
They are also now moving intoGalatea TV where they are turning
(00:45):
those hit books into TV seriesand then selling them directly episode
by episode on their Galatea TV app.
As well as now they areturning one of their hits, Keely,
into a feature film which willbe on their app.
So I am talking to Emma aboutall of that.
About how they use technologyand romance and pair them together.
(01:06):
How they are really reallyinterested in staying female driven
and having female directorsfor their Galate TV stories.
How they're releasing a newseries of stories every week which
is insane.
I was given the opportunity topoke around in both apps, read some
of the content, watch some ofthe TV and I can tell you right now
(01:28):
I thought Keely was great.
I can see why it's a runaway success.
If you are into bully romanceguys, do not sleep on it.
The tension and the funbetween the two characters of her
being like he's such a jerkbut also like hashtag he's so cute.
And him being like I shouldn'tlike her but also I do cause she's
the best was amazing.
And I'm very excited thatthey're keeping those two leads for
(01:49):
the upcoming feature film.
When they expand the world,add 30 minutes to it and keep going.
This is just a fascinatingtalk also about how people consume
content, about the differentways they consume content.
Whether that's audiobooks,reading actual books, whether that's
wanting to read everything allat once.
Wanting to only read a chapterat a time.
How to keep people engaged intheir apps, how to keep keep them
(02:12):
coming back and how theyactually use AB testing and use technology
to figure out what the beststory is and what story is working
best for their audiences.
I had such a fun time talkingto her and I hope that you enjoy
this episode.
So without further ado, let'sget this shit popping and talk to
Emma.
Romance at a glance.
(02:33):
Romance at a glance.
What'd you say?
Romance at a glance.
Go ahead, girl.
I want to talk about sort ofthe technology piece of storytelling,
because unlike a lot ofplaces, you are telling stories vertically,
(02:54):
which I think is different,and almost more like a television
show with, like chapters whereyou imagine there'd be like a commercial
break almost.
How did you guys come up with that?
Come up with the technology of that.
And how that evolve?
Yeah.
So Galate TV is kind of likethe third step in our funnel.
Right.
So as a company, we have Inkit, which is a platform where anyone
(03:16):
in the world can upload a workof fiction.
And then on that platform, wehave an algorithm which is analyzing,
like, reading engagement andreading behavior.
So it's not AI makingdecisions, but it's basically an
algorithm which is looking at behavior.
So, like, if you read a bookfor, you know, 20 minutes at 9:00am
and 20 minutes at 5:00pm, wewould classify that as a convenience
(03:36):
read.
Like you're probably on thetrain on the way home from work,
for example.
Example.
Whereas if you sit down at 4amand binge for four hours, that addiction
metric is a lot higher.
So we're really just lookingat user engagement to make informed
choices.
And then the next step in thatfunnel is the app Galatea, which
is a reading app where we takethe stories from Ink it, and then
we move them over to Galatea,and that's where we monetize.
(03:58):
So Ink it is completely free,reader powered, just to learn what
are kind of the best stories,and the best stories get moved to
Galatea.
That's when authors startearning money through people reading
on that platform.
And then on Galatea, we'realso using a lot of data and technology
in terms of we kind of testthe story as if they're a product.
(04:18):
So in product, there's a lotof something called A B testing,
which is essentially like ifyour husband was at a startup, I'm
not sure if it was in the tech space.
Oh, yes, Cool.
I'm very familiar with AB testing.
Perfect.
So we're essentially applyingthose product principles to story,
Right?
So, so we'll release a storyand have three different alternate
(04:39):
beginnings, or we'll end atdifferent cliffhangers, or we'll
figure out what is the bestconversion moment for a user.
So essentially trying to applythose principles to story, and then
we can really shape a story tobe the best version of itself again
through those user insights.
So if we launch threedifferent beginnings and 33% of readers
get a different version ofthat story.
We see which one becomes themost popular, which one people read
(05:01):
and love the most, engage withthe most, and that becomes the new
main version.
Right.
And so that's the next bigstep in the funnel is really kind
of perfecting the story.
And then the next step afterthat is now Galatea tv, which is
now.
We take the stories afterthey're really tight and great, and
we're confident that it's thebest version of itself on Galatea.
And we're producing it now asVertical Video.
(05:22):
This was kind of inspired by.
We always wanted to get intofilm and tv.
And when we signed contractswith our authors, you know, we do
have 360 rights.
We've always known that wewanted to make this kind of entrance
into television, but we justnever saw a very clear path there.
And when we spoke to studios,it felt like we were giving up a
lot of control and kind of,like, creative ability.
(05:43):
And in the past, we tried tobe more traditional with publishing
and working with big five publishers.
And our authors that we wererepresenting felt really kind of
like, lost in the sauce of publishing.
And so we ended up kind ofowning that funnel ourselves.
And we want to.
We were kind of really awareof that when it came to film and
tv.
And we want authors to bereally involved and really kind of
(06:04):
like, yeah, taken seriouslyand having their word really valued
in the process.
And so, yeah, Vertical Videokind of came about because we saw
it was something that's beenhappening in China for the last,
like, four or five years in areally big way.
Vertical Video has been reallyhuge there, and we saw an opportunity
for us to do the same and wecould produce these ourselves.
We're obviously not in thefilm and TV business, but we thought
(06:26):
if we can find productionpartners to help us sort out how
to do this, this is somethingwe can do for, like, the right price
to take a chance and see whathappens without having to put $5
million into producing a movie.
And then, yeah, what's reallycool now is that with Kaylee, the
movie that you watched inVertical, we're now taking the next
(06:47):
step as well, which is toproduce it in Vertical.
And everyone really loved it,and we got tons of kind of buzz and
users are obsessed.
And, you know, these two youngactors who have never been in anything
before are now, like, blowingup on, you know, Instagram and their
socials.
And Shannon, the actress Iknow, was, like, having a callback
for Nickelodeon.
And, like, we're kind of,like, creating these little stars
(07:07):
as well, which is really fun.
And so now is the next step.
We've gone and now we'reproducing the big budget horizontal
theatrical release and doing apremiere in June, red carpet event.
All of the things.
So I think like, is that going.
To be the same cast?
Same cast, yeah.
Mostly like the two, the twoactors, the principals are the same.
We've kind of recast a few roles.
But like Addison, so thecousin Shannon and the male lead,
(07:32):
all original cast as well,because people loved them.
But things like teachers andfriends and you know, like the, the
best friend who turns out tobe the bad guy kind of like recast
some roles that we just feltwe could level up a little bit.
First of all, that's excitingbecause I think a lot of times when
something gets remade or theyrecast and you're like, but no, the
special sauce was thatchemistry of those two main people.
(07:56):
Okay, before I forget, I wantto go back to the multiple beginnings
and, or changing things.
So how does that work with an author?
Do you pair them with aneditor and then you say, hey, we
want three different chapterones or we want like, hey, we're
seeing that this subplot isgetting a lot of interest.
Does that evolve?
(08:17):
So it really depends on the author.
Right?
Like we given the nature ofInk it and the fact that like people
upload these stories at verydifferent points in their lives and
some people are doing this asjust like a passion side project.
They're like a lawyer withnine kids and they're very, very
busy.
Right.
Versus we have people who arepublishing who are doing this as
a full time career.
So it's really up to theauthor of how much involvement they
(08:37):
want to have.
And in our perfect world, theyare writing these, these alt versions
for themselves.
And we have something calledGalatea University where we have
kind of a story partner fromour side that's partnered with authors
to coach them and help themwrite these beginnings.
Write different cliffhangers.
Kind of like we know that thefirst kind of five chapters are going
to have the biggest impact interms of how a user consumes a story.
(09:01):
So they have a partner to helpthem with that coaching versus some
people who are like, oh mygosh, I put this story on your site
10 years ago and I'm just havethe time to be invested.
Then we have an internal teamcalled Story Intelligence who will
write these versions forthemselves, for the author on their
behalf and still kind oftailor them that way.
So it really just depends caseto case.
(09:25):
I think the combining ofsomeone enjoying an Actual story
with technology is reallyinteresting because all of us have
read stories where we're like,I wish it ended this way.
I wish, like, this characterdidn't make that dumb decision.
Having that, like, feedback asa reader that's, like, taken in by
(09:47):
that author or that story andevolves it.
I think it's a reallyinteresting idea.
Yeah.
And that's happening even,like, a final, Like, a step up on
that ladder, too, on Ink It.
Like, I know from speaking toauthors who are writing on Ink it,
even before they moved toGalatea, they were kind of doing
this already, right?
This idea of, like, AB testingindependently before we had the infrastructure
(10:10):
to, like, do differentbranches and stuff just by, like,
they'll write something andthey'll write chapter by chapter
and then wait and see whattheir audience thinks.
Or they'll ask, right?
Like, that's what's reallycool about this process, is there's
just a direct line betweenreaders and writers.
And so they are actively like,hey, this isn't something I'm thinking
about doing in my next chapter.
What do you guys think?
One of our authors, E.J.
(10:32):
lace, she was actually in LAwith Jay and I recently and was just
telling us about kind of herprocess on Ink it and how sometimes
she's, like, really, reallywants to do something crazy, but
it's just like, I don't knowwhat's going to happen.
Right?
Like, I want to kill off mymale lead.
I really, really want to.
He's starting to piss me off.
I'm annoyed with him.
I think he's got to go.
(10:52):
But readers are holding himvery, very preciously.
Right?
So she'll go in and kind of dosomething wild and be like, this
is my plan.
What do you think?
And they'll be like, oh, no,don't do it.
So then she'll kind ofbackpedal and find an alternate way
to kind of solve bothproblems, which I think is really
fun.
What is the kind of fanfiction to Ink it pipeline?
Because I imagine a lot ofpeople who are writers through your
(11:15):
app and your website come fromthat fan fiction world.
Yeah, definitely.
So we definitely, on Ink it,has open funnel your fanfiction,
do what you want, come havefun, for sure.
And then if we see an authoror a novel is really trending really
positively as fanfiction,we'll have a conversation with that
author and say, do you want toturn this into an original work?
Right.
You have something here.
(11:35):
Your writing is really good.
Do you want to go and changeit so that it can Be a standalone,
and then we can publish it on Galatea.
But definitely, kind of thatexploration and fun is very, very
encouraged on Ink It.
And there's a huge reader basefor it as well.
And what I really love to seeis, like, we'll see certain stories
come onto Ink it that are fanfiction of Ink it stories.
And so it all stays in, like,that fandom.
(11:56):
So it starts on Ink, it movesto Galatea, it gets really popular.
Then people start reading itand be like, oh, I want to take a
stab at this.
So they write fanfiction ofthat story, and it kind of, like,
becomes this ball that'srolling, which is really fun.
If I pick up, like, ahardcover book, let's say, at a bookstore,
most likely I'm going to,well, me, I'm gonna read it in one
(12:17):
day, you guys, because, youknow, I'm insane.
But regular people might readit half a book and half a book the
next day, or a couple chaptersat a time that you're not leaving
the book necessarily on, like,little cliffhangers.
Every chapter, like, the waythat you write is much different
to hook the audience because,like, you were talking about earlier,
like, you're trying to getthem to keep going.
(12:40):
Like, you don't obviously wantthem to take a pause.
You want them to binge thatwhole thing or keep keep going through
the story.
How does that, like, thetechnology behind that help?
Or is there some sort oftechnology, like, how fast the story
swipes or how fast, whatever.
(13:01):
So essentially, like, we justare really intentional with how we
craft chapters in terms of,like, that first paywall, for example,
right?
That first countdown timerthat you reach.
So on Galatea, you have Xamount of chapters for free at the
start, somewhere usuallybetween, like, 5 and 15.
Given that, we just test andwe see where is the best moment to
get people really hooked, right?
And then once you hit that.
(13:22):
That paywall, you'reessentially asked to pay to continue.
Or you can wait six hours, andyou can wait six hours to come back,
which are both big asks, right?
Like, at this moment, wereally need users to be invested
to continue on with that story.
So that moment needs to bereally, really hokey.
It needs to have a reallystrong cliffhanger.
And then after that, we wantto make sure that every three, four
(13:42):
chapters, we do have a momentthat gets people really poked, and
it's really talkable andengageable, becomes less critical
for every single chapter.
And one kind of reallyinteresting thing that we've learned
over the years is thedifference in conversion stories
and retention stories on theplatform, which is in a world where
we only have pay by chapter,we wanted them to be really, really
(14:05):
hooky and cliffhangery andhighly converting.
Whereas we also have an annualsubscription, which is 70 bucks.
You can read as many books asyou want over the year and you never
run out.
It's a constant flow of content.
And so speaking to users whohave the annual subscription, they
maybe a slower pace or aslower burn.
(14:26):
And so we are reallyintentional about the different types
of stories we recommend tousers at different parts of their
journey.
So when you are subscribed,you want to make sure you see a variety
of different tastes anddifferent types and different subgenres.
Whereas if you're a new userand we're just looking to get you
across that starting line,then we do want the punchier version.
So it's more about just likerecommendations and making sure we're
(14:49):
surfacing the right types ofstories on a user level.
How does that play into, like,the way authors are getting paid,
like Kindle Unlimited, theyget paid per page view.
How does that all work?
Yeah, so very similar toKindle Unlimited.
We have like a royalty pooland then they're paid by chapter
read.
And then in a world wheresomeone buys a subscription, that
(15:10):
subscription value isdistributed across of across every
chapter that they read acrossall authors.
And then there also is.
Because like I mentionedbefore, right, Authors are very different
in terms of their level ofinvolvement depending on their life
situation.
So every author, no matterwhat, is going to be in this royalty
pool, is going to be earningoff of every chapter of their story
read.
And there's also a versionwhere they receive a lot bigger percentage
(15:34):
based on if they're doing thatmarketing themselves.
So if they're advertisingtheir story and users come in through
a link that they own, thenthey're getting a much bigger piece
of that pie because they'redoing that legwork on their own in
terms of marketing.
Yeah.
Almost like they're their own affiliate.
Exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
When you decided to go uprightfilming versus horizontal, do you
(15:56):
feel like people now are moreused to binging something that's
vertical?
Yeah, I think part of it islike, obviously there's just a level
of familiarity with your phoneinteracting it this way.
And when you're like,scrolling on social, it feels really
natural.
And right now a lot of, likeour placements is on your feed.
(16:18):
Right.
So when you're scrolling andyou're like watching your favorite
influencers and suddenlyyou're seeing, you know, the story
for Kayleigh for example, itfeels really natural and you don't
feel like, okay, this is goingto be something I have to invest
time, and you kind of fallinto it really naturally.
But then also on the samefront, it's just a lot more efficient
to produce in that format.
Right.
Given that you now don't needto have as many extras and you don't
(16:40):
need to dress a full set or,for example, we have a scene shot
in a bookstore.
Let's say we don't necessarilyhave to rent a bookstore.
We can just put a bookcasebehind someone because in the frame
it will look like they're inthe store.
Right.
So there's a lot of kind ofjust like production cost considerations
as well, in terms of.
Let's make sure we, as newbiesin this space and in this world of
(17:01):
film and TV are doing it in anefficient way.
But then obviously, Endgame isseeing this as another step in the
funnel, like we're doing with Kaylee.
And then once we kind of provea story is really valued and really
exciting and vertical at themore cost effective approach, we
can then go spend the milliondollars and shoot it in theatrical
release and make it really bigand powerful.
(17:21):
So it's kind of just like, youknow, I think we say we have a systematic
approach to creatingblockbusters, and that's like another
step in that approach.
So, for the feature film, isthat something you're going to release
theatrically?
But are you.
Do you have a plan where itwill eventually only live on the
app or where it willpotentially distribution rights with
(17:42):
whatever, Prime Video,Netflix, Hulu, et cetera?
Exactly.
So the plan for now is we'renot going to do a theatrical release
in terms of any theater aroundthe world.
You can watch it.
But we're doing one bigpremiere event in la.
Would be happy for you to join us.
I'll send you a Save the Date,where basically we've rented out
a beautiful theater in BeverlyHills and we're inviting media and
influencers and the cast,obviously, the author, Manjari, just
(18:05):
got her visa, so she'll bejoining us from India, which we're
excited for.
So we'll do like a panel withthe actors and the director and the
author.
It's all really about, like,women creating content for women
and just being like thisreally fun kind of step and this
really fun celebration interms of the directors and the crew
and the actor and all of.
And the author and all ofthese things.
And so the theatrical premiereis just an event, essentially.
(18:28):
And.
But then we're going to bereleasing it on the app as well.
And so still kind of figuringout if for that premiere we want
to also do a horizontalversion because obviously we'll have
it and maybe that might be ourfirst forlay within Galatea TV to
do both.
You could do the vertical andthe horizontal, but we'll definitely
have the vertical versionthere as kind of like, hey, guys,
(18:49):
you loved the first one.
Here's the elevated version.
We've added an extra 30minutes, obviously spent more money.
We have a lot more of thesescenes that like people really desire.
Like we have a homecomingdance, we have football games.
Like, I think, I don't know ifyou felt it when you were watching
Kayleigh.
I think we did an amazing jobof showing those moments, but you
can't show a stadium full ofpeople in this format, right?
(19:11):
So the football's really tighton the actors and really kind of
like you're seeing one or twoplayers versus now we have a whole
team and stuff like that.
So I think also just momentsthat our audience really loved in
terms of like the motherdaughter relationship in Kaylee.
People were really, reallyloving that relationship.
So we made sure we fleshedthat out more and showed more moments
between mother and daughter.
So we really took kind ofthose most beloved scenes or shots
(19:35):
from our users and made surewe kind of extrapolated them and
made them into somethingreally wonderful for the horizontal.
So long winded way of sayingyes, it will live on the app.
I think the interesting thingabout watching the show and then
I watched a couple, you know,popped in and out of a couple of
the other ones as well isbecause you're filming in that upright
(19:59):
version, everything is likecloser in and so you're really like
feel like you're sort ofspying on this relationship in a
fun way.
I want to talk a little bit.
Maybe not for Keely, becausethey're teenagers, but for some of
the other shows that you havewhich feature adults.
(20:19):
How did you guys balance thefact that romance novels have open
door sex with the TV showbeing slightly more faded to black?
Yeah, it's an interestingproblem because users and authors
especially are always like,can we push that further?
Can we show more?
Like, I want this to be more physical.
But obviously in the world offilm and tv, like we have intimacy
(20:41):
coordinators on set, right?
We're working with a lot ofnon union actors who we have to be
really careful of theirboundaries and respectful of those
things.
And so as you mentionedthough, like with this format and
with like the Intimacy of howclose in it is shot and being very
female gaze.
I think just like the pan ofthe male torso is really, really
(21:02):
powerful.
Or just him kissing down herchest in a way where it can be really
meaningful.
And you still feel really inthe moment and in the scene without
showing full penetration, for example.
Right.
Because that's just notsomething that we can do on the app
yet.
We'll see one day.
Hopefully, like, we can have avariety of different types of raciness
(21:23):
and different kind of likelevels and ratings, but right now
we're just an app on the app.
So we have to be a little bitconscious about those decisions.
We do have a few shows comingup though, that are a little bit
grittier in terms of like,like the sex.
And they're very like BDSM andvery more physical in that way.
And so we're trying to makesure we're really intentional with
casting and finding people whohave had more experience doing, you
(21:46):
know, sex stimulation and thatkind of stuff in their work.
Because, yeah, it becomesreally important and you just want
to make sure no one feelsuncomfy in those moments.
But also, like, the fact thatwe have the novels, I think is really
cool because we can say, youknow, hey, if you want the X rated
version, go read about it.
And so I think it's also anopportunity need to kind of cross
promote the two products.
(22:06):
Like on Galatea tv, we have ashelf of like, these are the books
that made the movies.
And then people go, andthey're like, okay, if I want the
raunchier version, let me goread about it.
I think long term, in terms oflike a product kind of idea that
I have that we haven'timplemented yet is, you know how
on like SamCloud, for example,you have like these waves of moments.
(22:27):
You can show those waves ofmoments, like, within the story and
then add like the peak waves.
You can be like, hey, here'sthe pages.
If you want to pause it, readthis, like one shot about this erotic
moment and then go back toyour movie.
You can make it really kind offluid that way.
But that's just the idea.
I love that idea.
Well, I also think there's.
(22:49):
Visually, you need less, like,I don't need to see like the full
thing because visually I getthe idea with the tension and the
whatever, versus in a bookwhere I'm like, well, I'm in your
head, so what are you thinking?
Spell it out.
(23:10):
So it's definitely a differentsuper fair.
And like, because, yeah, whenyou're reading, you're.
You're doing all of that workyourself, right?
And you're.
Right, you're imagining that,that whole moment on your own, whereas
here we're kind of doing a bitof that work for you.
And so I think it's kind oflike the assumption of what comes
next is very, very obvious.
(23:31):
I want to talk about castingbecause I think casting is very important,
dear listeners.
You know, I've harped on thismany times over the years.
Like, I don't think.
I think the Keeley show isgood as is.
I think the writing is good as is.
But I think it really worksbecause the two leads have such good
(23:52):
chemistry and they're so charming.
And you can, like, feel thatsizzle when they're bantering.
As you guys are sort ofexpanding how much you're filming,
are you sort of outsourcing that?
Is there someone whointernally is kind of in charge of
making sure that story andthose characters fit?
(24:12):
Yeah, for sure.
So we have, like, Alana, who'sour creative development exec, and
she is really kind ofresponsible for owning story at every
level.
But we also work with acasting agent full time who helps
us find appropriate people.
And we often, like withKaylee, for example, we did like
just a national casting callwhere we're like, anyone apply and
let's see what happens.
And what's really cool isShannon, the lead actress who plays
(24:34):
Kaylee.
She had never acted before.
She was a camp counselor in,like, small town America and was
like, let me go for this, right?
And she was just magic on the screen.
And we're like, this girl isgoing to become something, and let's
make sure we're part of that story.
So we're very, very intentional.
Obviously, in this space, themale lead is so, so, so important
because it's someone we needour users to lust over.
(24:55):
It's someone we know needs tokind of fit the bill.
Especially, you know, inromance, right?
Every main character is six,seven, huge, dark, the hottest man
in the world.
And that's not the easiestrole to cast for.
And you don't want todisappoint people in terms of their
expectations because when theyread it, they've dreamed up this
kind of unbelievable man, right?
(25:19):
And so it's a lot of pressureto put on, to put on actors in this
vein, but I think we do areally good job.
And at the end of the day,it's the tension and the connection
that matters so much.
And so even if we can't findsomeone who's six'seven and huge.
We can find someone who, whoconnects really, really well with
the female lead.
And so I think we're alwaysdoing chemistry reads.
(25:42):
We're doing multiple callbacks.
We're making sure they're inthe room together and we could battle
them out.
Because as long as I canbelieve there's tension and romance
between these two people, Isee him through her eyes in a way.
So it gives us a little bit ofgrace in terms of the level of hotness
when it comes to casting.
I agree with that.
I also feel like as a reader,me and Shawnee, my co hosts, talk
(26:03):
about this all the time, thatwhen we read books there will be
character descriptions andthen we're just kind of like, throw
that away and we make up ourown thing.
Because whatever I think ishot or I think means a tattooed badass,
that immediately sparks animage in my mind which is not the
same image you have oreveryone else.
(26:26):
And I agree with you.
I think it's less about howthey look and more about how they
feel.
Feel like he felt like acocky, like, bully, but who also
wants her.
You know what I mean?
So it's like you're like,well, of course she's lusting after
him.
Like, look at him stare at her.
(26:49):
Which I think is, you know,it's tricky because people, readers,
we have a lot of opinions,obviously a lot of feelings.
And I think Kelly was like aninteresting one in YA in general,
right?
Because most of our audienceis older, not old, but like they're
like not in high school, right?
So like our age, let's say.
And so really like, you know,I was a little nervous about, like,
(27:11):
how do we like, do these YAromance stories in a way where it's
going to be attractive forpeople who are in their 30s, right.
Where it doesn't feel like akids show or it doesn't feel like
I'm here for romance and steamand connection.
And I'm not going to lust overthis kid in high school, right?
Because he's my son's age.
And so figuring out kind ofjust like who the users are.
(27:33):
And definitely like, same withbooks, with fya, right?
It's more about kind of thisstep back and be like, I can imagine
myself.
We all went to high school, weall lived this.
I could really imagine myselfas Kayleigh in these moments and
understand what thatconnection was like versus on these
ones.
I'm not going to go home andfantasize about James in the same
(27:54):
way as I am about someone fromSecrets of Sin.
So I think it's really justabout understanding the different
value these shows play in ourusers lives.
For me, one thing that's justreally special about our products
and what we're doing is Ispeak to a user, every single person
at Ink it speaks to a userevery second week either from one
(28:15):
of our products.
It could be galatea.
Galatea2ink it.
And kind of the commonalitybetween all of our users is just
like our lives are so busy andso hectic and sometimes so horrible.
Right.
Like, people have really,really stressful lives.
And, you know, I have 30minutes or one hour to myself every
single day.
And this is how I choose tospend that 30 minutes on your app.
(28:36):
And it's definitely this levelof escapism.
And just like for 30 minutes, I.
All my problems wash away andI can lose myself in the world and
in different worlds, right?
So whether it's high school,whether it's a motorcycle club, or
whether it's, you know, stripclub or whatever it might be, I think
that level of kind of escapeis so, so important.
(28:57):
And I think it's a reallyimportant thing that we're doing
at the end of the day isproviding the space for women to
just like, totally losethemselves and totally.
Yeah.
Get consumed by these stories,which is really special and fun.
And I love that.
I love that we have that opportunity.
Yeah, it's so important.
I think that's the reason whyromance is such a great genre, is
(29:19):
you get to test out differentthings that you would never do in
real life.
Like motorcycle club.
In real life, for me, that's a no.
For other people, yes, maybe.
But for me, no.
But in a book, I mean, let mejust see what we're getting into.
And the same thing you weretalking about, like, going back to
the imagination of high school.
Like, I remember being in highschool, and for me, it's like I remember
(29:43):
that feeling of being in lovefor the first time and, like, not
sure if they love you back.
And when they do love youback, that, like, you know, feeling
of your whole body explodingand just like your cheeks are hot
and your grin is big.
And like, I think like yousaid, it's not necessarily like lusting
about the kid on screen.
It's about, like, feeling likeher and like this, you know, charming,
(30:10):
beautiful kid smiling at you.
And you said, I like you.
He said he likes you back.
Like, I think that that is awesome.
And as someone who does escapeinto literature and romance every
day, it is nice to have aplace that you're like, you can go
and choose your own adventure.
(30:32):
How does that work?
Like, with the algorithm youwere talking about earlier about
figuring out which books torecommend or, you know, oh, they
liked this book, they read itto completion.
That means likely they'll likeXYZ or, oh, they stopped halfway,
then maybe that means weshould point them in this direction.
How do you guys kind of keepevolving that?
(30:55):
It's exactly that.
It's similar to, like, goingon Netflix rate and being like, netflix
knows me better than I know myself.
That's the goal, right?
Is making sure that you'reserving users with stories that they're
going to love based on theirprevious reading habits.
We're also making sure you'reputting in a little variety.
Right.
Because no one wants to watchor read the same thing every single
(31:15):
day.
So it's a balance of makingsure you're introducing new tropes
and new stories and newsubgenres to them to keep them kind
of interested, but at the sametime making sure the pace or the
level of writing or these kindof things are really, really matched
to them.
And that's one thing we'reconsidering moving forward on the
book side with like, hyperpersonalization and the possibility
(31:37):
to take a story and change,like, the level of reading comprehension,
for example.
Right.
And based on, like, the personreading it, they can read the same
story that's just written intwo different ways based on simplicity
that they can really enjoy.
Right.
So that's something that wewant to explore as well, is tailoring
content in that way for a user.
So, like, a store never feels unapproachable.
(31:59):
How would that or how wouldyou determine?
Is that something the userwould select or is that, like, how
would they.
Yeah, it's basically based on,like, recommendations again.
Right?
Or it's basically if a usermostly reads stories that have a
certain level ofcomprehension, this is where they're
comfortable.
(32:20):
Right.
If they finish it to like,completion, then maybe they prefer
a simpler story or a simple,simpler, like, language.
Then we can take a story thatmaybe is a little bit more complex
and simplify it for them.
Right.
And it's not about necessarilycomprehension, but it's both, like
how fast you want to read itor what you're there for.
Right.
Or someone maybe doesn't wantto take three days to really sit
(32:41):
down and read this.
They just want.
Want to whiz through it.
So those kind of things, we can.
It can be both.
Right?
We can and we may try it justlike, hey, choose the version you
want and you can flip back andforth and be like, okay, right Now
I have 10 minutes.
Let me just read it really easily.
But when I'm laying in bed atnight, I want to sit back and kind
of lose myself in the words.
(33:02):
Or we can do it in a way wherewe're just learning and we learn
what you resonate with, basically.
So as you guys are goingforward, like, in five years or whatever,
what would be the roadmap?
Like, what's the ideal goal?
Are you producing 10 featurefilms a year?
(33:23):
Are you just growing your user base?
Like, how are you sort ofdetermining that success for yourselves?
Yeah, so definitely, it's alljust about, like, eyeballs on our
ip, right?
And so I think in whateverformat makes sense, like, we're always
trying to make sure thesestories that we have, this IP that
we have, can be seen andaccessed by as many people as humanly
(33:44):
possible.
Right?
So whether you're a reader oryou listen to audiobooks or you watch
tv, like, you can still enjoythe story.
And so I think it just.
It depends what people want, right?
Which I don't.
I don't know, what ifhorizontal video is what people will
want in five years?
Or if it's the mobile gamethat maybe we want to develop Kaylee
as most game.
Right.
Or do we want to create merchso people can wear, you know, the
(34:06):
letterman jackets from Kelly?
Like, all of these things, Ithink, are the world.
And so it just really dependson what people need or what people
want.
But I think that the main goalis, like, we have this amazing IP
that we really, really believe in.
So how do we make sureeveryone in the world, no matter
what they're into, can access that?
Yeah, I love that we didn'ttalk about audiobooks yet.
(34:26):
Yet.
Do you produce them for everystory, or is it based on a certain
threshold of readers where youfeel like that story might be beneficial
to have in both places?
Yeah, so up until recently, itwas definitely based on threshold.
So when a book kind of takesoff then, and it gets a lot of engagement
and readers are like, okay,let's now produce this as an audiobook
(34:48):
now with AI developments and stuff.
And the fact that you can,like, produce pretty high quality
AI books right now with,sorry, AI, like audio recordings,
we are trialing that a lot.
And so that makes the pipelinea lot faster, right?
Where essentially you canrelease a book and the next day have
the audiobook version out.
So we're trying to get toparody, where every book that launches,
(35:09):
launches in both versions, butwe're Obviously, super conscientious
about.
We don't want it to sound robotic.
We want to make sure we'reusing, like, human voices.
So, for example, we have,like, people at the company who just
have beautiful speaking voiceswho will have them read a few chapters
of a book so that we can usetheir voice and then kind of like,
turn that into, like, with 11labs, a tool that we use often, we
(35:31):
can then basically use theirvoice, but turn it into an audiobook.
Right.
This is something we're alsodiscussing with actors and stuff
as, like, the possibility ofputting that within the contracts.
We're still kind of navigatingit because there's a lot of sensitivity
around AI in Hollywood still,so we don't really have, like, 100%
clarity on where we'll go.
(35:51):
But, you know, there's certainactors that when people watch the
movie, they love their voiceso much.
And so it'd be cool if wecould then use their voice for audiobooks.
So we're trying to figure outhow to, like, meld all of those worlds
together.
But, yeah, right now it's alsopart of the unlimited description
on Galatea.
So a lot of people will kindof flip back and forth based on the
(36:12):
time of day or what they're doing.
Right.
So they'll listen to the audiochapters running the car, and then
when they're home, they'llswitch to the book version.
Yeah, I think that's.
My co host only listens tobooks, so we don't cover any books
on our podcast that aren'taudio as well.
And so I think that that's agreat feature for people who are,
(36:32):
like me, running around aftertheir little kids who are long commuting
or whatever the case, maybethey have options.
When inkit first started,like, presumably you always imagine
there'd be some sort ofpaywall somewhere, but, like, did
you ever think that you guyswould be producing TV content for
(36:55):
me?
Not really.
So ingot.
Like, when I joined in 2016,kind of when I came to the company,
we were like, ink, it existed.
We were finding stories, andthen we were essentially acting as,
like, an indie publisher.
And we were publishing thebooks through IngramSpark and on
Amazon and, like, paperbacks,ebooks, pretty, like, traditional
in that sense.
It just wasn't, like, workingfor us in the sense that we felt
(37:18):
really disconnected from our users.
Right.
Our readers.
We would, like, put the books up.
We get rave reviews.
People would love the stories,like bestseller badges.
They would do really well.
But we just had no access tothose readers to be like, what do
you want more of?
What do you want less of?
How do you make sure you buythe next book?
Which just felt reallydisconnected, which felt very unnatural.
(37:38):
And so we would do things, wetried to make mailing lists, we would
try to get the authors really involved.
But like it was just hard.
It's a hard ecosystem to exist within.
So Ali, who's our founder, waslike, we need to find a way to own
that reader base, right.
And basically be able to haveconstant contact and service them
in a way we just can't throughlike other distributors.
(37:59):
And so that's when we startedto think of Galatea.
So when I joined inc.
It was this idea of even apaywall or the idea of monetizing
outside of other distributorswasn't on our mind yet.
But we knew we wanted to be areally tech forward publishing house.
Like we knew we were alwaysgoing to use data to empower publishing
decisions.
So that was already happening.
But the other stuff wasn't inour minds yet.
(38:23):
But when Ali was like, we haveto figure this out, then myself and
Lauren, who is actually mycousin, she's also on the, on the
content marketing team here.
And then Ali, our founder,kind of shut herself in a small little
room in Berlin and we're like,okay, we have to, we have to figure
this out, right?
So started by doing a lot ofresearch and how people were comfortable
consuming romance fictioncontent outside of just like an ebook
(38:45):
or a paperback, right?
So I was lucky a lot into likemobile games, like when you have
your little avatar that youtake into their first day of college
or whatever.
I was looking a lot into likechat fiction, which was really popular
back in like 2016, 2017.
Looked a lot into like alsojust like script writing, like soap
opera writer writing in termsof like cliffhangers and intentionality
(39:08):
in terms of bringing peopleback the next day.
So it was really just kind ofunderstand more about romance space
outside of just books.
And through that we came upwith the idea of Galatea in terms
of like it's kind of thishybrid model of having pulling different
elements.
So there is text messages withelements of chat fiction, right?
There is really theseintentional moments similar to a
(39:28):
soap opera.
There is characteristics fromlike making choices and whatnot.
And so I think we kind of justdeveloped this first.
And we always knew we wantedto do movies like that.
We always knew that wassomething we wanted to do just even
when we were on like ourAmazon days, right?
Because that's every author's dream.
(39:49):
When you speak to an authorthey're like, the two things I want
in my life is to hold my bookin my hand and to have a movie made.
Those are the two things.
Right.
So we always wanted to be ableto do that for authors and so.
But it was just like the paththere wasn't really clear.
And so when we started seeingVertical as an option for us, we
were like, we see a path there.
So we jumped on it really,really quickly.
(40:09):
And you know, within I thinkthree months of having the idea,
we had like an MVP of theproduct up.
We had two shows produced.
And then within about eightmonths of the initial idea, we were
in a rhythm of launching a newshow every single Friday.
And since we got into thatrhythm in July, things have really
been kind of trending in avery positive way.
So I think we always knew wewanted to, but we didn't know how.
(40:34):
Yeah, also that's an insaneamount of content.
As someone who participatesproduce web series and content in
la, guys, I can tell you rightnow that's wild.
That's a wild amount of videosand shows.
Are you, I mean, you justtalked about Berlin and I think when
(40:55):
I was looking online, you guyshave offices in Berlin and San Francisco.
When you're producing content,are you trying to produce like near
the offices so that you guyshave more control?
Are you producing in differentparts of the country depending on
the story?
Right now when we first gotstarted, so I'm based in San Francisco,
(41:15):
I was in Berlin for like sixyears, but I've been in San Francisco
for the last three years now.
And so when I like since we'vebeen kind of first started producing
them, we were producing themlargely in LA because it's easy to
get to.
We've started hiring out likea production team.
Yeah, started hiring out aproduction team in LA and just like
really easy to move quickly in la.
Right.
In terms of this is a newformat, we're trying something different
(41:37):
with Vertical.
People are like excited tolearn something new and also like
we can do it.
Yeah.
Quickly and efficiently andall of these things.
So LA was like the no brainerplace to start.
Now that we're scaling, we'restarting to move to other places,
also a very expensive place to start.
So we're also producing likewe have production partners now in
Oklahoma and in New Mexico andin Mexico, like in Tulum and we're
(42:02):
trying to distribute it alittle bit just in terms of producing
at lower costs.
And we also are trying to beintentional about like places we
shoot in terms of where if wehave a cowboy romance.
We can do that in New Mexico,for example.
Right.
So we're trying to, like, geta little bit ahead of Slate and understanding
where is the best place tomatch it.
But we're trying to justbasically get out of LA for certain
shows, but also keepingcertain shows that we want more oversight
(42:26):
into in la just because, like,it's close and homegrown right now.
We're very like.
We haven't produced otherlanguage original shows.
They've all been English.
And then we subtitle them ordub them into other languages.
But we've seen in Germany thatdubbing works a lot better than subtitle
Leaf.
And so we're actually in theprocess of producing our first, like,
German original show ofSecrets of Sin, which is a very popular
(42:49):
show we have in English.
We're now producing that in.
In German.
And so we'll be shooting thatclose to Berlin and full.
Like, right now the script isbeing rewritten to be a lot more
localized and, you know, in German.
And then we're gonna.
In a different cast, though,because they're gonna speak.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fully different cast becausethey're gonna be all.
Yeah, German speakers.
(43:10):
I mean, I'm all for it.
Maxton hall was like myfavorite show last year on Prime
Video, so.
So, no, I think.
Yeah, I'm really excited about it.
I think it's going to bereally, really fun.
Can we talk about subtitleson, like, baked in, I guess.
Is that something you thoughtabout, like, having them on.
Forcing them on options toturn off?
(43:30):
Like, it's basically just likecopying TikTok essentially, right?
Or Instagram or whatnot, whereit is very like you're used to as
a user when you're scrolling,having that.
That information.
Right.
And so a lot of people arewatching with sound off when they
first address the story.
Right.
A lot of people are kind oflike in between and half paying attention.
(43:51):
So it's making sure we kind ofgave users the same grace when they're
watching our content as whenthey're scrolling social media, because
it does feel really similar.
But I definitely thinkeventually we'll have an option for
a user to toggle on off.
It just hasn't been like, themost immediate priority in my mind
right now because it is very.
It feels very natural whenyou're watching vertical to have
to have those subtitles baked in.
(44:12):
I think so, too.
Also, weirdly, in a horizontalvideo, I feel like subtitles take
up more of the story versus,like, vertically.
It's like, down by their feetor whatever.
So it's like, not as annoying,I guess.
There's also not likespoilers, like in horizontal, like
you read ahead and you getspoiled, but with vertical, they
just don't have that much space.
So it's really just as they'retalking, you're seeing the words.
(44:33):
So I feel like sometimes I getfrustrated with horizontal subtitles
because I'm like, oh, no, Ididn't want to know that yet.
With vertical, it feels veryin the moment.
I know you already talkedabout Keely, but in my mind it's
like, how much of a runawayhit is it?
Because you're obviouslyinvesting quite a bit of money behind
that project.
(44:54):
And was that something whereyou're like, dang, this is like 4x
more page.
Views for us, like, looking atkind of just like generally, like,
so Kaylee, I mean, we haveKayleigh is like one of many stories
that fall into this category, right?
Sure.
But this one got a lot of kindof organic buzz as well and a lot
of like, users making likelusty fan videos about the main characters
(45:16):
and stuff like that.
So in terms of like, just kindof organic buzz, we saw it in a really
powerful way.
But Kaylee has had like morethan a million unique readers on
Galatea and like more than 22million million chapters read on
Galatea.
There's also like paperbackversions and whatnot on Amazon, where
we don't have that granularity.
But it very much is beloved on Galatea.
(45:38):
And then on Galatea TV, we'vehad like more than 12 million episodes
watched.
And, you know, it's only beenout since September, more than like
200,000 hours watched of the show.
Like, it definitely does havehigh engagement and high finishing
rates.
Like people that start it,finish it, which is obviously a great
indicator that people areenjoying it because given the fact
that, you know, you don't sitdown and watch the entire movie or
(46:01):
you.
I mean, hopefully you do, butyou do have to spend or wait to do
that.
Finishing it is a feat and itmeans it's a really good quality
of addiction or like engagement.
So I think definitely itlooked really promising.
And yeah, we just loved thecast, we loved the director, we loved
everyone that worked on the films.
We're like, do this one.
(46:22):
It felt really good andnatural and also just really easy
in terms of approachabilityfor a wider audience.
And so when we do the Kayleepremiere, we want to make sure that
media is covering it and whatnot.
And also I think this kind ofalignment between YA and Vertical
feels really natural to me.
And so it feels like in termsof telling our story and being like,
hey, we're here.
(46:43):
Look at us.
This is a cool new thingthat's happening in the romance book
movie space.
It felt kind of copacetic.
Yeah.
And also, like, as someone whojudgy about many things, romance
being on TV and when passionwas announced years ago, years ago,
(47:06):
I was hop.
I was hopeful, cautious, cautiously.
Then I watched one understandwhy we like romance.
Right?
Like, you don't.
You're not.
You're not budget to make it,make it look cinematic.
But also like, I want.
I want that chemistry.
(47:27):
Like, I want that romanceversus, like rest of it for you guys.
Really hit the head withfeeling like it's a wrong romance.
Like, I want.
If it's a bully romance, Iwould like someone to be bullied
and I would like that personto like the bully against their best
(47:48):
interests.
And I would like the bully tofeel some sort of way and sad or
something changes them.
But they still want the girlthat they're bullying.
Even though they don't want towant her, they still want her.
And then I want everything tobe happy at the end.
I feel like you guys delivered that.
Yeah.
I think that's what puts us ina really unique position is because
(48:10):
we have been sitting in theromance book world for so long that
now the same people who havebeen all consumed in this world are
now making our movies.
Right.
So Alana, our creativedevelopment exec, has worked here
for six, seven years.
And then we have Elizabeth,who's our head of production.
She also has a romance appthat she built, like between projects.
(48:32):
And so I think definitely whenwe're very intentional and hiring
people that understand thespace and we try to make sure all
our producers and directorsare also female because, like, female
gaze is really, reallyessential, but also just understanding.
Yeah, what women want, whatwomen need.
And like, yeah, the tropes andstuff are really important.
So we make sure we have.
(48:53):
We are handing every directorlike a guide, a pretty clear guide
in terms of this is how to dothis trope.
Well, this is the keynotes youhave to hit.
These are the shots you needto make sure you have, you know,
like if the male and femalelead are in a bar, make sure you
get their eyes.
We want their eyes looking ateach other across the room.
Right.
We need like, just like getclose ups on their eyes.
(49:14):
Overdo it as much as you can.
Because we want to make surewe can have that glance shot in every
single way.
Right.
So just, I think, given thatwe all deeply understand, like, the
book side makes it a loteasier to produce these movies in
a way that do them justice.
Well, this has been such aninteresting chat and so fun.
I'm so glad that you couldcome on podcast.
(49:35):
Thank you so much for having me.
We'll let everyone know againwhere they should start, what they
should download, how theyshould access it.
Yeah.
So right now, so Galatea isthe name of our app, our reading
app.
Galate TV is the name of ourTV vertical series where we're producing
the men's tv.
We're also about to undergo arebranding to candy jar.
(49:58):
GalacticTV will be coming.
Candy Jar.
In terms of just kind of likeguilty pleasure, you know, losing
yourself in a moment, we'rereally trying to pull on those heartstrings
a bit.
So in the next, like, three,four weeks, we'll be seeing a rebranding,
but you'll be able to stillfind us by searching Galatea TV.
Yeah, just search Galatea,GalateaTV on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook,
where everywhere you'll find us.
(50:18):
And yeah, please come join us.
It's a really exciting time.
Well, dear listeners, untilnext time, may your books be your
lover and your hand your best friend.
Bye for now, kids.
Thanks for hanging in withthose romance readers.
Head over to Instagram tocontinue chatting with us.
We're super friendly.
We want to cackle with you.
We want to know what yourfavorite sex scene was, and we need
(50:39):
more book recommendations.
If you want to read along withus, go.
Go to our website,romanceataglance.com to see what
we're reading next.
And we'll see you next podcast.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.