Pocket FM today announces the launch of Pocket Novel, an online reading platform and the destination for the Indian writers’ community. It also announces an investment of US$40 million to bolster its presence in the literary landscape.
Pocket Novel aims to play a role in unlocking opportunities and connecting writers with millions of readers, understanding the immense potential within the underpenetrated novel market in India.
The online novel reading platform market in India is yet to be explored at its potential, with the global market projected to exceed US$6.5 billion by 2028. Pocket Novel is aiming to exceed US$100 million Annualized Revenue Run Rate (ARR) worldwide by 2025.
Commenting on the launch of Pocket Novel, Rohan Nayak, Co-founder and CEO, Pocket Novel said, “We are building an ecosystem that shapes the essence of entertainment which specializes in discovering and distributing unique and unheard stories. These are adaptable across formats and geographies, creating a robust model with millions of audiences. Leveraging our learnings from our successful audio series trajectory, we remain steadfast in our commitment to cultivating a dynamic entertainment ecosystem. Our IP creation engine is designed to produce and disseminate content across diverse categories and brings disruption in the entertainment landscape.”
The platform has witnessed its writers’ community flourished to over 150,000 writers with the top-performing writers earning impressive incomes, with some exceeding US$2500 every month. The company intends to continue its journey towards consolidating the aspirations of the writers on its platform and envisions building a community of 1 million writers and strengthening its library to 2 million novels by 2025.
Readers’ engagement on the platform is consistently high, with an average daily reading time surpassing 100 minutes and the popular genres span across Romance, Drama, Suspense, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi genres. Moni Singh, writer of Devil Se Shaadi, turns out to be the top earner, followed by other leading writers like Cerica (alias Jigyasa), Kavya Sharma and many more.
Pocket Novel claims that during its beta phase, more than 2% of novels have garnered over 500,000 reads, and over 5% have exceeded 100,000 reads. The platform’s revenue has already grown 500% in 2023 and is set to reach US$100 million ARR by 2025, becoming the largest online reading platform in India. In 2023 alone, readers made over 1 million transactions on the platform for purchasing the entire novels or certain chapters, written by our writers community.
