Wattpad launches Wattpad Studios

In the US, online writing platform and community Wattpad is launching a new division called Wattpad Studios to partner with entertainment companies to develop film and media projects based on the website’s content, reports Publishers Weekly. Aron Levitz, who will oversee Wattpad Studios, said the goal of the new division will be to help the Wattpad’s writers ‘find opportunities to earn money’ by working with brands to ‘find a right fit for their story’. Levitz said the website will take ‘a small percentage’ of any earnings, as well as playing a ‘producer role’ for many of the properties it develops. While the majority of Wattpad’s writers own the rights to the works they publish on the website, the site may ‘license the work directly from the writer’ in certain instances, said Levitz. Wattpad currently hosts more than 250 million stories and has more than 40 million visitors a month, with a core demographic being teenage girls. The new studio will incorporate the other monetisation initiatives that Wattpad has developed, including Wattpad Stars, which connects popular writers on the site with paid writing jobs; Wattpad Presents, which looks to develop Wattpad stories for television; and Wattpad Brands, which commissions popular writers to produce native advertising.

Category: International news