There is no easy way to make a direct comparison with an online-reading count and a regular sales count, so treat the numbers with care, while acknowledging that by any measure 4.5 billion reads is indeed phenomenal.
With a joint audience of 166 million the newly formed Wattpad WEBTOON Studios was the natural next step for South Korea’s WEBTOON parent Naver, which acquired Canada-base Wattpad earlier this year.
Per the press release,
Wattpad WEBTOON Studios unites WEBTOON Studios’ expertise and growing slate of adaptations from some of the world’s most-popular digital comics, with Wattpad Studios’ data-backed, audience-driven approach to finding and producing hit TV shows, films, and books. As an audience-driven IP powerhouse, Wattpad WEBTOON Studios unlocks the full potential of WEBTOON and Wattpad’s global IP libraries, growing roster of superstar creators, and fandoms in every genre.
Wattpad WEBTOON Studios claims to have over 100 projects “in development or production” and “hits on screens everywhere” a reference to the unrivalled global reach the Wattpad element brings to the table.
Head over to the press release on Wattpad for details of past successes – it’s impressive – but be wary of the numbers.
The WEBTOON comic Tower of God is a global phenomenon, notes the press release, and no question 4.5 billion reads is phenomenal, but let’s be clear that “reads” do not equate to sales or downloads as we think of them when talking about regular book, ebooks and audiobooks.
A read is a reference to reader engagement with an uploaded segment of a story, which might for example be one chapter, in which case a fifty chapter book would count as fifty reads upon completion.
There is no easy way to make a direct comparison with an online-reading count and a regular sales count, so treat the numbers with care, while acknowledging that by any measure 4.5 billion reads is indeed phenomenal.
And it is that that makes the rise and rise of online reading so exciting for authors and publishers able to step outside their western-publishing-industry cocoon and see the true scale of the global publishing opportunity emerging.
In fact many mainstream publishers are in on the act, per this quote from the press release:
Publishing will remain a key component of the Wattpad WEBTOON Studios strategy, allowing for fully verticalized IP across TV, film, and books. Today, a dozen Wattpad WEBTOON Studios entertainment projects have or will also be published as books. The first volume of Rachel Smythe’s Eisner Award-nominated WEBTOON graphic novel series, Lore Olympus, will be published by Penguin Random House in October 2021. Wattpad has seen enormous success in publishing, working with marquee publishing partners like Hachette in France, Penguin Random House UK, Mondadori Group in Italy, Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial in Spain, AST in Russia, and Anvil Publishing in the Philippines. Wattpad has published hundreds of books with partners around the world and 30 titles from the Wattpad Books imprint since launching in 2019.
But many, many more seem either oblivious to or indifferent to the online reading phenomenon that drives the publishing industry in the oriental markets and that is fast encroaching on the occidental markets we have for so long considered off limits to eastern players.
The oblivious and the indifferent might want to consider this cogent observation from Aron Levitz before continuing to look the other way:
We’re bringing a new era of diverse voices and incredible IP to audiences and an industry looking for both. Businesses are spending billions of dollars to capture the last 100 years of IP. We’re looking to the future, with hundreds of millions of new stories to power the next 100 years of hits on screens and bookshelves.
Let me leave you with this thought from WEBTOON founder and CEO, Jun Koo Kim:
The team at Wattpad WEBTOON Studios is developing IP across formats, building franchises, and nurturing the fandoms that power them. And they’re doing it with a full global perspective from Day One.
