The comparison with the music industry is bewildering. The 2020s music industry is not driven by digitalisation per se but by subscription, and nothing so far revealed in the BuchReport essay suggests there is any subscription element brought to the table by the Thalia investment.


As operator of the Story.One publishing platform, Vienna-based Storylution was launched by Hannes Steinerand recently attracted the attention of Thalia CEO Ingo Kretzschmar. Story.One has published over 100,000 stories by more than 10,000 authors.

Explained Kretzschmar: “The idea and the innovative concept of Story.One and its founder Hannes Steiner inspired us right from the start. After we were first in Austria and, since this year, also in Germany, as part of the Young Storyteller Awards worked together successfully, we are now consistently expanding the partnership with our financial participation in Storylution. Story.One clearly shows that we are on the verge of a new age of book creation – the democratization of the book will be further driven by digital platforms, similar to what is already happening in the music industry, for example. Our common vision is to make book creation accessible to everyone.”

Quite what Steiner means by that is anyone’s guess.

A new age of book creation? Perhaps Steiner’s words have lost something in auto-translation but I’m not seeing anything here that is new.

Thalia’s involvement should ensure a smooth integration with the Tolino platform, if that were previously lacking, but the comparison with the music industry is bewildering. The 2020s music industry is not driven by digitalisation per se but by subscription, and nothing so far revealed in the BuchReport essay suggests there is any subscription element brought to the table by the Thalia investment.

Read the full BuchReport.de.

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