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The write stuff: Pocket Gems' interactive story platform Episode hits 500,000 author signups

175 million chapters read

The write stuff: Pocket Gems' interactive story platform Episode hits 500,000 author signups

Pocket Gems' interactive mobile story platform, Episode, has surpassed 500,000 author signups to become the world's largest author platform for interactive mobile stories.

Episode, which lets players discover and interact with mobile-first stories that are shaped by reader choice, has now seen over 175 million chapters read since it launched in February, with the most popular story, Campus Crush, contributing 55 million of those.

Pocket Gems co-founder and CCO, Daniel Terry, has suggested Episode has found success because it provides two things that every writer craves: readers and fair pay.

"In providing authors with a new medium to create stories, Episode is giving them two things that have historically been very hard for fiction writers to obtain: an audience and payment,” said Terry.

Instant gratification

While readers and money rightly matter, the fact that the platform gives writers the ability to get feedback straightaway has also been crucial because writers know where to improve, and readers feel valued. It's a self sustaining system.

"The nature of the platform allows the writer to publish immediately and get audience feedback, in the form of data and fan mail, just as quickly. Now, readers can shape the overall direction of the plot just by interacting with it," explained Terry.

Episode rewards writers and readers alike

"We’ve undertaken the the dual-task of finding writers who will create great interactive content on mobile while building proprietary technology that lets them bring their stories to life.

"Episode has become a thriving community of a half-million storytellers who are engaging the mobile audience in a fun and unique way."

What do you call someone who has an unhealthy obsession with video games and Sean Bean? That'd be a 'Chris Kerr'. Chris is one of those deluded souls who actually believes that one day Sean Bean will survive a movie. Poor guy.