Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Gaby Cabezut, Social Media Manager at Crazy Maple Studio:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to your company?
A: Based in the heart of Silicon Valley, Crazy Maple Studio is a global innovator in creating mobile serialized fiction and narrative gaming communities for storytellers, readers, listeners, and players. With more than 40 million global downloads, 1,200 authors, and translations into 13 languages, Crazy Maple Studio believes everyone has a story to tell and supports both independent and award-winning authors.
Crazy Maple Studio apps blend animation, music, sound effects, and gamification for an immersive reading experience. Founded in 2017 with the launch of “choose your own narrative” app “Chapters Interactive Stories,” followed by “Spotlight,” Crazy Maple Studios continues to innovate in new genres such as romance, with “KISS” and thriller app “Scream”.
“Chapters: Interactive Stories,” “KISS, “Spotlight,” “Escape”, and “Scream” are all available in iOS and Android.
Q: Any highlights on your recent announcement?
A: To complete Crazy Maple Studio’s creative ecosystem, we are launching My Fiction, the newest addition to our platforms, where new and aspiring authors of all genres—Romance, Paranormal, Thrillers, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and everything in between, will have opportunities to connect and grow as storytellers.
In My Fiction, storytellers will find a home for their work, as well as access to master classes given by professional editors and bestselling authors. Many authors struggle to find paid opportunities, which is something My Fiction seeks to remedy with the ability for authors to have their story produced into audio, comic, interactive stories, or even traditionally published based on the readership they find.
“All of our apps have one thing in common: outstanding stories. Crazy Maple Studio is committed to empowering the next generation of storytellers through resources, mentorship, and marketplaces.”
—Joey Jia, CEO of Crazy Maple Studio.
Q: Can you give us more insights into your offering?
A: My Fiction offers unique opportunities for long serialized stories. Our vision is to empower and uplift new voices so that they can have access to an array of opportunities that wouldn’t be as accessible elsewhere. We’re removing the gatekeepers, disregarding the ‘rules’ and uplifting authors to create stories that defy traditional conventions. We’re engaging an entirely unique demographic of readers and building a true community of consumers and new voices..
My Fiction enables authors to receive real time feedback, mentorship and visibility. What’s more, authors retain complete autonomy over their work. They provide the great stories, we create the opportunities. A single story can be published, serialized, made into an audiobook, a comic book, or an interactive game by Crazy Maple Studio allowing the author to monetize each format and grow an expansive readership across all of these mediums.
Never before has this been possible under one company.
Q: What can we expect from your company in the next 6 months? What are your plans?
A: Joey Jia as founder and CEO of Crazy Maple Studio is constantly envisioning and spearheading tech to innovate the ways in which we can share great stories. It’s the primary focus as a ‘next-generation publisher.’ Because great stories are timeless. But how people read, where and when they consume their entertainment…this will continue to change.
There is a ton of content that will never achieve enough exposure or appreciation (even though the stories are incredible) That’s been one of the driving forces behind Crazy Maple Studio, to always celebrate the storytellers and the people who challenge us to see and experience things in new ways.
In the next six months, we’re pulling out all the stops to help as many storytellers as possible through the launch of MyFiction. We have additional apps and new features rolling out in Q3 and Q4 including: new features for ESCAPE—the latest addition to our interactive story family of apps, aimed directly at Teens, with a fresh spin on the world of interactive stories, providing readers stories that ride all the hottest trends.
Besides CMS’s major focus, interactive stories/stories platforms for authors worldwide, CMS is also working with talented game producers and studios to co-publish mobile games especially in simulation and strategy games, which can further utilize the outstanding stories provided from our global network of storytellers.
Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about?
A: Garages have a reputation as Silicon Valley’s business incubators, but Crazy Maple Studio was born in Palo Alto Public Library. What began as four storytellers at the library evolved into 400+ employees worldwide and hundreds of thousands of storytellers.
Crazy Maple Studio is incredibly diverse. We are a global company with different teams all over the world. From the USA, China, Canada, the Philippines, and Mexico, our teams have one goal in mind: discover, empower, and uplift outstanding stories.
Diversity and inclusion are the foundation of our innovation. We’re so proud of the incredible apps we’ve launched—and of the many new projects already in the pipeline. From standalone games, new interactive storytelling apps, and technology that allows our storytellers to create their own games (and to monetize them!) we’re paving the way for storytellers to create, connect, and succeed in an ever-changing and growing marketplace.
