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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Welcome to Romance at a Glance, a podcast that uses romance novels to dive into candid conversations about life, relationship dynamics, and sexual desires. 

As hosts Bridget and Shani review books and interview some of romance's biggest authors, they explore the breadth of the genre, openly embracing the sex, diverse couplings, and taboos to create a safe space for listeners to be exposed to different lifestyles, fantasies, and to pique their naughty curiosity.

Expect 100% honest reviews, spontaneous singing, life lessons, indecent anecdotes, and bawdy humor.

Check out www.romanceataglance.com

Chat with us on Instagram at instagram.com/romanceataglance

Support us on Patreon at patreon.com/romanceataglance

Well, hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Romance at a Glance.

Today I'm going to rag on Romance with Emma Toner.

She is the Executive Producer at Galatea tv, Chief Innovation Officer at Ink IT and a co founder of Galatea and leads Ink IT Media guys.

Emma does it all.

She is working with Ink it.

If you don't know about Ink It, IT is a data driven, almost AI driven company in the world of entertainment.

They leverage AI predictive algorithms and discover unknown stories and turn them into blockbuster hits.

You guys, they are producing a new million dollar ebook every four weeks and they sell it directly to consumers through their Galatea app.

It is the 11th most bestseller gender rating publisher in the world.

They are also now moving into Galatea TV where they are turning those hit books into TV series and then selling them directly episode by episode on their Galatea TV app.

As well as now they are turning one of their hits, Keely, into a feature film which will be on their app.

So I am talking to Emma about all of that.

About how they use technology and romance and pair them together.

How they are really really interested in staying female driven and having female directors for their Galate TV stories.

How they're releasing a new series of stories every week which is insane.

I was given the opportunity to poke around in both apps, read some of the content, watch some of the TV and I can tell you right now I thought Keely was great.

I can see why it's a runaway success.

If you are into bully romance guys, do not sleep on it.

The tension and the fun between the two characters of her being like he's such a jerk but also like hashtag he's so cute.

And him being like I shouldn't like her but also I do cause she's the best was amazing.

And I'm very excited that they're keeping those two leads for the upcoming feature film.

When they expand the world, add 30 minutes to it and keep going.

This is just a fascinating talk also about how people consume content, about the different ways they consume content.

Whether that's audiobooks, reading actual books, whether that's wanting to read everything all at once.

Wanting to only read a chapter at a time.

How to keep people engaged in their apps, how to keep keep them coming back and how they actually use AB testing and use technology to figure out what the best story is and what story is working best for their audiences.

I had such a fun time talking to her and I hope that you enjoy this episode.

So without further ado, let's get this shit popping and talk to Emma.

Romance at a glance.

Romance at a glance.

What'd you say?

Romance at a glance.

Go ahead, girl.

I want to talk about sort of the technology piece of storytelling, because unlike a lot of places, you are telling stories vertically, which I think is different, and almost more like a television show with, like chapters where you 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 like the third step in our funnel.

Right.

So as a company, we have Ink it, which is a platform where anyone in the world can upload a work of fiction.

And then on that platform, we have an algorithm which is analyzing, like, reading engagement and reading behavior.

So it's not AI making decisions, but it's basically an algorithm which is looking at behavior.

So, like, if you read a book for, you know, 20 minutes at 9:00am and 20 minutes at 5:00pm, we would classify that as a convenience read.

Like you're probably on the train on the way home from work, for example.

Example.

Whereas if you sit down at 4am and binge for four hours, that addiction metric is a lot higher.

So we're really just looking at user engagement to make informed choices.

And then the next step in that funnel is the app Galatea, which is a reading app where we take the stories from Ink it, and then we move them over to Galatea, and that's where we monetize.

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 start earning money through people reading on that platform.

And then on Galatea, we're also using a lot of data and technology in terms of we kind of test the story as if they're a product.

So in product, there's a lot of something called A B testing, which is essentially like if your 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 applying those product principles to story, Right?

So, so we'll release a story and have three different alternate beginnings, or we'll end at different cliffhangers, or we'll figure out what is the best conversion moment for a user.

So essentially trying to apply those principles to story, and then we can really shape a story to be the best version of itself again through those user insights.

So if we launch three different beginnings and 33% of readers get a different version of that story.

We see which one becomes the most popular, which one people read and love the most, engage with the most, and that becomes the new main version.

Right.

And so that's the next big step in the funnel is really kind of perfecting the story.

And then the next step after that is now Galatea tv, which is now.

We take the stories after they're really tight and great, and we're confident that it's the best version of itself on Galatea.

And we're producing it now as Vertical Video.

This was kind of inspired by.

We always wanted to get into film and tv.

And when we signed contracts with our authors, you know, we do have 360 rights.

We've always known that we wanted to make this kind of entrance into television, but we just never 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.

And in the past, we tried to be more traditional with publishing and working with big five publishers.

And our authors that we were representing felt really kind of like, lost in the sauce of publishing.

And so we ended up kind of owning that funnel ourselves.

And we want to.

We were kind of really aware of that when it came to film and tv.

And we want authors to be really involved and really kind of like, yeah, taken seriously and having their word really valued in the process.

And so, yeah, Vertical Video kind of came about because we saw it was something that's been happening in China for the last, like, four or five years in a really big way.

Vertical Video has been really huge there, and we saw an opportunity for us to do the same and we could produce these ourselves.

We're obviously not in the film and TV business, but we thought if we can find production partners to help us sort out how to do this, this is something we can do for, like, the right price to take a chance and see what happens without having to put $5 million into producing a movie.

And then, yeah, what's really cool now is that with Kaylee, the movie that you watched in Vertical, we're now taking the next step as well, which is to produce 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 young actors who have never been in anything before are now, like, blowing up on, you know, Instagram and their socials.

And Shannon, the actress I know, was, like, having a callback for Nickelodeon.

And, like, we're kind of, like, creating these little stars as well, which is really fun.

And so now is the next step.

We've gone and now we're producing the big budget horizontal theatrical release and doing a premiere 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 two actors, the principals are the same.

We've kind of recast a few roles.

But like Addison, so the cousin Shannon and the male lead, all original cast as well, because people loved them.

But things like teachers and friends and you know, like the, the best friend who turns out to be the bad guy kind of like recast some roles that we just felt we could level up a little bit.

First of all, that's exciting because I think a lot of times when something gets remade or they recast and you're like, but no, the special sauce was that chemistry of those two main people.

Okay, before I forget, I want to go back to the multiple beginnings and, or changing things.

So how does that work with an author?

Do you pair them with an editor and then you say, hey, we want three different chapter ones or we want like, hey, we're seeing that this subplot is getting a lot of interest.

Does that evolve?

So it really depends on the author.

Right?

Like we given the nature of Ink it and the fact that like people upload these stories at very different points in their lives and some people are doing this as just like a passion side project.

They're like a lawyer with nine kids and they're very, very busy.

Right.

Versus we have people who are publishing who are doing this as a full time career.

So it's really up to the author of how much involvement they want to have.

And in our perfect world, they are writing these, these alt versions for themselves.

And we have something called Galatea University where we have kind of a story partner from our side that's partnered with authors to coach them and help them write these beginnings.

Write different cliffhangers.

Kind of like we know that the first kind of five chapters are going to have the biggest impact in terms of how a user consumes a story.

So they have a partner to help them with that coaching versus some people who are like, oh my gosh, I put this story on your site 10 years ago and I'm just have the time to be invested.

Then we have an internal team called Story Intelligence who will write these versions for themselves, for the author on their behalf and still kind of tailor them that way.

So it really just depends case to case.

I think the combining of someone enjoying an Actual story with technology is really interesting because all of us have read stories where we're like, I wish it ended this way.

I wish, like, this character didn't make that dumb decision.

Having that, like, feedback as a reader that's, like, taken in by that author or that story and evolves it.

I think it's a really interesting 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 to authors who are writing on Ink it, even before they moved to Galatea, they were kind of doing this already, right?

This idea of, like, AB testing independently before we had the infrastructure to, like, do different branches and stuff just by, like, they'll write something and they'll write chapter by chapter and then wait and see what their audience thinks.

Or they'll ask, right?

Like, that's what's really cool about this process, is there's just a direct line between readers 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.

lace, she was actually in LA with Jay and I recently and was just telling us about kind of her process on Ink it and how sometimes she's, like, really, really wants to do something crazy, but it's just like, I don't know what's going to happen.

Right?

Like, I want to kill off my male 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.

But readers are holding him very, very preciously.

Right?

So she'll go in and kind of do something 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 of backpedal and find an alternate way to kind of solve both problems, which I think is really fun.

What is the kind of fan fiction to Ink it pipeline?

Because I imagine a lot of people who are writers through your app and your website come from that fan fiction world.

Yeah, definitely.

So we definitely, on Ink it, has open funnel your fanfiction, do what you want, come have fun, for sure.

And then if we see an author or a novel is really trending really positively as fanfiction, we'll have a conversation with that author and say, do you want to turn this into an original work?

Right.

You have something here.

Your writing is really good.

Do you want to go and change it so that it can Be a standalone, and then we can publish it on Galatea.

But definitely, kind of that exploration and fun is very, very encouraged on Ink It.

And there's a huge reader base for it as well.

And what I really love to see is, like, we'll see certain stories come onto Ink it that are fan fiction of Ink it stories.

And so it all stays in, like, that fandom.

So it starts on Ink, it moves to Galatea, it gets really popular.

Then people start reading it and be like, oh, I want to take a stab at this.

So they write fanfiction of that story, and it kind of, like, becomes this ball that's rolling, which is really fun.

If I pick up, like, a hardcover book, let's say, at a bookstore, most likely I'm going to, well, me, I'm gonna read it in one day, you guys, because, you know, I'm insane.

But regular people might read it half a book and half a book the next day, or a couple chapters at a time that you're not leaving the book necessarily on, like, little cliffhangers.

Every chapter, like, the way that you write is much different to hook the audience because, like, you were talking about earlier, like, you're trying to get them to keep going.

Like, you don't obviously want them to take a pause.

You want them to binge that whole thing or keep keep going through the story.

How does that, like, the technology behind that help?

Or is there some sort of technology, like, how fast the story swipes or how fast, whatever.

So essentially, like, we just are really intentional with how we craft chapters in terms of, like, that first paywall, for example, right?

That first countdown timer that you reach.

So on Galatea, you have X amount of chapters for free at the start, somewhere usually between, like, 5 and 15.

Given that, we just test and we see where is the best moment to get people really hooked, right?

And then once you hit that.

That paywall, you're essentially asked to pay to continue.

Or you can wait six hours, and you can wait six hours to come back, which are both big asks, right?

Like, at this moment, we really need users to be invested to continue on with that story.

So that moment needs to be really, really hokey.

It needs to have a really strong cliffhanger.

And then after that, we want to make sure that every three, four chapters, we do have a moment that gets people really poked, and it's really talkable and engageable, becomes less critical for every single chapter.

And one kind of really interesting thing that we've learned over the years is the difference in conversion stories and retention stories on the platform, which is in a world where we only have pay by chapter, we wanted them to be really, really hooky and cliffhangery and highly converting.

Whereas we also have an annual subscription, which is 70 bucks.

You can read as many books as you want over the year and you never run out.

It's a constant flow of content.

And so speaking to users who have the annual subscription, they maybe a slower pace or a slower burn.

And so we are really intentional about the different types of stories we recommend to users at different parts of their journey.

So when you are subscribed, you want to make sure you see a variety of different tastes and different types and different subgenres.

Whereas if you're a new user and we're just looking to get you across that starting line, then we do want the punchier version.

So it's more about just like recommendations and making sure we're surfacing the right types of stories on a user level.

How does that play into, like, the way authors are getting paid, like Kindle Unlimited, they get paid per page view.

How does that all work?

Yeah, so very similar to Kindle Unlimited.

We have like a royalty pool and then they're paid by chapter read.

And then in a world where someone buys a subscription, that subscription value is distributed across of across every chapter that they read across all authors.

And then there also is.

Because like I mentioned before, right, Authors are very different in terms of their level of involvement depending on their life situation.

So every author, no matter what, is going to be in this royalty pool, is going to be earning off of every chapter of their story read.

And there's also a version where they receive a lot bigger percentage based on if they're doing that marketing themselves.

So if they're advertising their story and users come in through a link that they own, then they're getting a much bigger piece of that pie because they're doing 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 upright filming versus horizontal, do you feel like people now are more used to binging something that's vertical?

Yeah, I think part of it is like, obviously there's just a level of familiarity with your phone interacting it this way.

And when you're like, scrolling on social, it feels really natural.

And right now a lot of, like our placements is on your feed.

Right.

So when you're scrolling and you're like watching your favorite influencers and suddenly you're seeing, you know, the story for Kayleigh for example, it feels really natural and you don't feel like, okay, this is going to be something I have to invest time, and you kind of fall into it really naturally.

But then also on the same front, it's just a lot more efficient to produce in that format.

Right.

Given that you now don't need to have as many extras and you don't need to dress a full set or, for example, we have a scene shot in a bookstore.

Let's say we don't necessarily have to rent a bookstore.

We can just put a bookcase behind someone because in the frame it will look like they're in the store.

Right.

So there's a lot of kind of just like production cost considerations as well, in terms of.

Let's make sure we, as newbies in this space and in this world of film and TV are doing it in an efficient way.

But then obviously, Endgame is seeing this as another step in the funnel, like we're doing with Kaylee.

And then once we kind of prove a story is really valued and really exciting and vertical at the more cost effective approach, we can then go spend the million dollars and shoot it in theatrical release and make it really big and powerful.

So it's kind of just like, you know, I think we say we have a systematic approach to creating blockbusters, and that's like another step in that approach.

So, for the feature film, is that something you're going to release theatrically?

But are you.

Do you have a plan where it will eventually only live on the app or where it will potentially distribution rights with whatever, Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, et cetera?

Exactly.

So the plan for now is we're not going to do a theatrical release in terms of any theater around the world.

You can watch it.

But we're doing one big premiere 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 Beverly Hills and we're inviting media and influencers and the cast, obviously, the author, Manjari, just got her visa, so she'll be joining us from India, which we're excited for.

So we'll do like a panel with the actors and the director and the author.

It's all really about, like, women creating content for women and just being like this really fun kind of step and this really fun celebration in terms of the directors and the crew and the actor and all of.

And the author and all of these things.

And so the theatrical premiere is just an event, essentially.

And.

But then we're going to be releasing it on the app as well.

And so still kind of figuring out if for that premiere we want to also do a horizontal version because obviously we'll have it and maybe that might be our first forlay within Galatea TV to do both.

You could do the vertical and the horizontal, but we'll definitely have the vertical version there as kind of like, hey, guys, you loved the first one.

Here's the elevated version.

We've added an extra 30 minutes, obviously spent more money.

We have a lot more of these scenes that like people really desire.

Like we have a homecoming dance, we have football games.

Like, I think, I don't know if you felt it when you were watching Kayleigh.

I think we did an amazing job of showing those moments, but you can't show a stadium full of people in this format, right?

So the football's really tight on the actors and really kind of like you're seeing one or two players versus now we have a whole team and stuff like that.

So I think also just moments that our audience really loved in terms of like the mother daughter relationship in Kaylee.

People were really, really loving that relationship.

So we made sure we fleshed that out more and showed more moments between mother and daughter.

So we really took kind of those most beloved scenes or shots from our users and made sure we kind of extrapolated them and made them into something really wonderful for the horizontal.

So long winded way of saying yes, it will live on the app.

I think the interesting thing about watching the show and then I watched a couple, you know, popped in and out of a couple of the other ones as well is because you're filming in that upright version, everything is like closer in and so you're really like feel like you're sort of spying on this relationship in a fun way.

I want to talk a little bit.

Maybe not for Keely, because they're teenagers, but for some of the other shows that you have which feature adults.

How did you guys balance the fact that romance novels have open door sex with the TV show being slightly more faded to black?

Yeah, it's an interesting problem 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 of film and tv, like we have intimacy coordinators on set, right?

We're working with a lot of non union actors who we have to be really careful of their boundaries and respectful of those things.

And so as you mentioned though, like with this format and with like the Intimacy of how close in it is shot and being very female gaze.

I think just like the pan of the male torso is really, really powerful.

Or just him kissing down her chest in a way where it can be really meaningful.

And you still feel really in the moment and in the scene without showing full penetration, for example.

Right.

Because that's just not something that we can do on the app yet.

We'll see one day.

Hopefully, like, we can have a variety of different types of raciness and different kind of like levels and ratings, but right now we're just an app on the app.

So we have to be a little bit conscious about those decisions.

We do have a few shows coming up though, that are a little bit grittier in terms of like, like the sex.

And they're very like BDSM and very more physical in that way.

And so we're trying to make sure we're really intentional with casting and finding people who have had more experience doing, you know, sex stimulation and that kind of stuff in their work.

Because, yeah, it becomes really important and you just want to make sure no one feels uncomfy in those moments.

But also, like, the fact that we have the novels, I think is really cool because we can say, you know, hey, if you want the X rated version, go read about it.

And so I think it's also an opportunity need to kind of cross promote the two products.

Like on Galatea tv, we have a shelf of like, these are the books that made the movies.

And then people go, and they're like, okay, if I want the raunchier version, let me go read about it.

I think long term, in terms of like a product kind of idea that I have that we haven't implemented yet is, you know how on like SamCloud, for example, you have like these waves of moments.

You can show those waves of moments, like, within the story and then add like the peak waves.

You can be like, hey, here's the pages.

If you want to pause it, read this, like one shot about this erotic moment and then go back to your movie.

You can make it really kind of fluid that way.

But that's just the idea.

I love that idea.

Well, I also think there's.

Visually, you need less, like, I don't need to see like the full thing because visually I get the idea with the tension and the whatever, versus in a book where I'm like, well, I'm in your head, so what are you thinking?

Spell it out.

So it's definitely a different super fair.

And like, because, yeah, when you're reading, you're.

You're doing all of that work yourself, right?

And you're.

Right, you're imagining that, that whole moment on your own, whereas here we're kind of doing a bit of that work for you.

And so I think it's kind of like the assumption of what comes next is very, very obvious.

I want to talk about casting because I think casting is very important, dear listeners.

You know, I've harped on this many times over the years.

Like, I don't think.

I think the Keeley show is good as is.

I think the writing is good as is.

But I think it really works because the two leads have such good chemistry and they're so charming.

And you can, like, feel that sizzle when they're bantering.

As you guys are sort of expanding how much you're filming, are you sort of outsourcing that?

Is there someone who internally is kind of in charge of making sure that story and those characters fit?

Yeah, for sure.

So we have, like, Alana, who's our creative development exec, and she is really kind of responsible for owning story at every level.

But we also work with a casting agent full time who helps us find appropriate people.

And we often, like with Kaylee, for example, we did like just a national casting call where we're like, anyone apply and let's see what happens.

And what's really cool is Shannon, the lead actress who plays 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 is going to become something, and let's make sure we're part of that story.

So we're very, very intentional.

Obviously, in this space, the male lead is so, so, so important because it's someone we need our users to lust over.

It's someone we know needs to kind of fit the bill.

Especially, you know, in romance, right?

Every main character is six, seven, huge, dark, the hottest man in the world.

And that's not the easiest role to cast for.

And you don't want to disappoint people in terms of their expectations because when they read it, they've dreamed up this kind of unbelievable man, right?

And so it's a lot of pressure to put on, to put on actors in this vein, but I think we do a really 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 find someone who's six'seven and huge.

We can find someone who, who connects really, really well with the female lead.

And so I think we're always doing chemistry reads.

We're doing multiple callbacks.

We're making sure they're in the room together and we could battle them out.

Because as long as I can believe there's tension and romance between these two people, I see him through her eyes in a way.

So it gives us a little bit of grace 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 about this all the time, that when we read books there will be character descriptions and then we're just kind of like, throw that away and we make up our own thing.

Because whatever I think is hot or I think means a tattooed badass, that immediately sparks an image in my mind which is not the same image you have or everyone else.

And I agree with you.

I think it's less about how they look and more about how they feel.

Feel like he felt like a cocky, 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.

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 an interesting one in YA in general, right?

Because most of our audience is 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, how do we like, do these YA romance stories in a way where it's going to be attractive for people who are in their 30s, right.

Where it doesn't feel like a kids show or it doesn't feel like I'm here for romance and steam and connection.

And I'm not going to lust over this kid in high school, right?

Because he's my son's age.

And so figuring out kind of just like who the users are.

And definitely like, same with books, with fya, right?

It's more about kind of this step back and be like, I can imagine myself.

We all went to high school, we all lived this.

I could really imagine myself as Kayleigh in these moments and understand what that connection was like versus on these ones.

I'm not going to go home and fantasize about James in the same way as I am about someone from Secrets of Sin.

So I think it's really just about understanding the different value these shows play in our users lives.

For me, one thing that's just really special about our products and what we're doing is I speak to a user, every single person at Ink it speaks to a user every second week either from one of our products.

It could be galatea.

Galatea2ink it.

And kind of the commonality between all of our users is just like our lives are so busy and so hectic and sometimes so horrible.

Right.

Like, people have really, really stressful lives.

And, you know, I have 30 minutes or one hour to myself every single day.

And this is how I choose to spend that 30 minutes on your app.

And it's definitely this level of escapism.

And just like for 30 minutes, I.

All my problems wash away and I 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, strip club or whatever it might be, I think that level of kind of escape is so, so important.

And I think it's a really important thing that we're doing at the end of the day is providing the space for women to just like, totally lose themselves 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 why romance is such a great genre, is you get to test out different things 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 me just see what we're getting into.

And the same thing you were talking about, like, going back to the imagination of high school.

Like, I remember being in high school, and for me, it's like I remember that feeling of being in love for the first time and, like, not sure if they love you back.

And when they do love you back, that, like, you know, feeling of your whole body exploding and just like your cheeks are hot and your grin is big.

And like, I think like you said, it's not necessarily like lusting about the kid on screen.

It's about, like, feeling like her and like this, you know, charming, 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 escape into literature and romance every day, it is nice to have a place that you're like, you can go and choose your own adventure.

How does that work?

Like, with the algorithm you were talking about earlier about figuring out which books to recommend or, you know, oh, they liked this book, they read it to completion.

That means likely they'll like XYZ or, oh, they stopped halfway, then maybe that means we should point them in this direction.

How do you guys kind of keep evolving that?

It's exactly that.

It's similar to, like, going on Netflix rate and being like, netflix knows me better than I know myself.

That's the goal, right?

Is making sure that you're serving users with stories that they're going to love based on their previous reading habits.

We're also making sure you're putting in a little variety.

Right.

Because no one wants to watch or read the same thing every single day.

So it's a balance of making sure you're introducing new tropes and new stories and new subgenres to them to keep them kind of interested, but at the same time making sure the pace or the level of writing or these kind of things are really, really matched to them.

And that's one thing we're considering moving forward on the book side with like, hyper personalization and the possibility to take a story and change, like, the level of reading comprehension, for example.

Right.

And based on, like, the person reading it, they can read the same story that's just written in two different ways based on simplicity that they can really enjoy.

Right.

So that's something that we want to explore as well, is tailoring content in that way for a user.

So, like, a store never feels unapproachable.

How would that or how would you determine?

Is that something the user would select or is that, like, how would they.

Yeah, it's basically based on, like, recommendations again.

Right?

Or it's basically if a user mostly reads stories that have a certain level of comprehension, this is where they're comfortable.

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 that maybe is a little bit more complex and simplify it for them.

Right.

And it's not about necessarily comprehension, but it's both, like how fast you want to read it or what you're there for.

Right.

Or someone maybe doesn't want to take three days to really sit 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 just like, hey, choose the version you want and you can flip back and forth and be like, okay, right Now I have 10 minutes.

Let me just read it really easily.

But when I'm laying in bed at night, I want to sit back and kind of lose myself in the words.

Or we can do it in a way where we're just learning and we learn what you resonate with, basically.

So as you guys are going forward, like, in five years or whatever, what would be the roadmap?

Like, what's the ideal goal?

Are you producing 10 feature films a year?

Are you just growing your user base?

Like, how are you sort of determining that success for yourselves?

Yeah, so definitely, it's all just about, like, eyeballs on our ip, right?

And so I think in whatever format makes sense, like, we're always trying to make sure these stories that we have, this IP that we have, can be seen and accessed by as many people as humanly possible.

Right?

So whether you're a reader or you listen to audiobooks or you watch tv, like, you can still enjoy the story.

And so I think it just.

It depends what people want, right?

Which I don't.

I don't know, what if horizontal video is what people will want in five years?

Or if it's the mobile game that maybe we want to develop Kaylee as most game.

Right.

Or do we want to create merch so people can wear, you know, the letterman jackets from Kelly?

Like, all of these things, I think, are the world.

And so it just really depends on what people need or what people want.

But I think that the main goal is, like, we have this amazing IP that we really, really believe in.

So how do we make sure everyone in the world, no matter what they're into, can access that?

Yeah, I love that we didn't talk about audiobooks yet.

Yet.

Do you produce them for every story, or is it based on a certain threshold of readers where you feel like that story might be beneficial to have in both places?

Yeah, so up until recently, it was definitely based on threshold.

So when a book kind of takes off then, and it gets a lot of engagement and readers are like, okay, let's now produce this as an audiobook 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 pipeline a lot faster, right?

Where essentially you can release a book and the next day have the audiobook version out.

So we're trying to get to parody, where every book that launches, launches in both versions, but we're Obviously, super conscientious about.

We don't want it to sound robotic.

We want to make sure we're using, like, human voices.

So, for example, we have, like, people at the company who just have beautiful speaking voices who will have them read a few chapters of a book so that we can use their voice and then kind of like, turn that into, like, with 11 labs, a tool that we use often, we can then basically use their voice, but turn it into an audiobook.

Right.

This is something we're also discussing with actors and stuff as, like, the possibility of putting that within the contracts.

We're still kind of navigating it 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.

But, you know, there's certain actors that when people watch the movie, they love their voice so much.

And so it'd be cool if we could then use their voice for audiobooks.

So we're trying to figure out how to, like, meld all of those worlds together.

But, yeah, right now it's also part of the unlimited description on Galatea.

So a lot of people will kind of flip back and forth based on the time of day or what they're doing.

Right.

So they'll listen to the audio chapters running the car, and then when they're home, they'll switch to the book version.

Yeah, I think that's.

My co host only listens to books, so we don't cover any books on our podcast that aren't audio as well.

And so I think that that's a great feature for people who are, like me, running around after their little kids who are long commuting or whatever the case, maybe they have options.

When inkit first started, like, presumably you always imagine there'd be some sort of paywall somewhere, but, like, did you ever think that you guys would be producing TV content for me?

Not really.

So ingot.

We were finding stories, and then we were essentially acting as, like, an indie publisher.

And we were publishing the books through IngramSpark and on Amazon and, like, paperbacks, ebooks, pretty, like, traditional in that sense.

It just wasn't, like, working for us in the sense that we felt 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 to those readers to be like, what do you want more of?

What do you want less of?

How do you make sure you buy the next book?

Which just felt really disconnected, which felt very unnatural.

And so we would do things, we tried 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, was like, we need to find a way to own that reader base, right.

And basically be able to have constant contact and service them in a way we just can't through like other distributors.

And so that's when we started to think of Galatea.

So when I joined inc.

It was this idea of even a paywall or the idea of monetizing outside of other distributors wasn't on our mind yet.

But we knew we wanted to be a really tech forward publishing house.

Like we knew we were always going to use data to empower publishing decisions.

So that was already happening.

But the other stuff wasn't in our minds yet.

But when Ali was like, we have to figure this out, then myself and Lauren, who is actually my cousin, 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 of research and how people were comfortable consuming romance fiction content outside of just like an ebook or a paperback, right?

So I was lucky a lot into like mobile games, like when you have your little avatar that you take into their first day of college or whatever.

Looked a lot into like also just like script writing, like soap opera writer writing in terms of like cliffhangers and intentionality in terms of bringing people back the next day.

So it was really just kind of understand more about romance space outside of just books.

And through that we came up with the idea of Galatea in terms of like it's kind of this hybrid model of having pulling different elements.

So there is text messages with elements of chat fiction, right?

There is really these intentional moments similar to a soap opera.

There is characteristics from like making choices and whatnot.

And so I think we kind of just developed this first.

And we always knew we wanted to do movies like that.

We always knew that was something we wanted to do just even when we were on like our Amazon days, right?

Because that's every author's dream.

When you speak to an author they're like, the two things I want in my life is to hold my book in my hand and to have a movie made.

Those are the two things.

Right.

So we always wanted to be able to do that for authors and so.

But it was just like the path there wasn't really clear.

And so when we started seeing Vertical as an option for us, we were like, we see a path there.

So we jumped on it really, really quickly.

And you know, within I think three months of having the idea, we had like an MVP of the product up.

We had two shows produced.

And then within about eight months of the initial idea, we were in a rhythm of launching a new show every single Friday.

And since we got into that rhythm in July, things have really been kind of trending in a very positive way.

So I think we always knew we wanted to, but we didn't know how.

Yeah, also that's an insane amount of content.

As someone who participates produce web series and content in la, guys, I can tell you right now that's wild.

That's a wild amount of videos and shows.

Are you, I mean, you just talked about Berlin and I think when I was looking online, you guys have offices in Berlin and San Francisco.

When you're producing content, are you trying to produce like near the offices so that you guys have more control?

Are you producing in different parts of the country depending on the story?

Right now when we first got started, so I'm based in San Francisco, I was in Berlin for like six years, but I've been in San Francisco for the last three years now.

And so when I like since we've been kind of first started producing them, we were producing them largely in LA because it's easy to get to.

We've started hiring out like a production team.

Yeah, started hiring out a production team in LA and just like really easy to move quickly in la.

Right.

In terms of this is a new format, we're trying something different with Vertical.

People are like excited to learn something new and also like we can do it.

Yeah.

Quickly and efficiently and all of these things.

So LA was like the no brainer place to start.

Now that we're scaling, we're starting to move to other places, also a very expensive place to start.

So we're also producing like we have production partners now in Oklahoma and in New Mexico and in Mexico, like in Tulum and we're trying to distribute it a little bit just in terms of producing at lower costs.

And we also are trying to be intentional about like places we shoot in terms of where if we have a cowboy romance.

We can do that in New Mexico, for example.

Right.

So we're trying to, like, get a little bit ahead of Slate and understanding where is the best place to match it.

But we're trying to just basically get out of LA for certain shows, but also keeping certain shows that we want more oversight into in la just because, like, it's close and homegrown right now.

We're very like.

We haven't produced other language original shows.

They've all been English.

And then we subtitle them or dub them into other languages.

But we've seen in Germany that dubbing works a lot better than subtitle Leaf.

And so we're actually in the process of producing our first, like, German original show of Secrets of Sin, which is a very popular show we have in English.

We're now producing that in.

In German.

And so we'll be shooting that close to Berlin and full.

Like, right now the script is being 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 because they're gonna be all.

Yeah, German speakers.

I mean, I'm all for it.

Maxton hall was like my favorite show last year on Prime Video, so.

So, no, I think.

Yeah, I'm really excited about it.

I think it's going to be really, really fun.

Can we talk about subtitles on, like, baked in, I guess.

Is that something you thought about, like, having them on.

Forcing them on options to turn off?

Like, it's basically just like copying TikTok essentially, right?

Or Instagram or whatnot, where it 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 are watching with sound off when they first address the story.

Right.

A lot of people are kind of like in between and half paying attention.

So it's making sure we kind of gave users the same grace when they're watching our content as when they're scrolling social media, because it does feel really similar.

But I definitely think eventually we'll have an option for a user to toggle on off.

It just hasn't been like, the most immediate priority in my mind right now because it is very.

It feels very natural when you're watching vertical to have to have those subtitles baked in.

I think so, too.

Also, weirdly, in a horizontal video, I feel like subtitles take up more of the story versus, like, vertically.

It's like, down by their feet or whatever.

So it's like, not as annoying, I guess.

There's also not like spoilers, like in horizontal, like you read ahead and you get spoiled, but with vertical, they just don't have that much space.

So it's really just as they're talking, you're seeing the words.

So I feel like sometimes I get frustrated with horizontal subtitles because I'm like, oh, no, I didn't want to know that yet.

With vertical, it feels very in the moment.

I know you already talked about Keely, but in my mind it's like, how much of a runaway hit is it?

Because you're obviously investing quite a bit of money behind that project.

And was that something where you're like, dang, this is like 4x more page.

Views for us, like, looking at kind of just like generally, like, so Kaylee, I mean, we have Kayleigh is like one of many stories that fall into this category, right?

Sure.

But this one got a lot of kind of organic buzz as well and a lot of like, users making like lusty fan videos about the main characters and stuff like that.

So in terms of like, just kind of organic buzz, we saw it in a really powerful way.

But Kaylee has had like more than a million unique readers on Galatea and like more than 22 million million chapters read on Galatea.

There's also like paperback versions and whatnot on Amazon, where we don't have that granularity.

But it very much is beloved on Galatea.

And then on Galatea TV, we've had like more than 12 million episodes watched.

And, you know, it's only been out since September, more than like 200,000 hours watched of the show.

Like, it definitely does have high engagement and high finishing rates.

Like people that start it, finish it, which is obviously a great indicator that people are enjoying it because given the fact that, you know, you don't sit down and watch the entire movie or you.

I mean, hopefully you do, but you do have to spend or wait to do that.

Finishing it is a feat and it means it's a really good quality of addiction or like engagement.

So I think definitely it looked really promising.

And yeah, we just loved the cast, we loved the director, we loved everyone that worked on the films.

We're like, do this one.

It felt really good and natural and also just really easy in terms of approachability for a wider audience.

And so when we do the Kaylee premiere, we want to make sure that media is covering it and whatnot.

And also I think this kind of alignment between YA and Vertical feels really natural to me.

And so it feels like in terms of telling our story and being like, hey, we're here.

Look at us.

This is a cool new thing that's happening in the romance book movie space.

It felt kind of copacetic.

Yeah.

And also, like, as someone who judgy about many things, romance being on TV and when passion was announced years ago, years ago, I was hop.

I was hopeful, cautious, cautiously.

Then I watched one understand why 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.

Like, I want that romance versus, like rest of it for you guys.

Really hit the head with feeling like it's a wrong romance.

Like, I want.

If it's a bully romance, I would like someone to be bullied and I would like that person to like the bully against their best interests.

And I would like the bully to feel some sort of way and sad or something changes them.

But they still want the girl that they're bullying.

Even though they don't want to want her, they still want her.

And then I want everything to be happy at the end.

I feel like you guys delivered that.

Yeah.

I think that's what puts us in a really unique position is because we have been sitting in the romance book world for so long that now the same people who have been all consumed in this world are now making our movies.

Right.

So Alana, our creative development exec, has worked here for six, seven years.

And then we have Elizabeth, who's our head of production.

She also has a romance app that she built, like between projects.

And so I think definitely when we're very intentional and hiring people that understand the space and we try to make sure all our producers and directors are also female because, like, female gaze is really, really essential, but also just understanding.

Yeah, what women want, what women need.

And like, yeah, the tropes and stuff are really important.

So we make sure we have.

We are handing every director like a guide, a pretty clear guide in terms of this is how to do this trope.

Well, this is the keynotes you have to hit.

These are the shots you need to make sure you have, you know, like if the male and female lead are in a bar, make sure you get their eyes.

We want their eyes looking at each other across the room.

Right.

We need like, just like get close ups on their eyes.

Overdo it as much as you can.

Because we want to make sure we can have that glance shot in every single way.

Right.

So just, I think, given that we all deeply understand, like, the book side makes it a lot easier to produce these movies in a way that do them justice.

Well, this has been such an interesting chat and so fun.

I'm so glad that you could come on podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

We'll let everyone know again where they should start, what they should download, how they should access it.

Yeah.

So right now, so Galatea is the name of our app, our reading app.

Galate TV is the name of our TV vertical series where we're producing the men's tv.

We're also about to undergo a rebranding to candy jar.

GalacticTV will be coming.

Candy Jar.

In terms of just kind of like guilty pleasure, you know, losing yourself in a moment, we're really 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 still find us by searching Galatea TV.

Yeah, just search Galatea, GalateaTV on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, where everywhere you'll find us.

And yeah, please come join us.

It's a really exciting time.

Well, dear listeners, until next time, may your books be your lover and your hand your best friend.

Bye for now, kids.

Thanks for hanging in with those romance readers.

Head over to Instagram to continue chatting with us.

We're super friendly.

We want to cackle with you.

We want to know what your favorite sex scene was, and we need more book recommendations.

If you want to read along with us, go.

Go to our website, romanceataglance.com to see what we're reading next.

And we'll see you next podcast.