2 New Apps to Help Writers Reach Readers

by Cyle Young @CyleYoung

Have you  heard of the relatively new chat story craze?

Tap is a mobile phone app that drops you right into a story and you experience the story by reading someone else’s texts. Many of the chat stories fall within genres that are easy to wrap around short snippets of dialogue. Thriller, Suspense, Romance, Comedy, and Horror dominate the app.

Wattpad launched Tap earlier in 2017 and some of the tap stories have already received over 172,000,000 million taps—a tap on the screen to advance dialogue. Tap is an excellent tool for authors to develop new audiences. It can also be used as a testing ground or focus group setting for dialogue sequences for novels still under development.

Tap is growing at a steady pace and it seems to be poised for a longer shelf life because it is owned by a company that knows its demographic. Wattpad continues to make huge growth gains and Tap is poised to grow along with its parent company.

If you are writing to a YA audience, I highly recommend that you invest some time and energy in this app.

Amazon Rapids

Amazon Rapids beat Tap to market when launched in late 2016. Amazon Rapids is similar to Tap in that it has chat stories, but its unique difference is that Rapids targets a much younger audience than Tap.

Rapids targets a 5-12 demographic for its content and providers for the content must be contracted by Amazon. Amazon Rapids also features signature stories based on business relationships with many popular properties such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Niko, and many other Amazon Studios characters and shows.

Amazon is betting on the success of its television children’s programs on Amazon Prime to bring in a new generation of electronic readers for Rapids. In truth, it has the potential to be a brilliant business maneuver. Success and growth of Rapids would seemingly ensure the success of the Amazon Kindle model for years.

The biggest downfall to Rapids is that is a subscription-based model, which can be problematic for parents on a tight budget. But for authors, Amazon Rapids is a paying marketplace and it is worth your time and energy to investigate the possibility of becoming published with Amazon Rapids.

Have you heard of Amazon Rapids and Tap? If so, have you ever read any chat stories? 

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Cyle Young is a force-sensitive dragon rider trapped in the modern world. When he and his three muggle padawans aren’t racing chocobos, they search for a magical wardrobe or time stone that may help them return home before The Nothing, Skeletor, or Skynet takes over this dimension. Cyle credits his 20+ writing awards to his discovery of the One Ring to Rule Them All. He lives in the Midwest and when he is not shopping manuscripts for Hartline Literary Agency, he can be found pastoring a growing church or lounging in his hammock beside the tranquil Grand River. More at www.cyleyoung.com