Toronto-based Wattpad has announced is Books arm is partnering with publishing giant Penguin Random House UK to bring the platform’s stories to the United Kingdom, signalling the company’s first expansion into Europe.
“Wattpad is highly innovative with their technology, marketing and insights.”
This collaboration comes as part of the online story-sharing platform’s aggressive expansion plans. This year, Wattpad formed partnerships with Italy entertainment company Mediaset in June, Dutch production company NL Film, Singapore-based Mediacorp, and Times Bridge, which owns one of India’s largest media companies.
“Wattpad Books is about creating real, meaningful space for diverse voices and their stories on bookshelves, in bookstores, and in libraries,” said Ashleigh Gardner, deputy general manager at Wattpad Studios, Publishing. “These stories already have a massive readership, with passionate fans who have spent hundreds of millions of minutes with these stories on Wattpad. We’re thrilled to work with Penguin Random House UK to bring these stories to bookshelves in the UK.”
Wattpad Books, launched at the beginning of this year, identifies and publishes stand-out stories from the more than 565 million story uploads on Wattpad. Wattpad Books’ 2019 list is slated to launch in the UK in the fall, feature six young adult titles, including two UK writers, Leigh Ansell and Laura Palphreyman.
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This year’s global partnerships followed a 26-film deal with iflix for Indonesia, a development deal with Huayi Brothers Korea last year, and a raise totalling to $61.25 million CAD. The platform boasts a global audience of more than 70 million. Wattpad also recently launched two of its monetization initiatives, Wattpad Paid Stories and Wattpad Premium, globally.
“Wattpad is a very active community for readers, writers and book-lovers,” said Philipp Bartscher, strategic director at Penguin Random House UK. “Wattpad is highly innovative with their technology, marketing and insights, particularly with regards to a young adult readership, and we hope we can learn much from each other during our collaboration.”
Image courtesy Wattpad