Anyone here heard of Radish Fiction?

Yeah, me neither.

Apparently, though, Radish is the “newest competitor to Wattpad” for both online readers and writers. And, if you can’t already tell, I’m not so sure I’m down with that.

Anyway, though, I heard about this new thing through… actually, I don’t remember now, but that doesn’t matter anyway.

It’s an app for both iPhone and Android users, and it’s app-only usable, meaning there’s no website side of things, too, like what Wattpad has now. So… there’s one point against them right there, but let’s see what else Radish has in store for us.

Quoted right from their promotional site… “On Radish you can write, share and monetise your bite-sized serial fiction stories, perfectly suited for reading on smartphones. Using a freemium model, writers on Radish can earn an income from their work – creating stories that will go on to become the source of the most popular blockbuster movies, TV drama hits and addictive games.”

Have they had any blockbuster movies come directly from this app, though? I guess it might be too early to even screen one just yet, but still… that’s a pretty ambitious claim to have without any real success just yet.

Either way, I decided to just download the app and see for myself what all the buzz is about. Right off the bat, though, before even hitting the download button in the app store, I could see that the app itself only has 3.5 stars, which is… average, I guess, but not great or anything… and there’s quite a few comments posted down below from people who gave 1 star ratings. Yikes.

Still, though, I downloaded it.

(My own screenshot of the front page)

So, basically, there’s a whole array of books to choose to read… but, the catch is, you can only read so many chapters of any of them for free. After that, you have to use ‘coins’ to unlock the next one… and you have to buy the coins, of course.

By looking around, though, I’ve noticed that some of the books have more free chapters in them than others, but all books have their first 3 chapters at least set for free. The coins themselves are a little pricy, though… like, paying 99 cents (USD) will get you only 2 chapters… now, come on, you can buy whole ebooks on amazon or elsewhere for that exact price. I’ll have to deduct them another point for that.

(Another screenshot of the app’s search page)

Now, immediately after I got the app and glanced around, I got to wondering… how can I, if even possible, publish my own work on this thing?

Well, I found, back on their site, that you have to apply to become a writer for the app. And they’re looking for mainly English writers who write well, can keep readers coming back each chapter (so they earn the dough), and preferably writers with a big online presence already established as well as ones who want to publish exclusively to Radish (something us indie authors dread all too much).

Yeah, I don’t know if I’m too interested in writing for them anytime soon.

I have read rumors, though, that they pay their authors big bucks… and that they’re looking to convert top chart Wattpad writers for themselves. You didn’t hear it from me, though.

Who knows what will come of this app, though. Personally, I’m not really all for it and I kind of think it’ll flop over pretty quickly… but, again, what do I know?

And I guess you could say I’m pretty biased when it comes to these things and have been known to hold Wattpad on a golden pedestal or something… but, you know, I got my real writing start on that site and I’m still using it however many years later, so I think I have good reason to.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

Let me know if you’ve heard of the Radish app before, what you think of it, if you love it, if you hate it, or how many of those little red veggies with the green stems you bought at the store today.

…We can call this a rant.

-iKari