By Michael Evans on August 6, 2022 [Last updated March 1, 2024]
Serial fiction is a massive market for authors. Wattpad alone had 80 million readers consuming stories on the app as of 2019. And due to the nature of serial fiction, it’s a great way for authors to build their community and jumpstart their subscription platforms.
As an author getting started with serial fiction, it can be intimidating. What platforms/sites are out there for my stories? What are the terms and conditions and how will I be paid? And what subgenres perform best on which sites?
Today, we seek to answer these questions for you. Let’s get started.
Note: Clean, rough drafts of stories are often all you need to begin posting to these sites (no need to contract a professional editor like for publishing on Amazon).
Ream
What is it?
- A platform for fiction authors to publish stories, discover new readers, build a community of your biggest fans, and monetize through subscriptions. You can kind of think of Ream like if Wattpad, Patreon, and Facebook Groups had a baby.
Best Genres:
- Romance is what does best on Ream with LitRPG growing quickly on the platform. Fantasy, science fiction, and horror also has a prescence, but not as much as the strongest genres.
How You Get Paid:
- Authors on Ream are paid out 90% of the revenue their subscriptions generate (minus a payment processing fee). In addition, authors can sell direct to their readers (get all the emails of paid members) and choose to have the platform manage their sales tax and VAT for them.
Start writing here. Disclaimer: the same team behind SFA also created Ream.
Radish Fiction
What is it?
- A serial fiction site, primarily for romance/steamy romance, that allows readers to pay per episode (chapter) for stories with virtual coins. Authors have to be accepted into the Radish writers program in order to publish stories on the platform. Radish was recently acquired by Kakoa for over $400 million.
Best Genres:
- Romance is what does best on Radish, especially dark romance, PNR, and new adult.
How You Get Paid:
- Radish pays authors quarterly based on how many coins were used to unlock chapters. Authors can choose a freemium model (first 3 chapters free, rest coins to unlock), a premium model (all coins), or wait-to-unlock. Due to recent changes, it’s unclear exactly what the royalty split for authors is, but Radish states roughly 50% of the revenue the platform makes is paid out to authors.
Start writing here.
Royal Road
What is it?
- A platform where readers consume stories for free and can follow stories for updates, provide feedback on each chapter, and easily discover new serials in subgenres they love.
Best Genres:
- LitRPG (all subgenres) and Portal Fantasy do particularly well.
How You Get Paid:
- Royal Road makes money from ads and premium subscriptions from readers (which turn off ads). However, authors don’t get a cut of that. In light of this, Royal Road allows readers to donate to authors directly, and authors oftentimes set up accounts on subscription platforms that give readers early access to chapters before they are published. If you want to learn more about running a subscription business as an author, we created this community just for you :).
Start writing here.
Wattpad
What is it?
- The largest serial fiction platform for English language readers. Typically readers are under 25 years old, although plenty are from other demographics as well. Readers consume stories for free on the platform, with authors accepted in their paid stories program able to monetize their fiction on the platform.
Best Genres:
- Anything directed to young adults and teens has historically performed best on the platform. Young Adult Romance, New Adult Romance, and PNR are particularly strong subgenres, but there is still a huge readership for fantasy, thrillers, and science fiction. There are also plenty of readers above 18 for NSFW stories as well.
How You Get Paid:
- Unless you are accepted into one of Wattpad’s creator programs, most authors monetize through subscriptions, publishing deals, or self-publishing future books in a series on Amazon. Emilia Rose is a great case study of how she parlayed her Wattpad readership into a six-figure income in subscriptions. Listen to this podcast for some insights into how she did it.
Start writing here.
Kindle Vella
What is it?
- Amazon’s foray into serial fiction, available only in the United States. Readers unlock chapters in each story they read with tokens, which can be purchased in bundles from their Amazon account.
Best Genres:
- Vella has gained limited traction up to this point with readers, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t enough eyeballs to have success stories. Genres are diverse here and it’s hard to tell, but from early indications, genre fiction that tends to do well on the Amazon US store has gained a readership in Vella.
How You Get Paid:
- Vella has a 50% revenue share with authors based on the money they make from token sales. Since token bundles differ in price pending on how much a reader buys an author’s take-home can vary a bit. Longer episodes in terms of word count also cost more for the reader to read as compared to shorter chapters/episodes.
Start writing here.
Scribble Hub
What is it?
- A serial fiction platform similar in reader experience and business model to Royal Road.
Best Genres:
- LitRPG, fantasy, and anime-inspired fiction seem to do especially well here. Its most popular stories have millions of views.
How You Get Paid:
- You can link directly to Paypal for donations or to a subscription platform where readers can receive early access to chapters you post on Scribble Hub.
Start writing here.
Tapas
What is it?
- A platform for webcomics with over 100,000 stories published to the platform. Authors can hire designers to convert their stories into comic form to be enjoyed by millions of readers on Tapas. They also have a section for serialized novels on their site that millions of readers use.
Best Genres:
- The platform is primarily known for its webcomics, but fantasy stories and romance stories (especially fantasy romance) have a large readership as well.
How You Get Paid:
- Tapas dolls out 70% of their ad revenue to creators. In addition, they enable authors to create merchandise on their platform and be tipped by their readers.
Start writing here.
Other Platforms: Webtoons is the most famous platform for webcomics. And a great place to check out if interested in developing your own comic. Wuxia World is also a site for Chinese web novels translated into English that is worth exploring.
Serialized Audio Podcasts
What is it?
- Audio dramas, serialized rough drafts of novels, or voice actors, all sharing stories chapter-by-chapter through audio. 15% of podcast listeners consume fiction podcasts exclusively. Typically, authors will post their podcasts to distributors like Spotify and Apple Podcasts and garner listeners through those platforms as they post on a regular basis. Here are some examples of fiction podcasts.
Best Genres:
- Crime thrillers and mysteries do especially well in this format, but this is a large audience for science fiction, fantasy, and romance in serialized audio.
How You Get Paid:
- Once you gain a listenership (typically over 1,000 per episode) you can court sponsors for your fiction podcast. In addition, you can offer early access to your serialized audio through a subscription on a membership platform. Here’s an example of a fiction podcast that does a great job at this.
Serialized Fiction on Social Platforms
What is it?
- Posting stories in a serialized format to “traditional” social media platforms can be a discovery point to find new readers. Think about posting flash fiction in Twitter threads or using TikTok to share short stories or poems.
Best Genres:
- For Poets, this is an incredible way to get discovered and direct readers to your subscription, books, or community. However, virtually any author can benefit from this content marketing approach to serial fiction.
How You Get Paid:
- On a platform like YouTube and TikTok, you can make some money from ads once you surpass a certain amount of followers (be warned: it’s usually not enough to write home about). In addition, authors can view these serialization opportunities as bite-sized ways to introduce readers into your worlds and buy your books or subscribe to your membership.
We hope you found one or more sites that will be suitable for your stories to find new readers. Of course, this is a fast-evolving space and we would love to keep this as updated as possible.
However, a BIG disclaimer: there are lots of start-ups, who have serial fiction sites, but many have shady terms or very few readers. We have done our best to curate this list to be as high-quality as possible for authors, and aim to keep it that way.
And if you are interested in learning more about how you can turn serial fiction readers into superfans that pay you monthly for early access to your stories, then subscribe to our newsletter below for weekly insights :). And if interested in joining a platform that helps you make money with serials and subscriptions, built by authors for authors, then join Ream today.