In the world of Wattpad, no genre is too niche. The user-generated publishing platform, founded in 2006 and boasting 90 million monthly readers, has spent the past few years turning its most online popular stories into both print books and movies and TV shows. In 2021, the multimedia powerhouse was acquired by the Korean tech giant Naver for $600 million—a price buoyed by Wattpad’s ability to analyze content down to which lines of a story readers like best (and absolutely must appear in a movie adaptation). “We have what is possibly the largest library of fiction that’s ever been created,” says Aron Levitz, General Manager of Wattpad Studios, the film and TV arm. “Our audience data allows us to really explore that.” The company’s insights have catapulted dozens of untraditional stories to box office and bestseller success.
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