Whether a novel will sell well is sometimes difficult for even senior editors to judge.
In the world of traditional publishing, many excellent stories are buried due to lack of funds, editors’ subjective preferences, or just bad luck. Authors’ hard-worked works are often met with countless rejections and long waits.
The global best-selling work (Harry Potter) was rejected by 13 publishers. Now with the rise of AI, German startup Inkitt has redefined the process of story creation and publishing, making publishing no longer a game for a few people, but a new journey for readers and authors to participate together, providing every author with dreams with A platform to speak out.
How does Inkitt use AI to determine which book has a chance of becoming a bestseller?
Do you have to stay up late to read it? Inkitt uses AI to decipher the secrets of best-selling books
Inkitt’s publishing ecosystem consists of 3 main platforms: manuscript sharing platform Inkitt, immersive fiction app Galatea, and short drama platform Galatea TV. Artificial intelligence plays an important role in the entire process, completely subverting the traditional "intuition-oriented" publishing rules.
Today, the Inkitt manuscript sharing platform has more than 3,000,000 users, Galatea has listed more than 600 novels, and more than half of published authors have achieved sales of more than US$100,000; in 2024, Inkitt will even surpass industry giants such as Penguin Blue Light Book House and become a global The 11th largest publisher in the publishing industry.
Source: Google Play official website Inkitt’s publishing ecosystem includes 3 main platforms: web writing platform Inkitt (left), immersive novel application Galatea (middle), and short drama platform Galatea TV (right)
“We don’t rely on intuition, but on reader behavior to make publishing decisions.” Ali Albazaz, founder of Inkitt, said that authors can publish complete manuscripts to the Inkitt platform for more than 3,000,000 users to read and provide feedback, and every title, cover and Plots can be A/B tested, similar to a chef adjusting recipes to find the most popular flavors, and the data will be used in future novels.
Behind the scenes, AI algorithms analyze more than 1,200 reading behavior indicators, such as chapters where readers paused, reading time, etc. "If a reader stays up late reading your novel, we will see the data and make a judgment based on it." Ali emphasized that these small behaviors become Inkitt AI's "taste" and can judge which book has the chance to become a bestseller.
Image source: Yahoo official website Authors can publish complete manuscripts to the Inkitt manuscript sharing platform, where more than 3,000,000 users can read and provide feedback
Once the AI confirms that a story has potential, Inkitt's AI can also provide the writer with story modification suggestions based on this data. The revised draft will then be put on the novel app Galatea, and DeepL AI will be used to translate each book into 10 languages, such as English and German. , Russian and Portuguese, etc., as well as using Leonardo to generate covers.
If the novel is well received, there may even be a chance of entering the traditional publishing field. In 2016, Inkitt successfully sold Galatea's best-selling book (Bright Star) to Tor Books, a well-known fantasy novel publisher. This was a major breakthrough in the cooperation between AI and the traditional publishing industry.
Source: Tor Teen official website In 2016, Inkitt sold Galatea’s best-selling book (Bright Star) to Tor Books, a well-known fantasy novel publisher. The novel was written by Erin Swan
Inkitt stands on three pillars: manuscript sharing platform, novel app, and short play production
Inkitt's Galatea novel app creates an immersive novel experience for readers.
Inkitt uses ElevenLabs text-to-speech AI to create immersive novels. Founder Albazaz said: "We are adding sound and VR effects to make readers feel like they are in the story." For example, when the story begins in the forest, the screen will be in front of the text. First, the images and sound effects of the forest are presented.
Source: Inkitt official website Inkitt’s Galatea novel app creates an immersive novel experience for readers
Galatea divides complete stories into short stories, and readers can read 3 chapters for free every day. Later chapters need to be unlocked through points or a subscription model. Some novels are only available to annual subscribers, and the subscription fee is about US$62 (about NT$2,000) per year.
This model brings considerable revenue to the platform. Authors can collect reader fees through the Inkitt platform and keep 100% of the proceeds, only paying processing fees. In addition, if the novel is successfully published on Galatea, the author can receive royalties based on the traffic. Sapir Englard, the author of the (The Millennium Wolves) series, received royalties of up to US$8,000,000 (approximately NT$250 million) after the series was published.
Source: Galatea TV official website In 2023, Inkitt launched Galatea TV, a short drama streaming platform, and quickly launched 3 short dramas adapted from IP. The short drama adapted from its novel (Beautiful Mistake) brought US$500,000 (approximately) to the platform NT$15.93 million) income
In 2023, Inkitt launched Galatea TV, a short drama streaming platform, and quickly launched 3 IP adapted short dramas. The short drama adapted from its novel (Beautiful Mistake) brought US$500,000 (approximately NT$15.93 million) to the platform. income. Galatea TV official website
Inkitt's ambitions also extend into sketches. In 2023, Inkitt launched Galatea TV, a short drama streaming platform, and quickly launched 3 IP adapted short dramas. The short drama adapted from its novel (Beautiful Mistake) brought US$500,000 (approximately NT$15.93 million) to the platform. income.
According to Inkitt, many publishing companies and film and television production companies have targeted popular works on the Galatea platform and want to adapt them into film and television works. Inkitt is redefining the boundaries of the publishing and entertainment industries through the three pillars of online literature, immersive novels and short plays.
From FB community to publishing startup: Inkitt lets readers decide the value of a book
The founder, Ali Albazaz, is an engineer, but he has a special liking for text creation. He believes that the traditional publishing model is inefficient and hopes to find a more effective way to let good works be seen by more people. With a dream of writing, he established a Facebook community in 2012, trying to gather a group of authors who also love creation through the Internet to share their creative experiences and techniques with each other.
The club was inspired by the experiences of Fifty Shades of Grey's author EL James. “We followed her method, publishing the work while collecting feedback from readers and then revising it.” Albazaz pointed out that this way the author can truly understand the needs of the readers instead of relying on the intuition of the editor or the author.
As the number of members in the community grew, everyone began to discuss the need for a platform dedicated to authors, and this idea also sprouted in Albazaz's mind. "People always ask, why is there not a platform specifically for authors?" This sentence ignited his inspiration.
As a result, Albazaz founded the manuscript sharing platform Inkitt in Berlin in 2013 and officially founded the company in 2014. He developed an algorithm for the platform that can predict which stories have the potential to become bestsellers, and hopes to pitch the technology to publishers.
Source: Forbes official website Inkitt founder Ali Albazaz is an engineer but has a special liking for text creation. He founded Inkitt in 2014.
Albazaz spent three years trying to persuade publishers to cooperate with Amazon but kept running into obstacles. The company also hit a bottleneck in development. Two founding directors even resigned. The cash flow could only support six months, making the situation worse.
“Looking back, the crisis we experienced turned out to be a turning point.” Albazaz said that in the end the team decided to transform Inkitt into a publisher and launch the immersive novel application Galatea. Inkitt was also praised by the Financial Times as one of the fastest growing companies in Europe in February 2023.
In February this year (2024), Inkitt completed a US$37,000,000 (approximately NT$1.1 billion) Series C round of financing led by Khosla Ventures, with a valuation of US$400,000,000 (approximately NT$12.7 billion). Next, Albazaz plans to expand Inkitt to games, audiobooks and other fields, allowing AI to tailor novels of their own for readers.
AI and the publishing industry: the copyright issues behind Inkitt
Although the entry of artificial intelligence into the publishing industry has caused controversy, it is an irreversible reality. About 34% of all e-books involve artificial intelligence-assisted authoring, according to publishing industry research firm WordsRated.
Currently, the copyright issue of artificial intelligence works falls into a gray area. According to the U.S. (Registration Guidelines for Works Generated by AI), there is a clear distinction between AI-assisted creation and AI-generated works.
The former means that humans are still mentally or emotionally involved when using artificial intelligence tools to create, so such works can enjoy copyright protection. On the contrary, the latter cannot obtain copyright due to lack of originality. Take Thaler as an example. He tried to apply for copyright for a painting automatically generated by the AI system Creativity Machine. However, because the work was completely computer-generated, the U.S. Copyright Office rejected the application on the grounds that "the author must be a human being" is a prerequisite for obtaining copyright.
Source: Artforum official website Thaler tried to apply for copyright for the painting (A Recent Entrance to Paradise) generated by the AI system Creativity Machine, but the application was rejected by the U.S. Copyright Office.
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This article is reprinted with permission from: (Entrepreneurship Meetup)
Original author: You Haoqing
Original title: (Using AI to analyze 1,200 reading behaviors, how does Inkitt predict the next (Harry Potter)?)