Yonder is an app which brings you books in bits — chapter by chapter. “Yonder works with publishing partners to reimagine their backlists in a unique serialized mobile format that will inject new life and renewed interest into previously released works” says a Publishing Perspectives piece from 2022.

Another new entry point into the world of books can’t be a bad thing — especially if it can increase sales of backlist. We do after all read books chapter by chapter, and waiting for the next chapter to drop onto your cell phone can’t really be held to be much of a problem. Charles Dickens’ audience managed to wait for the next serialized chapter, so why not today’s readers? That Yonder is still there a couple of years after launch doesn’t of course mean it is wildly successful, though it does imply it’s not a total washout. Indeed Mobile App Daily reported a couple of months ago that the free app has been downloaded over 100,000 times from the Google Play Store. And it’s also available in the Apple Store. The first few chapters of every story are available free (seven to ten depending on the length of the book) but readers have to buy “coins” to get later chapters.

President and CSO Hwalin Oh tells us “Yonder presents a new opportunity for authors and publishers to capitalize on these categories and new reading trends to reach new audiences”, and who’d argue against that. Of course they are interested in maximizing traffic, and the review confides that the app includes “content from a huge range of genres, whether you are a fan of romance, horror, sci-fi or mystery”.  I suspect, however, that if you are not a fan of these genres, you’ll be finding slim pickings.