Before I started this post, I thought I would look back at the things I’ve said about Radish over the years. It turns out that although I’ve covered the serial fiction reading platform quite a few times, most of those were in 2021 and relate to the platform’s acquisition by Korean entertainment giant Kakao for north of $400 million. Aside from that, I’ve tended to use them as one of a list of similar platforms all doing similar things—bringing readers small but regular chunks of serialized fiction.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
Radish began life in 2016, long before Kakao added it to its empire. And the curtains will come down at the end of 2025. Until then, the platform will continue to pay royalties.
Big Ambitions, Modest Outcomes
In its early days, Radish’s goals were very much along the lines of those successfully followed by Wattpad. They wanted to be an end-to-end platform for great stories, beginning with the opening chapters and following through long past the point of the finished book to developing screen productions based on its most successful titles, ready to deliver to a proven audience.
The nearly half-a-billion-dollar acquisition followed an earlier injection of $63 million from Kakao and SoftBank.
But while the figures reported in Porter Anderson’s obit to the platform—coming from Radish’s bullish team over the years—sound reasonably healthy, their 20,000 stories by 2,000 authors, with 500 million episode views, can’t really hold a candle to the likes of Wattpad, where single books can match that figure.
Looking Ahead—and Saying Goodbye
In the meantime, I’ve seen several posts by writers expressing sadness at the closure, and discussion among authors with a following of Korean culture fans about potential future hosting for their work. Readers should note that after December 31, any coins still associated with their accounts will be unusable—so read and support authors while you can.
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