Web novelists in the Philippines and Indonesia are joining forces with audio streaming giants Wattpad and music sharing website Spotify to release podcasts.
Wattpad hopes partnering with Spotify can increase its audience size even further than its current 90 million users.
About the deal, Kelly O’Mara, Director of Account Management for Wattpad brand partnerships, says, “Southeast Asia is home to many of the most successful and prominent authors on Wattpad.”
O’Mara elaborates on how this partnership, the first of its sort in Asia, might help “Southeast Asia is home to many of the most successful and influential authors on Wattpad.”
Spotify’s Southeast Asian Studio Leader Carl Zuzarte agrees with O’Mara that “Indonesia and the Philippines are teeming with imagination and fantastic storytellers,” adding that these countries are “bursting with” creative talent.
Zuzarte emphasizes, from the authors’ perspective, that the collaborative effort “will allow the authors to engage with their fans uniquely and reach new fans and listeners.”
Author Ma. Cristina Lata, well known for her novel “Love and Wander with Tina,” is the focus of the podcasts presented here. In these, she discusses love and other issues, responds to fan messages and offers thoughts on her works.
